Open Forum: Do You Game On Mobile?

Once a unwieldy brick with a pointy antenna, the mobile phone has come a long way over the years, especially in the past decade. As with most tech, time and innovation have paved the way for smarter, more powerful iterations on the original design. Another catalyst for the recent mobile evolution is our constant desire to be informed and in touch at all times. This new wave of handsets and the hunger for endless connectivity has provided fertile soil in which the mobile gaming market has managed to thrive.

It’s been an amazing transition though one that is often overlooked by those who consider themselves “core” gamers. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, especially when you consider how clunky and restricted mobile titles used to be. Apart from Snake and a cluster of solid adaptations, they were laughable, failing to hold our collective attention for more than a few minutes at a time.

Touchscreens, better hardware, and the presence of online features have completely changed all that, of course. Proving that games no longer require a gamepad, mouse, or keyboard, developers have continued to push boundaries, inventing their own clever control schemes or at least trying to adapt existing models. Then you have this recent surge in the number of studios supporting an increasing array of sophisticated bluetooth controllers. That way, even if you don’t fancy the likes of Angry Birds or Peggle, there’s something more familiar within reach, even if it doesn’t quite match the quality of games currently available on home consoles.

Naturally, with more mobile users now than there are desktop users, the influence of this gaming subset continues to expand. Over the past few years this surge in power has elevated otherwise small and unmentionable games to the rank of world beaters. Chances are, when perched in front of your television, you can’t get through an whole episode of Take Me Out without seeing an advert for Candy Crush Saga or Clash of Clans. Although the brand has shrunk somewhat, one only has to look at Angry Birds and its upcoming film to understand how huge the mobile gaming market is.

In truth, I was more than skeptical that it would ever take off. Having just purchased a PlayStation 3 when the iPhone and its competitors launched, I couldn’t tear myself away from the console. Like many, the only games I wanted to play were those that appeared almost likelike, boasting complex mechanics and control schemes. However, the time inevitably came for me to trash my old handset and invest in an iPhone 4S. With an iPad also at my side, I organically grew into a mobile gamer. It’s a platform I love and one that continues to surprise me each year with something new and inventive.

Have blabbed on for long enough – you can read my thoughts on mobile games every Thursday here at TSA – I’ll pass things over to Kris:

I probably play mobile games as much as console games, and definitely more frequently. It’s just a function of having my phone with me at almost every moment of the day, a situation that’s tricky to achieve with a PS4.

I think it’d be impossible to list everything I play on mobile, as it tends to be an ever shifting collection of titles. The only game that’s consistently been on my phone for more than a few months is Mr. Jump, an incredibly tricky auto-running platformer. At the minute the Lifeline series has my attention though, which is basically a choose your own adventure horror story set in deep space.

As for what irritates me about the platform, it’s oddly games that don’t let me pay. I don’t mind an ad-supported model for games, but if you’ve got that then allow me to pay to remove them all. As well as that, games that don’t let me play my own music underneath them annoy me. Unless your game uses sound as an integral component, there’s no good reason to not let me play whatever audio I want.

For Aran, the transition to more mobile gaming could be on the horizon. Having only dabbled with mobile games in the past, he’s finding more and more time for them, especially as he preps his handheld devices for a month-long getaway this month. With titles like Final Fantasy II, Thomas Was Alone, and Downwell, he hopes this will be his gateway.

For Teflon, things are a little trickier, as he sees a clash between the scope of mobile games and the kinds of games he plays on other platforms:

Though I have been known to play games on mobile and tablet, it’s really not my go to platform for killing time. There’s some games which have got their hooks into me, whether it was the beautiful simplicity of Threes! and Letterpress or the ever popular Hearthstone and the impressive Real Racing series.

So there’s potential there, and we’ve seen a number of indie games successfully make the transition with a reworked control system. It’s just that I can get those experiences full fat on PC and console in a way that sits better under my fingers and thumbs. For original titles, that combines with the ability to truly target the general public with a race to the bottom in price and the free to play model.

Unfortunately, that muddies the waters for me enough that I’m not a regular mobile/tablet gamer, but when there’s something special that attracts my attention, it doesn’t really matter what platform it’s on.

So, what are you thoughts on mobile gaming? Do you play mobile titles regularly, sparingly, or not at all? What effects has this corner of the industry had on gaming as a whole and how do you think this will change in the next few years?