The world of smartphone gaming has undergone some major changes over the past decade and now represents one of the most compelling development platforms in the industry.
Much of this is to do with its open nature, which is more akin to the PC than the game consoles it’s often compared to. This is especially true with respect to Android, which is, at heart, an open-source branch of the Linux operating system.
This affords smartphone gamers incredible diversity and flexibility with respect to accessing gameplay experiences, with many options available beyond the confines of officially licensed and curated app stores. Aficionados of igaming, for example, find themselves in the enviable position of being able to utilise a range of offers from leading bookies for use with browser-based casinos. What’s more, in developing economies, mobile igaming makes up the lion’s share of the sector’s penetration into those regions.
Likewise, players with specific privacy concerns are able to utilise FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) providers with their devices, allowing them to enjoy peace of mind and high security while mobile gaming.
Perhaps in light of these facts it’s easy to draw the conclusion that mobile gaming is not only here to stay, but is increasingly representing an existential threat to the wider gaming hardware economy. The sector is developing quickly, and we are witnessing many new and exciting trends at present, of which the key examples are outlined below.
Growing Importance of Mobile Esports
Esports, or competitive gaming, has experienced a surge in popularity across the early years of this decade that is showing no sign of abating. This market has come to represent the fastest-growing sport sector in the world and, as such, a great deal of investment and sponsorship is flooding into its expansion.
Historically, PC gaming has been the mainstay of esports, and this remains true today. The largest and most popular esports are still the PC titles Dota 2, League of Legends and CS:GO. However mobile esports has grown so rapidly it has taken many industry specialists by surprise. If one looks at the most popular esports played today, a metric arrived at by measuring the number of peak average concurrent players over time, one finds that of the top ten, four are mobile-only titles.
What’s more, so far in 2023, the most popular esports overall is the mobile arena battle game, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. This makes sense, given that the barrier to entry for PC games is comparably high when compared to mobile games. High-performance computers often costing thousands of pounds, whereas even an entry-level smartphone can play most mobile esports and, crucially, most people own such devices already.
Cloud Gaming Will Become More Popular
While the very best gaming smartphones offer performance equivalent to a PS3 or Xbox 360, the vast majority of smartphone users play on older and lower-spec devices. It is for this reason that cloud gaming—a technology in which you stream games to your phone in real time, like Netflix for gaming, will likely take off in 2023.
Cloud gaming has been around for a number of years, but outside of early-adopters it remains largely unknown. This is likely going to change when Xbox Cloud Gaming completes its multi-year Beta testing phase. This platform offers subscribers instant access to hundreds of Xbox Series X|S games, right from their mobile browsers. This will effectively circumvent the need for users to invest in hardware in order to play next-gen games.
More People Will Use Smartphone as Their Sole Games Console
In developing economic regions, from Sub-Saharan Africa to Latin America and South East Asia, gamers are already 1.5 times more likely to use their smartphone as their primary or sole gaming device. Even in the West, more people than ever are forgoing upgrades to the new, ninth generation of consoles, in favour of dedicating more time to mobile gaming, playing everything from Mahjong to Fortnite on their devices. This trend will only accelerate as devices become more affordable and mobile internet speeds increase.
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