Factorio Forums

How hard would it be for the development team to make an android base game?
I'm sure most of us would be willing to pay for this version
I know I would

I'm curious... what would the point of that be? To try to play Factorio on a tiny screen, or with a tiny processor, or with a tiny amount of memory?

LoL yeah

Well, Wube, the company that makes Factorio is a private, for-profit company. So, I think that unfortunately, you will be waiting a very long time for a Android version of Factorio.

But I think they can make good money from it because a ton of people with Android phones would buy the game and they would get a new big group of people by being listed on the Google play store.
I actually think it would be quite profitable for them

nsdemon wrote: Wed Sep 10, 2025 8:50 am But I think they can make good money from it because a ton of people with Android phones would buy the game and they would get a new big group of people by being listed on the Google play store.
I actually think it would be quite profitable for them

Sadly, the market for android games isn't quality games, but additive crappy games with zero gameplay and 100% tricking the brain into dopamine shots. So they won't make their money back for the massive amount of work making the UI work for phone screen sizes and working around all the issues with different android models.

you can try playing with GeForce now

Daid wrote: Sat Sep 13, 2025 6:07 am

nsdemon wrote: Wed Sep 10, 2025 8:50 am But I think they can make good money from it because a ton of people with Android phones would buy the game and they would get a new big group of people by being listed on the Google play store.
I actually think it would be quite profitable for them

Sadly, the market for android games isn't quality games, but additive crappy games with zero gameplay and 100% tricking the brain into dopamine shots. So they won't make their money back for the massive amount of work making the UI work for phone screen sizes and working around all the issues with different android models.

While that is mostly true, it’s not universally so. There are plenty of real games that do very well on mobile platforms, like Terraria, Stardew Valley, Sims, and Balatro.

I think the issue is just that a fully touch-friedly version of Factorio would be a very challenging undertaking for Wube. It would be a ton of work, way more than the comparatively modest adjustments to get Factorio on Nintendo Switch. Essentially the entire UI would have to be redone to account for both touch and smaller screens. And the game is already barely working on a controller. Figuring out how to give the player that many inputs without real buttons cannot be easy.

But in a world where all of that was solved, I could definitely see at least some people enjoying Factoio on mobile. For some people out there, that’s all they have to game on.

It's probably not entirely impossible to port Factorio to Android, because the hardware abstraction library used is SDL, and SDL is available for Android. However, I guess a touch interface isn't what Factorio was designed for. Given all the interactions with the map, it's like trying to manufacture fine jewelry with construction gloves on. We are the engineer in the end, aren't we?