From snake to VR casinos, it just took a couple of decades for mobile devices to have opened up new streams of revenue. Mobile gaming had existed way before the iPhone but then it was deemed to be more of a modernistic way of having fun on the go and less as an operable industry. No wonder, the screen sizes of the phones were mostly small and the handsets were largely incapable and ineffectual. The solo matchless successful game of the pre-iPhone age was Snake, built into several Nokia handsets.
Presently there is a huge shift in power in the way consumers game and this is toppling the balance of power in the international video game business. The mobile video game industry keeps the ball rolling in driving a mushrooming wave of free-to-play games and casual successes like Rovio Entertainment’s Angry Birds Transformers and Supercell’s Clash of Clans. Consumers are in fact devoting so much money and time playing games in the smart devices that a video research firm, Newzoo witnessed a leg-up in its 2014 global revenue predictions from $21.5 billion to $24 billion.
Breakneck growth in mobile gaming – The online casino games
Casino games are undoubtedly the fastest growing genres in the mobile gaming industry. Prospective players usually flock to online poker sites and try their hand at various casino games as a way of learning the rule of the game before visiting a brick-and-mortar casino. Particularly online poker has benefited outstandingly due to the headway in mobile technology. Technology has evolved in such an unbelievable way that we’re always a click away from playing a game or buying something or listening to music. Moreover, mobile gaming has also enabled people to play online mobile slots on the go.
The ongoing trend of Internet of Things
The IoT (Internet of Things) is a growing trend where electronic devices of all kinds, monitors, sensors, camera, etc are connected to each other through local and global networks. Generally we perceive the internet as a network for devices through which we interact on a personal level, such as workstations, laptops and mobile devices but the IoT is designed as an interface for allowing machine-to-machine communications.
How will IoT impact the mobile gaming industry?
The Internet of Things has the makings to refashion online gaming in either of the two ways: by traversing the physical gap between the player and the gaming platform and by harmonizing online platforms with concrete casinos.
- Binding the gap between the player & the platform
The Internet of Things has spurred due to an increased use of smart devices. Tablets and smartphones have plethora of sensors, accelerometers, cameras, touch and pressure sensors and also heart rate monitors, all of which can be tapped into by mobile apps to report and collect data about the experience of the user. But what relation does this have with online gaming? By analyzing and tracking the right data, gaming platforms would learn how their customers collaborate with online games.
Just as casinos analyze the reactions of the players through their facial expressions, nonverbal cues and speech, mobile devices also scrutinize and measure the satisfaction of the player during the term of the game. Hence, all mobile gaming platforms can balance data collection and also preserve player privacy.
- Conjoining casinos with online platforms
Another way in which IoT can impact online gaming is through amalgamation with the experience of physical gaming. This isn’t only applicable to casinos but to any game platform which shares a player tracking system. With the kind of games played in casinos nowadays, only the operator generates revenue provided the player is present physically. To reassure this, customer outreach programs and marketing managers spend ample time to boost players to return to the casinos by offering them various reward programs.
However with the smart devices, game operators and casinos have more tools to inspire the players. The comfort and luxury of slot on your palmtop makes it simpler for players to return to casinos without making a trip. This also offers a new way for the game operators to interact with players, explicitly through surveys and feedback or implicitly through data collection and analytics.
Hence, it is needless to mention again that the players will now be able to squeeze in an online game on the go and as per Juniper Research forecasts; the mobile gaming market will swell from 65 million users in 2013 to 165 million users in 2018, outstripping $100 billion in market revenue by the end of 2017! Catering to an environment for players that is convenient, comfortable and connected is the magic of mobile gaming. Game operators may engage the players and bait them with loyalty rewards (which are instantly redeemable) and obtain persistent and logical feedback from devices and gamers. Expanding this realm to wearable devices will probably be yet another feather on the cap of the game operators and the mobile gaming industry in general.
