Smartphone gaming has humble origins in hyper-casual titles like Fruit Ninja, but today it is a respectable and exciting gaming platform in its own right. Now major developers are investing heavily in iOS and Android gaming.
Advancements in smartphone technology mean that games can run at a graphical fidelity akin to the 7th generation of consoles, and there’s a growing trend of major titles – like the recent Genshin Impact – enjoying simultaneous launches across console, PC and mobile platforms.
With cloud gaming also on the rise, technology that promises to furnish smartphone gamers with true triple-A titles, things are looking better than ever for mobile gaming. No doubt it deserves a seat at the table of legitimate gaming platforms in 2024, but some are even projecting that it may well be the future of the entire industry.
Unrivaled Diversity
Another key factor is that mobile platforms represent a comparatively open system, especially when compared to the likes of proprietary platforms like the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation. That’s because, at their root, smartphones are like miniature computers, and are able to do and perform tasks one would expect a desktop to.
Historically PC gaming has been the holdout of a wide array of gameplay experiences unavailable on consoles – but a good gaming PC is expensive, especially since the Bitcoin mining craze reached a crescendo. It requires maintenance and upgrades, and isn’t all that user friendly. The same cannot be said for smartphones.
In light of this, there are whole gaming sectors that are easily accessible on smartphones that casual gamers may have struggled to access in the past. Among these are sophisticated strategy games, MMORPGs optimized for mobile, and even iGaming.
Notably this latter genre is a major contributor to the healthy condition of mobile platforms today, with the likes of daily fantasy sports and online casinos contributing to making it the fastest growing subset of the wider games industry.
It’s never been more simple for gamers to access digital casinos, with dedicated platforms like VegasSlotsOnline increasingly serving as portals to connect gamers with table game providers through sign-up offers like a casino bonus or no-deposit free bet. As a result of this, such sites not only serve as directories for iGaming patrons, but as a cost-effective solution to boot – thus further fostering the organic development of the sector.
Mobile Esports on the Rise
The past few years has witnessed what has come to be known as the ‘esports boom’ – a surge in popularity of competitive video gaming. While this sector has been steadily growing for a number of years, boosted by the Amazon-backed streaming platform Twitch, the disruptive early years of the 2020s played wholly into the hands of a sport that could be conducted remotely.
Now esports is seemingly here to stay, with major networks like ESPN securing lucrative broadcast deals for competitions, and legacy titles like League of Legends enjoying crossover multimedia penetration.
However to date there has been something of a disconnect between esports players and the hordes of new fans tuning in. That’s down to the fact that the majority of classic esports games run on high powered gaming PCs, making them difficult to access for the average gamer.
However, mobile esports have quietly been developing in parallel over the past decade and are now beginning to outperform popular PC titles in growth and viewer figures – especially in East Asia. For example, the immensely successful battle royale game PUBG has recently begun to prioritize its mobile variants for high level competition, acknowledging the greater appeal and reach of this platform.
Before the 2023 League of Legends World Championship grabbed 6.4 eyeballs worldwide, Free Fire, another popular last-man-standing title, rocked the esports arena in 2021. Its Singapore World Series Final broke all standing esports viewer records when 5.4 million people tuned in to catch the event live.
Even MOBAs, a genre historically thought to be locked to the PC format due to their sophisticated control inputs, have successfully made the jump to mobile. This is thanks to the likes of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and League of Legends: Wild Rift which have sought to distil the competitive experience of the genre into a design that works with the touch inputs of smartphones.
Suffice to say, many analysts now believe it’s simply a matter of time before mobile esports becomes the leading category in global competitive gaming.
