Mobile Gaming - Is It The Future?

This post is an aside from a recent post I put out about the ever popular mobile game Candy Crush Saga. The thing about this is that it is something really well debated in the global gaming community, and was something that I wanted to get on a bit of a technical soap-box, but knowing there was people like my gran reading my blog, I thought I would do it on a separate occasion!

Candy Crush has been the fastest growing mobile game of 2013. It to date has around 44 million global downloads, with this growing by 110 downloads every minute, something in itself a magical figure. The thing that this really highlights to me is the rapid rate that mobile gaming is growing and changing and developing. I think the main thing with it is that it is all about games being more and more accessible  People can play it on the bus, while they are having their breakfasts, over a cup of coffee, rather than having to boot up PCs and spend hours getting incredibly involved and engaged in the game.

Not only that, but the short time that 1 game takes makes it a lot more available for people to play, they can have a round of candy crush before they get out of bed, while they are having a cup of coffee or in those ever shorter spaces that we have in our day-to-day lives. 

Just to have a game on something like COD or Halo takes 20 minutes at a minimum, and even then if you are sitting down to play a game on a console, then you end us spending a lot longer than 20 minutes. People just can't find the time in their lives to do this, whereas mobile gaming is much more fast paced and light-hearted.

I still think though, when you posit the idea that mobile gaming will eventually take over from PC gaming and console gaming, that this will never happen. The mobile gaming audience is a completely different one to that of more substantial video games, and is something that will stay that way for as long as they exist. All mobile gaming does is open up a new avenue, a new industry created by the ever increasing complexities and capabilities of our mobile phones.

And that is the magic of mobile gaming. People who play World of Warcraft for hours every night, will continue to do so, undisturbed by Candy Crush, Farmville and the likes, it is almost like the 2 move in parallel universes. The industries aren't competing, and in fact I think they can really work together well. There is already some evidence of this, the big game development organisations have made mobile versions of their games, like EAs Fifa and Rockstar's GTA III as some examples of games that I have found work really well on a mobile. 

The question however is does the future lie in mobile gaming. And I think for the industry, mobile gaming at the minute certainly looks to be more profitable, especially if you find the right game for your audience. And I think that can also be said for the devices themselves, in that mobiles and tablet PCs and Apple's equivalents are developing at a much quicker pace than the PCs and consoles. The best things we have seen in the past few years is motion controlled technology like X-Box Kinect and Playstation Move, whereas smatphones, tablets and the like have pretty much come from nothing in the past 2 years, and continue to develop at the same rate.

If you have any feelings either way on this topic, then please comment below. I would be really interested to read your opinions on what you think is the geography of gaming in the future.

If not, then thanks for reading, and you can follow me on twitter: @peachy146

Candy Crush House Rules

Some of you may have seen a tweet that I posted last night about my parents arguing over who had used up all the lives of Candy Crush, and as a result of that interest I have started playing it too. I have always steered clear of it due to it's "addictive capabilities" and "impulsive in-app purchases" however I could hold off the curiosity no longer.

There is one trait that we all have as children of our parents. We cannot let them know more about something that is cool and modern. That would be BAD. This in the past has led me to learn all about how a computer works just so I can baffle them with jargon and things, and so when I find my mum and dad hopelessly addicted to Candy Crush, to the point where the first thing they do when they get up in the morning is use their 5 lives, I have to make sure I am ahead of the game, literally speaking.

Unfortunately I think I may just have ruined my life... ever since I downloaded it at about 6pm yesterday I have been unable to get off my phone. I have successfully run down the battery twice in one day, which would normally take me 2 days, and I have had to schedule things that I do in order to fit around life regeneration. Not only that, but it is SO frustrating. I have heard my Dad say on numerous occasions: "This game is fixed, all it wants is your money, I am never playing it again." Half an hour later he is sat on his iPad looking intently a several coloured squares, hoping, praying, that this time he will get past level 30...

There is one thing to be said though, for my Mum and Dad's new addiction to the iDevices, is that they seem to have created a new house rule. It reads: "The one who is playing Candy Crush, plays Candy Crush and is therefore excused of any other jobs."

It does make me laugh really that parents lecture you for the whole of your lives that there is more important things in life than games and computers and phones and TVs, and you can't let them take over your life. The sad fact is though, is that when my Dad gets up early to sit downstairs with his cup of coffee and play candy crush, is enough ambition for me and my sister to rip them for be "addicted" which I am content with, for the time being anyway!

Thanks for reading!

Follow me on twitter: @peachy146