What is mobile gaming?
Mobile gaming is the act of playing an interactive game on a smartphone, PDA, tablet computer, portable media player or even a calculator (believe it or not). Despite a common misconception, mobile gaming does not cover games played on dedicated handheld gaming devices. Devices such as Nintendo 3DS or PlayStation Vita have been solely created for gaming, and although the console is mobile games played on them are not considered ‘mobile games’.
The types of mobile gaming
Recreational
Recreational mobile gaming has grown hugely over recent years. The growth and interest that surrounds recreational mobile gaming has coincided with the improvements in mobile technology. As the phones and smart devices that are available to us become more complex and capable, the quality of the games that we can play on them increases. And, with a higher quality of game, or gaming experience, comes an increased interest from consumers. Many companies and gaming developers are now taking advantage of this from a financial perspective by charging for app downloads or offering in-game purchases.
Casino
Online casino gaming is one of the areas of mobile gaming that has grown the most, especially in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sportsbooks were particularly prominent with players across the world, but given the lack of sporting action, operators are looking to cross-sell their customers into the casino and games areas of their offering. Given how saturated the market has been over the past few months, most bookies are finding new ways to incentive the cross-sell – free spins, matched bonuses, and indeed the try-before-you-buy tactic are common – the latter in the form of free slots, an area which is reviewed at Max Casinos. This covers sites that are not covered by Gamstop, which is something many players are looking for.
What are the most popular mobile games?
Recreational
The popularity of recreational mobile games is growing at a rapid rate, and this is in no small part down to the introduction of battle royale format games on mobile. As you can see below, three of the most popular mobile games are battle royale games:
- PUBG Mobile
- Call of Duty®: Mobile – Garena
- Minecraft
- Clash of Clans
- Pokémon Go
Casino
When it comes to mobile casino games, it’s hard to define which of them are actually the most popular. The nature of casino games is that users flit from one to the other chasing some cash. However, below we have come up with five of the most talked about and most played casino games on mobile – a mix of slots and roulette style games:
- Egyptian Rise
- Beat the Bobbies
- European Roulette Gold
- Pyramid: Quest For Immortality
- Roulette Touch
Mobile social gaming
Mobile social gaming is something that has been introduced and grown with the evolution of social media. One of the first and most popular mobile social games was FarmVille – a game that was played via Facebook and allowed users to interact with friends in order to progress within the game. Mobile social gaming is something that has come to prominence over the last ten years as society has evolved to become far more remote. It is far more common for people to interact from different locations these days; people FaceTime to chat and Zoom to play quizzes, so why not play games with your friends from different locations? Mobile social gaming offers a non-committal solution to both gaming with friends and also presents an opportunity to meet new people from behind the comfort of your phone or smart device.
Mobile gaming has, and will continue to grow over the coming years as both technology and society evolves – giving us both the capabilities and further social acceptance to use our smart devices to conduct more and more of our daily functions.
