10 Years On, Do Gamers Still Consider Mobile Games as Purely Casual?

The first iPhone, that is, the first ever touch screen smartphone device, came out in 2007. Ten years later, smartphones and tablets have become an essential part of our lives, and the apps that run on them a major part of the software industry.

One of the things the smart phone revolution offered us was the opportunity to play games on our phones. Not just simple games like the ‘Snake’ game beloved of Nokia owners in the early 2000s. While the mobile gaming app market boomed with thousands of titles appearing for both iOS and Android almost immediately after the operating systems first came into use, what was definitely lacking, in the eyes of those who were already fans of PC or console gaming, were ‘hardcore’ games.

A New Age of Casual Gaming

As apps began to make their mark on popular culture, a whole new type of gamer began to emerge. These were not the people who would invest a lot of money in gaming PCs, or spend hours at a time on consoles, but people who enjoyed quick, fun, addictive puzzle games they could play easily on their phones or tablets. Games like Candy Crush and Bejeweled were great examples of this. Hugely successful games that offered a fun and challenging way to pass the time, and which were generally played by people of all ages. About the only demographic that didn’t really embrace these, or word games, or Angry Birds, were those who considered themselves hardcore gamers.

Has Mobile Gaming Moved on From Its Casual Image?

There is nothing wrong with casual gaming, and it is a great audience for developers to try and tap into if they have an idea for something fun that can be played in bouts of a few minutes, for instance on a train or on the user’s lunch break. But, has mobile gaming managed to move outside of this and be considered a viable platform for those who take gaming more seriously? The answer is, in fact, yes. This is mainly thanks to mobile strategy games and MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arenas).

Hardcore Gamers Begin to See the Appeal in Mobile Games

It may have taken almost a decade, but in the past couple of years, mobile games that offer something more in terms of gameplay have managed to engage the more serious gamers out there. If you look at things like the Brawl Stars Wiki Guide you can see that there is now quite a lot of depth to some mobile games aimed at this demographic, and the communication features, added to the fact they can of course be played anywhere, give them extra benefits.

While mobile games will probably never replace consoles or PC games on Steam for the hardcore gamer market, now there are titles that offer more of the kind of gameplay they want as opposed to simple puzzle mechanics. As a result of this, players are beginning to enjoy supplementing the games they play at home with some interesting mobile titles when they are on the move.