Mobile Gaming’s Most Popular Genres
Despite the spread of a global pandemic, 2020 is set to be an extremely successful year for mobile gaming – and whilst the virus has definitely pushed numbers in to new record highs, the market as a whole has been performing extremely well for a number of years.
2019 had an estimated 2.4 billion smartphone users playing from smartphone devices, but which genres are amongst the fan favourites?
Battle Royale – They had been dominating the PC market for a number of years before attempts to port them to mobile devices took place, and those ports went extremely well. Titles such as PUBG, Fortnite, and shortly APEX. Both Fortnite and PUBG have been seen to capture upwards of 50 million daily players, which may have grown considerably with the spread of COVID-19, but there’s no doubt BR games are amongst the most popular mobile genres.
Collectible Card Games – Very well suited for the casual gamer market, card games, or TCG (trading card games) have found a solid footing in the mobile market. Blizzard’s big offering of Hearthstone has been performing extremely well for a number of years, which in part can be attributed to the ingame purchasing system for card packs, but the genre as a whole shows no signs of slowing down. Fast gameplay that requires little time commitment is perfect for the casual mobile gamer, and as other big titles find themselves ported across, competition will continue to grow.
Gambling and Casino – As mobile gaming is rooted in casual and hyper casual users, mobile casinos have really found an opportunity to hit their stride. Non Gamstop casinos represent a collection of operators that aren’t registered within the UK and as such aren’t required to register to a self inclusion scheme that restricts access to those who sign up and casinos such as these offer a wide variety of payment options with the option for anonymity and huge payouts. With big prize jackpots and little time investment needed, it’s easy to see why these types of games perform extremely well.
Puzzle Games – Many of the bigger and more popular titles are now fully integrated with our social media accounts, from moving fruit into a line to setting up your barbarian camp, many now rely on your social media interaction to gain extra lives or to progress further through bringing back a social aspect to gaming that others might miss out on. Again by having such a low time investment requirement, these serve as a perfect option for the casual gamer.
MOBA Games – The next big move for publishers could be within the MOBA market – games such as League of Legends and DoTA2 on the PC have been dominating the esports market and initial offerings on mobile devices have been performing extremely well. Unlike others in this list, these games require a bit of a time investment to not only improve at but to just play the game, and as such not suited as much toward the casual mobile player, but as popularity within this genre is so high any successful move toward the smartphone will no doubt perform very well.