Mobile gaming trends for 2010

Created by hasan.kamal under General Discussion

The revolution in mobile gaming has come a long way from the simple games of Snake and Brick to complex 3D titles such as Need for Speed and Doom. This revolution was primarily spurned by Apple’s iPhone, and mobile gaming hasn’t looked back since.

This revolution worried Nokia enough to run a survey about the potency of mobile gaming back in 2007 when the iPhone was released. Surprisingly, the predictions that Nokia management made were extremely accurate.  Some of these predictions have made it to the general public, social media, augmented reality, while others are slowly catching on.

Based on the trends reported in the survey, we’ve made our own predictions about how mobile gaming will be like in 2010. We’ve listed each trend below:

Lots of money to be made

The recession has taken it’s toll on tech companies quite heavily. Layoffs and downsizing were common, but it’s also spurred for developers and publishers to become more competitive through acquisitions and mergers. However, the consumer spending spree still hasn’t died in technology completely.

The App Store hit 3 billion downloads; clearly customers are spending some portion of their income on apps. The release of the iPhone versions with improved 3G support has meant people can easily download directly to their phones. Popular apps became massive hits overnight fueling development sprees from various companies. Riding the wave has meant overnight millions for certain developers.  The booming revenues for companies such as Gameloft, make it clear that companies are making money in the sector, proving it is a strong market.

Lack of innovation in game titles

We’ve seen many games that are repetitions of existing classic games. Understandable that one developer ports a classic game to the iPhone platform, but 300 variants of the same game seem rather redundant. It harks back to the concept of quality over quantity. With copies of similar games flooding the market, it’s necessary to distinguish yourself uniquely. It’s hard to provide unique games without excessive risk of getting no revenue from a game that’s so unique that no one understands it. However, proper marketing campaigns and viral ads can help boost interest.

Deliver to consumers directly

Improved browsers and Internet connectivity has meant that developers can avoid the middleman and get their games directly to consumers. The App Store will remain important as a source to provide games to consumers, however, direct marketing can get the attention of consumers quicker and more efficiently than the App Store. Many developers are offering minor updates for their apps through their own websites. This process bypasses Apple’s App Store and may not necessarily be approved by Apple, but it opens up new avenues for developers to get their games to consumers directly.

Carefully crafted campaigns will help companies market their games to specialized customers without excessively long wait times for revenue. The born-global factor has helped developers based outside of the United States easily acquire international customers without having to spend excessively on marketing. Resultantly, the direct-to-consumer approaches will take center stage in 2010.

Crossing over from Internet and platform gaming to mobile gaming

The initiative taken by Microsoft to bring X-Box Live to mobiles is another important development in this field. The ability to transfer online identities to existing gaming infrastructures opens up new markets for developers who can target genre-specific customers through their mobile games. This means that developers have greater opportunities in porting games from X-Box Live to mobile platforms and increasing their marketshare without having to specifically develop games for mobile platforms.

Collaborative playing

The ability to bring players together on a common platform helps boost the popularity of games. Massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) have been successes on the Internet while mobile gaming has not necessarily capitalized on this market. Improved connectivity to the Internet and similar concepts for leader-boards and forums slowly making their way onto mobile platforms will help boost collaborative online playing. The ability to create lists of friends similar to Nokia’s N-gage lists needs to be reflected in new mobile games.

Getting users involved

Many game development companies involve their users in the overall process. Not only does this help build a rapport between the game developers and users, it boosts the overall hype of the game itself. The process helps users feel involved in the game development while ensuring a dedicated customer base.

Social networking

Building on the concept of collaborative play, social networking is an important tool to incorporate into mobile games. The ability to post high score as Facebook or MySpace status updates helps increase the visibility of the game amongst potential customers. It also provides a great marketing tool that can help build site traffic and interest in a game. With users spending upwards of 2 to 3 hours daily on social networking sites, it’s a great way to market to a captive audience without spending an excessive amount on marketing initiatives.

Micropayments to play better

Micropayments is a new thing that mobile game developers are using to increase revenue from apps. The concept is that an app is free to players to download, however, if you want to upgrade your character, you need to make a small payment to do so. Want to upgrade your game’s levels? You can pay for it. Basically the catchphrase for micropayments is “Play free, but pay to play better.”

The importance of micropayments for game developers is that it creates a steady revenue stream for them. Rather than apps becoming single sources of revenue, players constantly spend money to improve their game experience. Game developers don’t have to constantly innovate to create new games, instead they can fine-tune their original games to become better. This means less development cost which ultimately boosts the profitability for developers on each game they release.  The trend of micropayments started in late 2009 but will definitely become more relevant in 2010.

Conclusion

Although these trends have been present for quite some time in the mobile gaming industry, the infrastructure to support these initiatives is still lacking. However, interest is slowly gaining impetus amongst players, developers and industry giants. Major players such as Microsoft and Sony have taken interest in the potential of mobile gaming and are looking to expand into mobile gaming. With backing from such companies, it shows that there is strong potential in the market to revolutionize how mobile gaming will become if these trends become reality in 2010.