Mobile Gaming: The Way of the Future?
By: Anna-Michelle Lavandier
The invention of the smartphone has given the video game community the concept of the mobile gamer.
It has also given new life and increased growth through the years, giving rise to the casual gamer — and they’re here to stay.
Jason Jones, 36, plays various games using his smartphone with emphasis being on strategy, matching and turn-based games. One of the reasons why he has chosen mobile to be his platform of choice is the convenience and ease that come with being able to pick it up and put it away at a moment’s notice. This helps him not to let his passion for games interfere with his work.
The Fruitland Park, Florida resident shares his passion for gaming with his son, Hunter Trinosky, and they often play these games together. While his son also plays on other consoles, mobile is one of Jones’ main ways to game.
“I appreciate all types of games, not just digital,” Jones said. “I believe that everyone has an inner gamer and that you are only limited by the technology you use as a means of exploration.”
While hardcore games can require a specific skill set and time commitment, casual games are characterized as games that don’t involve much complex gameplay and can be picked up and left off at the player’s discretion.
Like Jones, many people from all age groups are downloading gaming apps more than any other category of app across the Android, Apple and even Windows app stores.
According to Statista, the Google Play Store has about 1.6 to 1.8 million apps to choose from as of November 2015, Apple’s App Store has about 1.5 million and Windows Phone Store has about 340,000. Out of these apps, the percentage of users downloading gaming apps in the Google Play Store is to 41.2 percent.
Pocketgamer.biz stated on its website that there are currently 522,401 active gaming apps on Apple’s App Store.
According to Windows, as of August 2015, the most popular apps that are downloaded are in the games category, quickly approaching 45 percent.
Nicholas Aphrel, 31, considers his main platform to be consoles, but after experimenting with mobile gaming around 2013, he also finds himself using his smartphone as a gaming device. The convenience of a smartphone even beats that of handheld devices, such as the PSP and the Nintendo 3DS devices.
“I first had a PSP (PlayStation Portable) which was rather fragile in the pocket,” Aphrel said. “The PS Vita was far from pocket-sized and then both the (Nintendo) DS and 3DS at first was pocket-sized, but as it got more tech added to it, it was no longer pocket-sized. With the phone, it’s just hand-size and somewhat more durable.”
Nowadays, gaming has become more of an accepted and integrated part of society, which will play a role in its future. While a large majority may not be hardcore gamers by any sense of the word, these users will share in the gamer culture and pave the way for causal and even mobile gamers.
As phones continue to improve in memory storage and screen resolution, there may come a time where mobile gaming will be more into direct competition with handheld gaming and even console gaming.
“Truthfully, I think that there will be a breakthrough that would allow for hardcore mobile gaming,” Aphrel said. “Right now, because of limitations, there isn’t much with mobile games. But as more and more smartphones gain the ability to host emulators, more console-like games (should) become available to smartphones.”
