Game On: The Allure Of Games On Phones
By Philip Nicosia

With mobile phones becoming more and more powerful and getting more colorful and brighter screens – the prospect of gaming using mobile phones become more and more viable.

Mobile gaming had its start when Nokia introduced the game “Snake” on its 6100 series of phones in 1997. It was a simple game that anyone can play immediately without reading the instructions. The concept met with tremendous response. Here is an actual application (aside from the calculator) that has been embraced by the mobile buying public. What followed where two more games from the company – logic and memory – also met with tremendous success and proved that there is indeed a market for mobile games and that the sky is the limit when it comes to its future and potential.

There are so many factors that make mobile gaming such a runaway success that it has established brand new markets virtually overnight.

One important factor is that, with their portability, mobile games have turned into what experts and researchers call a “digital snack”. There is a study that revealed PC and console gamers are more likely to play mobile games on their phones when they are away from their game consoles, PCs and handhelds. These gamers though shift to the kind of games that are better presented within the limited screen size and navigation options of a mobile phone. These are usually puzzles and card games. But of late, there has been a slow shift to more conventional gaming genres because of new workarounds to these limitations.

Another factor cited for mobile gaming’s popularity is that mobile games are a great way of killing time. Whenever you have a few minutes to spare or you are in the middle of a commute and you are bored because of the traffic, you can just whip out your mobile phone, choose a game and your boredom is alleviated. The very nature of mobile games are perfect for short bursts of gameplay – which is the perfect description for the situations in which mobile users play games. For example, short lulls in between meetings or appointments, commutes in between office and home, or the interminable waiting that happens when you visit a doctor.

An additional reason why people also prefer mobile gaming is because it is a free, no-expense way of enjoying yourself. When you are bored you can always use your mobile phone to call someone and chat or even send text messages to family and friends and initiate a text-chatting session. But both of these methods would entail shelling out money. You pay charges for the phone calls you make while there are mobile phone companies that also put charges on text messaging. With mobile games you don’t have to pay anything. Just open the game in your phone and you can spend as much time as you want to without fear of incurring any kind of charges or costs.

It will be exciting to speculate how mobile gaming will evolve in the next few years. The industry is still in its formative stage. When it hits its stride it will be an exciting time for avid mobile gamers.