Mobile gaming has been rocking the games industry for the better part of a decade. Is this wildfire set up to continue burning bright, or is it soon to be overshadowed again by its console counterparts and other high-powered handhelds? Let’s take a closer look!
What is Mobile Gaming?
Before we dive into the state of mobile gaming, what is it? Simply put, it’s a way of gaming from a mobile device, typically a smartphone nowadays. There’s other devices like Valve’s Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch, but for this, we’re exploring actual mobile phone devices and the games on them.
Mobile gaming comes in the form of various game types and genres. These games can be free-to-play (F2P), indie games or large scale AAA games which are either downloaded or streamed to the mobile device. It’s no longer just little games such as Doodle Jump, but big hitters like Death Stranding: Director’s Cut and Dead Cells.
Technology has advanced rapidly, allowing small devices playing games only able to be played on more advanced consoles. Even recently, Apple allowed emulators on their App Store such as RetroArch, giving the ability to play even more games in a mobile format.
Is Mobile Gaming Popularity Declining?
The short answer: no
The long answer: absolutely not.
Today, mobile gaming has the lion’s share of the gaming market due to a few different factors such as portability, accessibility, and much high potential for companies to turn a profit due to microtransactions.
When you look at any App Store, it’s easy to see various shovelware, or games with minimal effort put in and set up as cash grabs or even stolen assets from bigger games. Other games are notorious for ads everywhere or popping up every minute. This begs the question then, how is mobile gaming so popular?
Why Is Mobile Gaming So Popular?
Think about it. As infamously said at Blizzcon 2018, everyone has phones, right? It’s a market ripe with potential, where developers and publishers don’t have to rely on those interests in a certain niche or hobbies. According to Statista’s data in May 2023, 90% of adults in the United States own a smartphone. Which means that there’s a potential install base of over 280 million adults.
Not including kids. Not including anywhere outside the U.S.
That’s a crazy number.
Ever since the mid-2000s with the introduction of the iPhone, mobile gaming popularity has skyrocketed.
Thanks to Visualcapitalist, we can see this correlation in a colorful illustration below.
Currently, it’s a mobile dominated market, topping PCs, consoles, arcades, and AR/VR devices. Why, you ask? Think about the low cost of microtransactions or the games themselves for the consumer. Or for F2P games, it’s free, providing lower barriers of entry.
From an accessibility standpoint, you essentially have a gaming device right in your hands. Why wait at home to play Hades when you can fire it up on your iPhone?
And again, devs on mobile platforms already have a massive install base to work with. No extra hardware required to play most of these games.
Our Prediction on Mobile Gaming?
Mobile gaming will continue to be a massive player in the gaming market. There’s a reason why big publishers like Microsoft and Sony are vying to invest in mobile tech like xCloud and Remote Play respectively.
As technology improves in mobile devices, more powerful video games will be available for developers to release in this emerging market. One downside of this will be storage space – how many people will want to have a quarter of their iPhone’s 128GB go towards a paired down version of the Resident Evil 4 remake? Storage space is already expensive for both mobile and console devices, and I’m not sure if many people will give up the space for a AAA game.
What are you thoughts on mobile gaming in general? Have an opinion? Follow us on X or comment below! Happy Gaming!
You must be logged in to post a comment.