Mobile Gaming? Me too ... already.
I admit: I was a "Mobiles are made for telephoning (mailing and surfing)"-guy. One of those who didn’t play mobile games. I hadn’t touched any game on a mobile since “Snake” - until 2009. And I only knew “Snake” because I had played it on the C64 and I was – may I say it? – bored in vocational school….
Anyway, mobile phones, I said, mobile phones are not for gaming. What do I have these two beautiful handhelds lying on my desk for? And besides: you don’t see anything on this mobile display!
But then something happened. A small black smartphone named HTC Magic entered my life. Piano lacquer, touchscreen. Something like the iPhone, but made by Google (Android-OS).
And for the very first time I understood, yes really, why in Apples App Store games are the undisputed number one of the downloads.
Because it’s fun.
It’s fun sitting in a meeting, looking interested and shooting balls in “Bonsai Blast”. It’s fun standing in the suburban train and thrusting a ball through “Labyrinth” while the train judders through the streets.
And as you have to plug the smartphone on the recharger anyway every evening because of the exorbitant power consumption, the game pad is always charged for the way … other than my PSP.
Mobile games can be fun. When they are well-made and when the display has more than 100x100 pixel.
And obviously more and more people agree to that, who thought the same way I did. At least if you can believe the numbers of the GfK. The consumer researchers have found out, that in 2008 there were 7 million downloads of mobile games all together.
Most popular were: the games for the European Football Championship and the Olympic Games in Beijing. After that games for movies and ports of classics and game pad titles.
Mobile games don’t push handhelds by Sony and Nintendo aside, you can see this in the number of sales. But they permit to play where I don’t have a handheld near. It’s also a thing of the past, that mobile games are less intricate like bad graphic arts or long download times. Mobiles are mad for telephoning? “Also”. Mobiles like the HTC Magic, the iPhone or the Palm Pre can lift “Playing” with UMTS, GPS and compass over the virtual worlds. Key words like Geocaching and Augmented Reality will be in all ears in the next years. Todays mobile games which append to the classical game principle are only the beginning. That already the position sensors and the compass of the smartphones are involved are only the first steps.
