Tech Jabber: A look at the Mobile Gaming Industry

Everyone has that childhood memory of playing games on a console whether at home or at the game centre. The pleasures those memories had on us still hold a place in our hearts.

Gone are the days when the PlayStation,  Xbox and Nintendo were synonymous with gaming. Don’t get me wrong they still are, but now there’s mobile and pc gaming.

If I told you the mobile gaming industry made more revenue than PC and console gaming or that much more money was invested in the mobile gaming industry than the others? As to why this is so, the reasons are many but let’s dissect the entire shift from console gaming to mobile gaming.

Gaming has been with us since the beginning but the introduction of faster internet speeds was the genesis of online multiplayer games.

Initially, most of these were limited to mobile phones such as Clash of Clans and  Hay Day. The console games eventually made an online option for the offline games for example FIFA which had an online portal while other games like Gran Turismo were solely online based.

It was the internet that gave mobile gaming a boost. Nevertheless, mobile gaming became a window of opportunity that brought many people to the gaming industry and consequently PC and console games.

The advantages of console gameplay are so clear so why mobile gaming? Bigger display, better frame rates, smooth interface. The biggest difference is even a 4K display. It has been a norm for many TV’s for a while now and even though flagship phones are shipping with 4K screens the battery consumption is twice the 1080p display and not everyone has a flagship phone.

But where the mobile phone falls short in graphics it makes up in portability. Mobile phones have become so integrated into our lives that we rarely see people without them.

As people commute from home to school or to work in public transport, they tend to make use of that time to play mobile games. I mean who wants to work on the train? Candy Crush Saga, Temple Run are games that are usually played as they don’t demand that much of attention and thinking.

The hardcore game such as PUBG, Honor of Kings, Call of duty usually demand much more time and attention and are usually played during breaks at work. The very fact that we can launch ourselves into games anywhere at any time gives mobile devices an edge over the less portable consoles.

With more portability comes more competition. Everyone loves to brag about how far they’ve progressed in a game to their friends.

It’s the reason leaderboards exist and some games even go a step further to create a leaderboard among friends. Healthy competition never killed anyone.

Aside from competing among themselves games now have a squad mode where friends can play against each other. A typical scenario would be a group of teenage boys playing Fortnite or PUBG together after class hours.

Sure they can do it with a console but the physical presence really makes it feel like a team.

Another difference between mobile gaming is basically the “initial” price. To start console gaming you need a TV, the console itself and games which aren’t free. Mobile games just require your phone. Many of the mobile games are basically free to download but rather have in-game purchases.

This makes mobile gaming an easy sell. You just have to use the same device you use to call, to use social media to play games too and that’s really hard to turn down.

The use of console is not expected to go down any time soon as people are anticipating the PlayStation 5 and the next Xbox with much enthusiasm.

But then what happens when the world shifts into Virtual reality and Augmented reality? We’ll never know, we just have to wait and see how everything turns out.