Mobile game
A mobile game is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone.[1] The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to handheld game console, portable media player or graphing calculator, with and without network availability.[1] The earliest known game on a mobile phone was a Tetris variant on the Hagenuk MT-2000 device from 1994.[2][3][4]
In 1997, Nokia launched Snake.[5] Snake, which was pre-installed in most mobile devices manufactured by Nokia, has since become one of the most played games and is found on more than 350 million devices worldwide.[6] Mobile devices became more computationally advanced allowing for downloading of games, though these were initially limited to phone carriers' own stores. Mobile gaming grew greatly with the development of app stores in 2008, such as the iOS App Store from Apple. As the first mobile content marketplace operated directly by a mobile-platform holder, the App Store significantly changed the consumer behaviour and quickly broadened the market for mobile games, as almost every smartphone owner started to download mobile apps.[7]
Industry structure[edit]
Total global revenue from mobile games was estimated at $2.6 billion in 2005 by Informa Telecoms and Media. Total revenue in 2008 was $5.8 billion. The largest mobile gaming markets were in the Asia-Pacific nations Japan and China, followed by the United States.[21] In 2012, the market had already reached $7.8 billion[22] A new report was released in November 2015 showing that 1887 app developers would make more than one million dollars on the Google and iOS app stores in 2015.[23]
Mobile gaming revenue reached $50.4 billion in 2017, occupying 43% of the entire global gaming market and poised for further growth.[24] It is expected to surpass the combined revenues from both PC gaming and console gaming in 2018.[25]
Common limits of mobile games[edit]
Mobile games tend to be small in scope (in relation to mainstream PC and console games). Storage and memory limitations (sometimes dictated at the platform level) place constraints on file size that presently rule out the direct migration of many modern PC and console games to mobile. One major problem for developers and publishers of mobile games is describing a game in such detail that it gives the customer enough information to make a purchasing decision.
Location-based mobile games[edit]
Games played on a mobile device using localization technology like GPS are called location-based games or location-based mobile games.[28] These are not only played on mobile hardware but also integrate the player's position into the game concept. In other words, while it does not matter for a normal mobile game where exactly the player is (play them anywhere at any time), the player's coordinate and movement are the main elements in a location-based mobile game.
A well known example is the outdoor recreational activity of geocaching, which can be played on any mobile device with integrated or external GPS receiver.[28] External GPS receivers are usually connected via Bluetooth.[29]
Several other location-based mobile games, such as the 2001 game BotFighters, were closer to research prototypes rather than being commercial successes.
Location-based mobile games sometimes have augmented reality functionality, such as in the case of the 2016 game Pokemon Go. Usually in these cases the augmented reality functionality is not at the center of the experience.
Multipurpose games[edit]
Since mobile devices have become present in the majority of households (at least in the developed countries), there are more and more games created with educational, lifestyle and, health improvement purposes. For example, mobile games can be used in speech-language pathology, children's rehabilitation in hospitals (Finnish startup Rehaboo!), acquiring new useful or healthy habits (Habitica), memorizing things and learning languages (Memrise).
There are also apps with similar purposes which are not games per se, in this case, they are called gamified apps. Sometimes it is difficult to draw a line between multipurpose games and gamified apps.
Multiplayer mobile games[edit]
Many mobile games support multiple players, either remotely over a network or locally via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or similar technology.
There are several options for playing multiplayer games on mobile phones: live synchronous tournaments and turn-based asynchronous tournaments. In live tournaments random players from around the world are matched together to compete. This is done using different networks such as Game Center, Google Play Games, and Facebook.
In asynchronous tournaments, there are two methods used by game developers centered around the idea that players matches are recorded and then broadcast at a later time to other players in the same tournament. Asynchronous gameplay resolves the issue of needing players to have a continuous live connection. This gameplay is different since players take individual turns in the game, therefore allowing players to continue playing against human opponents.
This is done using different networks including Facebook. Some companies use a regular turn-based system where the end results are posted so all the players can see who won the tournament. Other companies take screen recordings of live players and broadcast them to other players at a later point in time to allow players to feel that they are always interacting with another human opponent.
Mobile games can be distributed in one of four ways:
Until the launch of Apple App Store, in the US, the majority of mobile games were sold by wireless carriers, such as AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Corporation and T-Mobile US. In Europe, games were distributed equally between carriers and off-deck, third-party stores.
After the launch of Apple App Store, the mobile OS platforms like Apple iOS, Google Android, and Microsoft Windows Phone, the mobile OS developers themselves have launched digital download storefronts that can be run on the devices using the OS or from software used on PCs. These storefronts (like Apple's iOS App Store) act as centralized digital download services from which a variety of entertainment media and software can be downloaded, including games and nowadays majority of games are distributed through them.
The popularity of mobile games has increased in the 2000s, as over US$3 billion worth of games were sold in 2007 internationally, and projected annual growth of over 40%. Ownership of a smartphone alone increases the likelihood that a consumer will play mobile games. Over 90% of smartphone users play a mobile game at least once a week.[34]
Many mobile games are distributed free to the end user, but carry paid advertising: examples are Flappy Bird and Doodle Jump. The latter follows the "freemium" model, in which the base game is free but additional items for the game can be purchased separately. Some of the most popular mobile game developers and publishers include Gameloft and King.[35][36][37]