Mobile gaming is more than just a fad
The game industry is beginning to evolve as it puts more focus on the mobile sector. The mobile games market has been heavily saturated for some time, but large publishers and development studios that had initially been averse to the concept of mobile gaming are beginning to enter into the market with their own products. As mobile gaming continues to grow in popularity, the practices that have become common in the mobile gaming business are also becoming common in the overall game industry.
The game industry has been focusing more heavily on the mobile sector for good reason. Mobile games represent one of the most lucrative aspects of gaming today, with some 247 separate game companies earning more than $1 million in mobile revenue in the U.S. alone. Google, which provides access to a wide range of mobile gaming applications, has seen more than 300 million downloads for the mobile games it supports, with the developers of these games bringing in a collective $600 million. These may be astonishing numbers, but Google is widely considered within the game industry to be the least lucrative market for mobile gaming applications.
Many people enjoy mobile games because they are simple in nature and can be played anywhere and at any time. They offer on-demand entertainment that people have come to expect thanks to their growing reliance on mobile technology. Moreover, people have shown that they are willing to spend money on these games, whether it is the price for purchasing the game or buying in-game items, digital currencies, and bonuses that make gameplay more enjoyable.
Microtransactions, a term that represents in-game purchases, have become somewhat infamous among consumers. Some people claim that mobile games are nothing more than cash grabs, using microtransactions to take advantage of people that are willing to spend their money. These microtransactions are becoming a more integral part of traditional gaming, with developers and publishers introducing in-game purchases in order to cater to a more mobile-centric audience. As mobile games continue to gain prominence, they may end up determining the course of the game industry’s future, which may cause a serious division between consumers and game developers that have an interest in microtransactions.
Social network voyeurism is nothing new. It is quite common for people to browse the social feeds of their friends to see what they are doing on a daily basis. Indeed, this is one of the primary reason social networks are so popular. eBay claims that this voyeurism is what makes the Venmo application so popular among young consumers as it reinforces the application’s network effect.