MobileTechTalk Mobile gaming is an explosive industry – one that’s changing and improving at all times, with new offerings every day and new concepts always just around the corner. It’s exciting, dizzying, and difficult to track, and it only stands to keep getting bigger and better. In some respects that will mean more of the same. As long as smartphones as we currently know them are popular there will always be new mobile puzzles, RPGs, etc. However, the ongoing growth of this industry will mean new things or at least expansion of certain areas that don’t yet define mobile gaming.
These are just some candidates for that second category of growth – a few types of mobile games we figure to be seeing a lot more of in a very short time.
1. Augmented Reality
Augmented reality is probably the first category that comes to mind for a lot of people thinking about the future of mobile gaming. At this stage there are already dozens of relatively prominent AR games you can download, thanks to Google’s ARCore and Apple’s ARKit. However, many feel that we have barely scratched the surface in this area. Developers are still getting a handle on augmented reality, and there are sure to be more incredible games around the corner.
2. Controller-Based Games
Controllers for mobile gaming have been around for a while now. In fact, you can find rankings of controller options from five years ago, if you care to look. However, it still feels like these devices are only just gaining the recognition they need to change the gaming landscape. They can facilitate more complex games, help with cramping thumbs, and generally improve the experience. And it feels as if now that mobile video games are getting more advanced and sophisticated the need for controllers will be more fully realized.
3. Casino Games
It’s almost hard to imagine casino gaming ever getting more popular than it is. It’s a huge area of entertainment and a firmly established one at that. However, there’s talk of mobile gaming overtaking online gaming in a broad sense, and this could certainly mean major changes for casino gaming. Already a lot of the more prominent sites online have built up their own apps, and in some cases even individual games have been adapted to mobile. If these trends continue the mobile casino category will only expand further.
4. Retro Games & Characters
Retro games and trusted franchises never seem to go away. There’s always a new Mario game or a new Street Fighter title, we recently got word of a new “core” Pokémon game, and some old classics like DOOM have even been updated in virtual reality. Mobile gaming takes advantage of many of the same titles, though there’s been a bit of an uptick in major franchises in the last year or two. Mario and Pokémon, for instance, have been brought into mobile gaming, and while it’s been a slow process there’s no reason to believe it will stop short of further expansion. We should likely expect even more integration of retro games and characters in the years to come.
