More than a decade ago, consoles were kings of video games. PlayStation and Xbox were the primary forms of entertainment, and mobile phones were merely used as tools for calling and texting. That all changed, however, when Apple and Google first introduced their line of smartgadgets in 2007.
When smartphones first came out, everything changed. People stopped using their PCs for doing online transactions, watching TV, and gaming. According to the data gathered by Ofcom in 2014, about 52% of Internet users cited smartphones as their preferred device for doing Internet-related activities, compared to the 29% who said that their preference is laptop, and the other 17%, desktop.
So why does mobile gaming work? Sure, there’s the portability issue. However, laptops didn’t take over PC sales when they were first developed so there must be something more to smartgadgets apart from convenience.
Plenty of options
Games for console take a lot of resources to develop, which is why only big companies such as Konami and Capcom can only do them. Mobile games, on the other hand, can be developed by any private developer who has the time and knowledge in programming. It is because of this very reason that people see tens of thousands of games in the mobile market right now. In fact, there are probably more games now for mobile than all of the games ever developed for all the consoles combined. Options make people happy and this is one of the reasons why the mobile industry is the new king.
Rewards
Apart from the fact that a lot of games for mobile can be downloaded for free, many of them reward players on a daily basis. In the ever-popular Candy Crush Saga, players are randomly gifted with free bombs or fishes – items that are very useful in the game. On the other hand, German-developer HandyGames’ Vegas Fruit Slots rewards players with free coins and other bonuses. The deposit bonus feature offered by most free-to-play casino games for mobile is a nod to the promos of actual online casinos that reward players with extra credits upon making a deposit. Free-to-play casino games made by German developers seem to be the most generous, as coin bonuses can go as high as millions. It is because of these freebies that make people keep playing mobile games.
Swiftness
Laptops, despite their portability, didn’t overtake PC sales in the past because both computing devices function similarly. Mobile, however, is a completely different animal. It usually takes about 1 – 1 ½ minutes for desktop and laptop PCs to start. After that, you’ll have to launch the game and wait for a few more moments before you can start playing. Mobile is a stranger to all of that as it only takes 3 seconds to launch a game on it: one second to boot the gadget up, and 2 seconds to start the game. Everyone’s now living in a fast-paced world and mobile fits perfectly to that lifestyle.
The golden age of mobile gaming has indeed come and consoles are no longer the go-to gadget. The question now is, when will it last? Microsoft’s Hololens Technology is just within arm’s reach and holographic technology sounds way more convenient than physical mobile devices.