Credit – https://pixabay.com/photos/smartphone-hands-screen-407108/
Mobile gaming is hardly the latest technology on the market. Although AI is making seismic inroads into the current landscape and fabric of the broader gaming industry, it’s not resulting in anywhere near the same hardware changes that mobile apps introduced to the market at the beginning of the 2010s.
Of course, those who are perennially optimistic about AI and its potential will argue that the real impact of AI is still underway, and the trillions of dollars that have flowed into the industry through investments will take years to manifest in tangible products used in the gaming industry.
Most experts believe that AI will change things in the background, streamlining software and design to remarkable new heights. However, the devices we use to play games, whether we are playing casino games on our iPhone or playing Wordle on our tablet, will largely remain unchanged. At least from a user perspective, anyway.
Breaking Down Traditional Barriers
If we hone in on the advances of the casino gaming industry, that’s just one specific area of gaming that has bulldozed through traditional barriers. Conventional casino games, such as poker, were previously considered relatively immune to significant crossover into the digital market, before the internet.
Some were more optimistic, citing video poker as a clear example of how the game could adapt to a market where the physical elements, such as bluffing and gaining the upper hand psychologically, were removed, and the value of the hand took ultimate precedence.
Mobile poker showcased these advances, rapidly growing into the market and establishing itself as one of the market leaders. Ignition Mobile Poker showcases the current state of the mobile poker market, streamlining the finer elements of conventional gaming and fusing them with the convenient advances in mobile technology, allowing people to play poker at home or on the move.
Spearheading Change In The Broader Industry
Casino gaming isn’t an anomaly; there were plenty of examples of games that were able to bridge this gap once mobile apps became widespread and much easier for gamers to access. However, games like League of Legends shifted the model of pay-to-play gaming to a free-to-play model, channeling the power of microtransactions and charging gamers for in-game updates.
At the time, this was a revolution, and many game developers were still stuck in the old model of charging for disc games and consumers having to pay upfront. Although games like Grand Theft Auto have adapted to microtransactions with great aplomb, delays to the GTA 6 release date have exacerbated and further highlighted the problems that this type of gaming model can cause, in comparison to the quick and easy gaming options available on mobile apps.
League of Legends’ enormous cultural impact meant that game designers were now intently focused on bringing a pay-as-you-play model into all types of gaming. The first prominent game to feature microtransactions was Elder Scrolls back in 2006.
However, following a farcical catalogue of marketing blunders, and League of Legends executing the idea much more smoothly, particularly via mobile, it’s credited with the transformative influence that remains just as prevalent today as it was back in 2009.
Playing On The Move
Although inventions like the Game Boy and the PSP showcased the potential for portable gaming, they were limited on several fronts, including slow bandwidth, high electricity consumption, and a lack of internet connectivity. These devices, particularly the PSP, were cumbersome, clunky, and expensive; they were also a nuisance to carry around.
Smartphone gaming captured the positives of portable gaming, but combined them with much greater latency. Mobile apps made it far cheaper to play. Given that our smartphones and tablets have become one-stop shops where we can do anything, they have become the clear piece of hardware to spearhead the gaming revolution.
They allow us to can scour the web to find out how to play any types of game, learn from the top poker pros in their field, access live streaming services from some of the world’s top gaming influencers, and access expert reviews that give us fascinating insights into games for free, before we download them. It meant that traditional gaming providers and those that only developed games for specific consoles had to adapt quickly or risk being left behind entirely.
The Future Of Mobile Gaming
As is often the case with any multi-billion-dollar gaming market, there’s no shortage of innovators looking to get their hands on some of the profit that exists. As tech giants wade into the gaming world with all sorts of fresh ideas ranging from cryptocurrency casinos to VR headset gaming, mobile apps will continue to dictate many of the innovations we see, purely because of their accessibility, low costs for end users, and the sheer range of mobile gaming apps that are available to download on both the iOS and Android stores.