Three ways the iPhone has forever changed gaming... - RaychelSnr's Blog

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RaychelSnr's Blog

Three ways the iPhone has forever changed gaming... Stuck

Posted on April 15, 2010 at 12:55 PM.

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The emergence of mobile gaming into the spotlight has been one of the top trends of the past couple of years. While cell phone gaming was always fairly simple and rather dull prior to the App store's launch on iTunes, it has been anything but since the store's launch in June of 2008. When you combine an easy to access store with an established user base of over 25 million people, you end up with a verifiable commercial success. Here are three ways the iPhone has completely changed gaming:

Gaming studios are small-time again - As of this month, there are now 32,000 different companies, individuals or what have you who have developed over 180,000 apps with 1 billion downloads on the iPhone. That kind of a flexible developer market has opened up the gaming market with more flexibility in career options than ever before. Over the long run, some very talented and creative people are probably not going to make their way to the big gaming studios since they have found a profitable home with start-ups of their own. In the short term, look for some of the most innovative and creative gaming concepts to come out of the mobile platform.
Just as with the Wii, more people game than ever before - The Wii expanded the definition of gamer to dear old grandma. The iPhone has made gamers out of people like my hard working industrious Dad, someone who hasn't gamed all that much in his entire life. Mobile platforms are expanding the gaming market to more people thus creating a highly profitable pool of potential new customers that didn't exist before.
Simplicity and Substance is valued over glamour once more - Games out of major studios have seen their production budgets rise to levels that would make Hollywood filmmakers blush. However, games on mobile platforms like the iPhone have been showing how substance and simplicity will win against glitz and glamour every time when it comes to customers hearts and their wallets. Many companies are developing games for pennies on the dollar and turning giant profits because of it. I do not doubt that the movement of simplicity and substance will start moving up the development chain to the biggest titles over the coming years.

Are you a mobile gamer? Do you game on your iPhone, iPad, Android, or...? How do you think mobile gaming is changing the industry? Sound off now!

Comments

# 1 Draxion @ Apr 15

Point 1 is a big one, small companies can get started on the Iphone. If they make it big they might be able to get the money to go to the consoles.
I mean all the money (or 90%) goes to the people that make the games on the app store. You sell 1mil copies for $5 and thats 5mil right there. Pretty amazing.
Good blog.