The video game industry is a massively lucrative business, and a large part of this success is the explosion of the mobile gaming market. Mobile gaming continues to be an ever-growing part of the world of video games, and experts are estimating that it will keep getting bigger. With the introduction of new territories and the expansion of existing ones, the amount of revenue being generated seems to rise exponentially every year.
It’s been predicted that the global market for mobile games will make more than $58 billion by 2023. The key area for this growth is expected to be in the Asia-Pacific market where the rising level of middle-class populations in China and India is supplying new customers with disposable income. In 2016, mobile games made more than $40 billion, and Asia made up the largest portion of that number, so it supports the idea that China and India will become even stronger markets in the future.
Mobile games have exploded since Apple first introduced the App Store back in 2008. There are games of all kinds today ranging from ports of old arcade titles to innovative adventures that take advantage of the power of modern smartphones. But the App Store (and Google Play) aren’t the only options when it comes to mobile gaming. Browser-based mobile games have also grown increasingly popular, particularly for the online casino genre. The online gaming community has generally been best known for its desktop browser games featuring a variety of colorful slot machines, but they’re beginning to shift their focus from PCs to mobile devices. The biggest advantage of mobile slots is their accessibility and this boosts their popularity. It’s become more common for people to perform the majority of their computing through their phones, meaning more people spend their free time on mobile devices instead of desktop PCs, or even gaming consoles. Because of this trend, the mobile market is too important for any company to ignore.
Even giants of the gaming industry are making an effort to break into the mobile market. By now, most people are aware of Nintendo’s push for mobile supremacy through the release of Super Mario Run, not to mention last year’s smash hit Pokémon GO. And beyond the Big N, Sony is also working on its its own mobile gaming initiative in Japan with a number of new games centered on PlayStation franchises. These include mobile takes on classics like Everybody’s Golf (formerly known as Hot Shots Golf in North America) and PaRappa the Rapper, in addition to role-playing games like Wild Arms and Arc the Lad. Everybody’s Golf will be released in Japan later this year, with Sony’s goal to put out another five mobile games to the Japanese market by March 2018. Sony currently has no plans to expand the program beyond Asia, but we imagine it’s only a matter of time before these games come to the West.
With billions of dollars at stake, the world of mobile gaming has become a place where fortunes are waiting to be made for both small indie developers and established corporations alike. The number of smart phones in the world keeps growing, and as more young people come of age and earn their own money, the market will continue expanding. It’s not hard to imagine the market growing to nearly $60 billion in the next six years—and that may be a conservative estimate.
