Today we have a post from our guest author, Amanda Cote. Since we recently added mobile gaming to our collections, it has been a topic of much discussion among us.
The past few years have seen the video game industry facing
some major changes in terms of products, prices and income.
Specifically, the late 2000s and early 2010s
have been characterized by the rise of the mobile game. While early mobile
games were simplistic and difficult to access, modern games take full advantage
of portable technologies like smart phones and tablets. They have improved
dramatically in terms of graphics and mechanics, span many genres, and target
very broad audiences. As Polygon’s video game staff reported in their
State
of the Industry series, “Just about anyone with a phone, be it Android, iOS
or BlackBerry, has played a game at one time or another. Mobile gaming is
undoubtedly on an upswing with every year bringing new trends and changes to
the marketplace”.
Mobile gaming has gone from a practically non-existent
market to a $17.5 billion dollar industry as of 2013, and revenue is
expected
to double again by 2017. So what factors have contributed to this dramatic
rise?
Although changes in technology
have partially motivated mobile’s growth, these games have also been affected
by a variety of factors within the broader video game industry, including redefined
markets, changing costs and funding sources, and stagnation among large
developers.
Early Mobility
The Entertainment Software Association (
ESA), the video game industry’s governing
body, cites the popular calculator game
Snake
as the
first
mobile game. Introduced in the early 1990s,
Snake only existed on Texas Instruments graphing calculators.
Players used the arrow keys to steer a small
snake around the screen and had to avoid obstacles, walls, and running back
into the snake itself. The goal was to eat numbers that appeared randomly
across the screen.
As they ate more,
however, the snake grew longer, making it harder for the player to avoid their
own tail. Although simplistic,
Snake
was very popular.
However, portable
games were held back by technology; graphing calculators were very expensive.
And while technology steadily improved, games mostly stayed limited to specific
portable systems like the Nintendo Gameboy or the PlayStation Portable. It
wasn’t until the 2000s that both technology and its entertainment potential
could be leveraged for game development purposes.
Changing Technology
The 1990s saw massive improvements in cell phone technology,
developing mobile devices that were actually capable of handling games.
However, the earliest models, such as
Blackberries and PDAs, were originally marketed as business tools rather than
toys, limiting their potential for game developers.
Apple’s introduction of the iPhone in 2007,
however, changed that perception.
Apple
advertised its phone as
an easy-to-use tool for everyone, highlighting its entertainment systems as
well as its capability as a phone. This redefined the technology in broader
terms, and the iPhone took off. Within a year, it
sold over 6 million
units despite being exclusive to the AT&T network.
With the changing perception of phones as a technology for
everyone, the rapid spread of the iPhone, and of course the development of its competitors,
a new possibility for game development emerged.
First, a whole new range of potential players were made available
through smart phones, and they quickly outnumbered traditional gamers. US
market
statistics in 2013 showed over 200 million active iOS and Android devices,
but only 70 million PS3s. Through this dispersion, mobile games have dramatically
increased market size.
Rather than tying
small groups of interested parties into a living room TV set, mobile games
travel along on road trips or commutes, and fit into waiting rooms or the space
between meetings. This high level of accessibility and portability has helped
attract people who would not traditionally consider themselves to be gamers, broadening
potential audiences.
Second, smart phones offered new distribution mechanisms
that saved producers significant amounts of money.
Rather than packaging games on CDs for
physical distribution, they could be downloaded easily via cellular or Wi-Fi
networks. When the Apple App Store opened in 2008, developers quickly realized
its potential. The ease of distribution led to an impressive surge in inexpensive,
simple to play games.
Furthermore,
mobile games are easier to
self-publish,
while physically distributed games cost money to copy and transport, and
digitally-distributed console or PC games often face tough restrictions from established
publishers. Therefore, distribution potential was a large draw for game
developers; they could obtain wider audiences than ever before, and they did so
at lower costs.
Costs and Funding
Production costs were also another reason for mobile game’s
rapid success. Not only are mobile games easier to distribute than more
traditional games, but they are also less expensive to develop overall. This is
another reason for their rapid success. Because mobile games do not have the
capacity for detailed cinematic graphics, they rely on other characteristics to
draw in audiences.
Innovative mechanics
or fun backstories are, for instance, commonly appealing traits. However, these
traits are easier to code than detailed graphics are, and therefore can be
developed by small teams. This means fewer people needed to run a company and
lower overhead.
Mobile games also
require less code overall, speeding up their production times.
They therefore represent an investment of only
a few hundred thousand dollars, while traditional console games
can
top fifty million. This made entry into the mobile sphere far more
attainable for small developers, allowing the market to grow rapidly.
Over the past few years, changing funding patterns have also
contributed to the continued growth of the mobile industry.
Crowdfunding sources like
Kickstarter, where interested parties
can donate small amounts of money to projects they would like to support, have
helped ensure that innovative ideas continue to develop in mobile gaming.
People who have a creative suggestion but
little funding can turn to crowdsourcing for help.
Because mobile games are not extraordinarily
expensive to produce, potential developers need obtain a relatively low level
of excitement about their product in order to bring it to market. Therefore,
although the market is flooded with titles, there are many opportunities
through which parties can still enter into it and potentially obtain success.
Stagnation in Traditional Games
Low development costs and available funding have helped
ensure that the mobile industry remains fluid, changing in line with the
expectations of the audience. This has also proved to be an advantage as more
traditional games display difficulty in adapting. The spread of the smartphone
has coincided with the longest video game console lifecycle in the history of
gaming; the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, launched around the same
time as the App Store, are only starting to be replaced now. Therefore, mobile
technology has been able to make competitive strides in terms of its offerings.
Evaluating the state of the video game industry, TechCrunch writer
Natasha Lomas
stated,
“Another problem console makers are facing is
rival devices’ faster refresh cycles. Mobile devices typically get upgraded
with shiny new hardware every year.” This means that their capabilities are
constantly improving, leading to innovation and truly new products, while console
designers face the challenge of making decades-old graphics and mechanics look
cutting-edge.
Furthermore, the high cost of
traditional games has resulted in an industry that limits
risk-taking. Many large studios rely on a few popular
blockbuster titles as their primary source of income. Of these, almost all are
sequels or established franchises. The Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed series, for instance, are consistent
best-sellers. And while this approach
keeps their parent companies in business, it does mean that players looking for
new experiences may have to turn their attention elsewhere, to independent or
mobile games, where new innovations are still common.
Here to Stay
It is possible to argue mobile
games’ artistic and entertainment merit, it seems safe to say that this form of
gaming is here to stay. It is
accessible, low cost, and innovative, making it appealing to many potential
gamers. Furthermore, it is an impressive
source of revenue for developers, who will continue to create mobile games as
long as consumers demand them. However,
the rapid spread of the mobile game cannot be attributed to only one factor;
rather, it was a combination of a variety of forces, occurring in a fortunate
coincidence, that allows for such fast growth and which bodes well for future
success.
