Tag: mobile gaming

Google is bringing mobile games to larger screens.

The massive internet company is not giving up the television playing field to Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV and has its own plans to attract users with Android TV, which, among other features, enables users to engage in mobile gaming on a big screen.

Android TV was announced at Google’s I/O developer conference.

The company held its annual I/O developer event last week in San Francisco on Wednesday, June 25, 2014. During the event, they made several announcements, including their Android TV platform, which Google has designed to work specifically with television sets and is powered by its open source operating system. This is what sets it apart from Amazon and Apple’s TV products.

Android TV is a platform, not a product. Google intends to work with different vendors to have its platform directly integrated into television set top boxes from Razer, Asus, etc. and into TV sets from companies such as Sony.

Android TV will enable users to access and use mobile apps on their TV screens. This means that mobile games will be an accessible option. This is big news, considering 70% of the over 1 billion devices that run Android across the globe, access a minimum of one game during the course of one month. Furthermore, ever since Google announced in 2013 the hub app for Android-based gaming, in the last six month, 100 million users have signed up.

Android TV could have a significant impact on the mobile gaming industry.

The games that were demoed on Android TV during the conference were controlled using Android tablets. Although Google made no mention of making game controllers, it is leaving this option open to its hardware partners.

According to Greg Hartrell, Google Play Games Lead Product Manager, “when the Android TV platform gets adopted, OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] are going to push out a game pad kind of form factor.” He added that “OEMs will bring a variety of different form factors. They’ll continue to grow the ecosystem.”

Google believes that mobile gaming has room to grow on a technological level, as well as on a physical level – beyond the screens of smartphones and tablets. One of the advantages of Android TV is that there is a vast amount of content on Google Play. It will also encourage developers to think about how their games will not only appear on phones and tablets, but on large screens, too.

Mobile gaming continues to prove its lucrative nature

When it comes to mobile gaming, revenue is not typically something that receives much attention beyond those developing and publishing these games. A new report from Juniper Research shows that it may be time to take mobile games more seriously, however, as they are beginning to represent one of the game industry’s most lucrative business sectors. While the industry has been growing more focused on the mobile space, most developers and publishers still consider mobile games to be little more than novelty products that have limited value.

Mobile games revenue to reach $28.9 billion by 2016

According to the report from Juniper Research, mobile game revenue is expected to reach $28.9 billion by 2016, up 38% from the $20 billion in revenue estimated for this year. The developers behind these mobile games are taking serious efforts to maximize their product’s earning potential, primarily through making their games more engaging to ensure their value among consumers. Most people tend to jump from one mobile game to the next very quickly, which makes it difficult for any single game to be considered high value. Developers are interested in seeing this trend put to rest.

Tablet users are more likely to spend money on the games that they play

The report shows that tablet users are particularly fond of mobile games. Tablet devices are well suited for gaming because of their stronger processors and larger screens. These screens, in particular, are favored among gamers because they make it easier to see the game that is being played and add more convenience in terms of control. Tablet users are more likely to spend money on mobile games than those using smartphones.

Developers to focus more on convenience and interactivity when creating games for the coming years

The report suggests that developers will place more consideration on convenience when developing games for the future. Mobile gaming has always been popular because of its accessible nature, but some games are considerably less convenient to play than others. Developers are also keen to make their games more valuable to consumers by making the games themselves more engaging.