We can say that we started playing games on our mobile phones in 1997, and it was the Snake game developed by Nokia that started everything. This simple game became so popular that other phone manufacturers began to include pre-loaded games on their devices. Until the iPhone was released, we played many Java-based games and free slots. Casino games also had great success on mobile devices and became extremely popular. App Store, which started operating in 2008, was a real revolution in terms of mobile gaming. It enabled us to play more advanced games. For example, the Eye of Horus slot and other games with bonus rounds emerged in this way.
The App Store wasn’t just about offering advanced games. This store also brought free-to-try and ad-supported games to the market. Angry Birds was one of the first games to use this system, and so far, there were only two types of games: Paid (premium) and free. Angry Birds was one of the first games to use in-app purchases and offered free gameplay for a premium game. But if you wanted more, you could buy it from the in-game store. This commercial model, called Freemium, was used by hundreds of thousands of games in the following years and was very successful. Indeed, the most successful games in this category have managed to generate more than a billion dollars a year.
The ?Secret? of the App Store
Until the App Store was launched, mobile game development was not seen as a ?business?. Most of the games on the market were options offered by phone manufacturers, and their features were very limited due to the limitations of the devices. Apple solved this problem by developing touch screens and opening the application store to everyone. The proposition was simple: Anyone could develop an app for iPhones and put it on the App Store. In this way, game development got out of the monopoly of phone manufacturers and turned into a global activity in the truest sense of the word. For example, a developer in Pakistan could create an application with development kits available for free and sell it to iPhone users in the United States. So two things happened: The number of games has increased and their features have improved a lot thanks to the creative freedom offered by touch screens. Therefore, we owe the current popularity of mobile gaming to the App Store.
Blackberry and Symbian operating systems, which were very popular at the time, could not rival such a revolution. Even Microsoft couldn’t hold on to the market. Android was the only platform that could keep up with the revolution initiated by iOS, and it achieved this by almost completely imitating the App Store. Nowadays, there are more options on the Play Store, but the App Store still manages to be the first name that comes to mind when it comes to quality.
The Success of Simplicity
One of the reasons the App Store (and iOS) was successful is because it offered an extremely simple experience. Previously, installing mobile games on phones if they were not pre-loaded was a laborious and technical task. Just like computers, you had to download the setup file and manually install it on the phone. iOS, on the other hand, offered mobile games as an application and enabled these applications to be loaded with the click of a button. So you could start playing after clicking the install button and waiting for a few minutes, all you have to do is touch the icon of the game on the main screen. This convenience has increased with the introduction of HTML5 technology because you no longer need to download an application. HTML5 allowed complex applications to run on browsers. Therefore, it was possible to play even the most advanced games on mobile browsers without the need to use the App Store or Play Store. This practical use is one of the biggest reasons for the popularity of mobile games: a 5-year-old child and a 60-year-old grandmother can play them comfortably.
Statistics show that there were 1.36 billion mobile players worldwide in 2019, and it is estimated that by 2024 this number will reach 1.7 billion. The size of the mobile gaming market is currently around $ 20 billion, but this figure is expected to reach about $ 57 billion in 2024. In other words, mobile gamers are currently one of the largest markets in the world, with age ranges from 10 to 50. There are not many products that can reach such a wide range of consumers, so we are sure that the mobile game market will start to grow and use innovative technologies such as VR.
I’m a 20-something stay-at-home mother and wife. I have an amazing husband, a beautiful daughter, two loving dogs, and a lazy cat. I wouldn’t change my life for anything! I love to read, listen to music, cook and blog!
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