Mobile Gaming - Easy Access and Highly Addictive Gaming In The Palm Of Your Hand.

Mobile gaming has come a long way since the days of Snake on our old reliable Nokia's. For example now, we can play Playstation 2 games on our iPhones and Android devices. Imagine hearing that when you were trying to beat your friends accidental high score on Snake?

As with console gaming, handheld gaming such as the PSP/DS and of course PC gaming, mobile gaming is forever evolving. With phones, everyone wants the latest model. And with the latest model will come the current market's best processors, hard drives, cameras, and all the other functions modern day phones can do. Bigger screens are also creating a demand for HD gaming on these devices.

Game developers are noticing this trend, so now they integrate their games with a mobile phone app. You normally have to sync your mobile game with a console/PC game first, but after that you have a series of quests and items to collect on your phone, away from the console (which is handy if you work long hours). And when you connect back to your original game, you would have received experience points, money or something along those lines.

Social networking is also a big aspect when it comes to these mobile games. Farmville 2 mainly relies on your Facebook friends gifting you items to progress. Without any friends to help, progress can often be slow, causing a loss of interest rather soon.

Farmville 2 Screenshot

In Japan, the most successful sector of gaming happens to be Mobile. They are often lovers of all things small, so what better than gaming on a smaller screen? And with the accessibility, it's soon to spread globally. Its becoming more acceptable to be seen on your phone, playing a game. At family dinners and occasions you will always find more than one person “just checking their farm” or some other equivalent.

But is this a future we would want? The majority of mobile games lack storyline, they are more focused on levelling up and generating money (another aspect I've left out for now). The general missions on Farmville 2 alone are the best thing you are going to get in terms of a story. However, with all this new technology, mobile gaming could outshine console and pc gaming anytime soon.

Lets look at the statistics. PS4 has currently sold 13.5 million consoles to date (of course this will change, its January 2015). They (Sony) are the market leaders and boast about this figure. However, when the iPhone 6 was launched last year, Apple sold a 10 million units in a weekend. Samsung boast ridiculous profits due to how many products they sell, and so on.

So why do we love playing games on our phones so much? It can't be all about accessibility, can it?

One of my favourite games, Minecraft, released a Pocket Edition specifically for mobiles and tablets. I was already addicted to it beforehand, now I can play it anywhere. And the funny thing? The Pocket Edition is more updated and advanced than any console version to date.

The one thing you can do whilst playing a mobile game is to either watch a film or television show. This is another advantage to game developers and mobile phone companies. There is potentially more time to play a mobile game over a console game, couples can sit together and do two different things. Instead of getting annoyed at each others game preference, they can watch something together, whilst individually playing their own game of choice (something ALL handhelds are great for).

Tiny Tower has its own social network - Bitbook

And of course, like previously mentioned, social networking can also play vital roles in the success of a game. They software developers can make more money in game from consumers, especially from consumers that do not have patience to level up gradually, or with the assistance of Facebook and even Twitter friends.

Another thing I use my android tablet for is Emulation. Older consoles emulators run rather smoothly on my Nexus 7. You can, with ease, mix past gaming with current gaming day to day. So do I see mobile gaming becoming more normal than console gaming? Look around you. It already is. There are televised adverts for games such as Candy Crush Saga popping up when you are sat eating dinner.

Ubisoft released its own Assassins Creed Unity app, which helps progress within the game when it comes to “Nomad chests”. Rockstar games released the iFruit. An app that, in GTA 5 you can walk Chop the dog, upgrade your car at Los Santos Autos and more. In fact, on apple and most other devices you can purchase most GTA games, if not all (apart from GTA 5..)

Assassin's Creed Unity App

The iFruit app has many screens, here's a few (a screen where you can download the other GTA games as well as the LS Auto's screen. 

The future of gaming is small, the future of gaming is mobile! Whether we like it or not, its time to embrace it if you haven't already.

Maybe us console gamers will be known as Specialist gamers? Seeing as mobile gaming is now the casual type of gaming.