Evolution of Mobile Gaming – Then and Now

January 5, 2021

Mobile games have come a long way in the last two decades! In fact, mobile gaming has evolved along with the evolution of mobile phones. It was 1998 when video games were first incorporated into mobile phone devices and the entire objective of a mobile phone was modified for good! Ever since mobile gaming has been getting better day by day in comparison with PC and console games these days.

Besides, the advent of smartphones has changed the entire experience of mobile gaming, all thanks to technology! These days, mobile phones are not only used for calls and text messages, instead social media and mobile games are used more by people.

The Modest Beginning

1998- Snake Xenzia

In the 90s, there were mobile games that used to be too simple and quite non-interactive. Remember those Nokia mobile phones, which first released the Snakes game in 1998 and it was the actual beginning of mobile gaming with a big bang! The game got more than 350 million players from the whole world and paved the way for the entire mobile gaming industry.

Snake Xenzia was basically a black and white 2D game with pixelated graphics. The main goal of this game was to make the snake continuously moving over the screen area while preventing it from hitting any obstacles like screen boundary or even itself while the snake keeps growing longer and longer resisting the control over its motion. It might sound rude and unattractive, but it was the most challenging of its time and that is why it became successful in catching the attention of a huge audience despite being the lowest access to mobile phones among people.

2000 – Tetris

Tetris is actually a very famous video game of 1984. After the huge success of the first mobile game, Snake, Tetris was launched as a mobile game in 2000. It is basically a puzzle game that requires players to modify and operate every new piece of the puzzle from the top of the screen and match colors.

Just like a snake, Tetris was also a game having low pixelated graphics but it was not monochromatic neither black and white instead, the puzzle tiles or pieces were of different colors.

Both of the above-mentioned games were blockbuster retro games of their time and served their best in letting people kill their time. If you are interested in knowing more about retro games.

2001 – Sonic the Hedgehog

After the huge popularity of Tetris, the game developers thought about bringing another video game over the screens of mobile phones. Thus, another popular video game and an iconic character of Sega games, Sonic was featured in a mobile game called Sonic the Hedgehog. In this game, the main character i.e., Sonic runs to stop the evil character Doctor Robotnik from taking over the world; the players are required to control and operate in Sonic for the said task. This game did not only win hearts but grabbed the attention of mobile gaming enthusiasts around the world.

With time, the mobile gaming industry kept making innovations and revolutions in mobile games. In fact, the gaming industries had to switch from video games to mobile games and give preference to mobile games.

Infographic provided by Betway

2004 – Asteroid Zone

This has been the major turning point in the history of mobile phone gaming when more and more games were being ported to mobile phones, some developers made a big innovation! The famous and classic Atari game of 1979 was launched as a mobile game i.e., Asteroid Zone. In this game, the players are required to shoot asteroids in deep space from console to mobile phones. It has been the best game of its kind and is now considered as one of the predecessors of the present day’s endless running games like Temple run and others.

With the release of every new game, the mobile gaming industry grew stronger and diverse.

The Turning Point

2007 is the year when the iPhone was released and from then on, both the launch of new stuff and evolution in the already existing mobile phone technology occurred in the industry of smartphones. Though the smartphone interface was new itself, and gaming took time to evolve. But, the entirely new concept of mobile gaming was introduced during this time being.

2009 – Angry Birds

Angry Birds has been the actual game-changer in the mobile gaming industry. It was released in 2009 and influenced the gaming audience up to a great extent with its colorful characters and physics-based launching action. The game features cute, attractive, and sphere-shaped angry birds that are projected by a catapult over buildings in order to take down a bunch of green pigs, but these often end up spawning their own franchise. This game also became widely popular among kids and stole their hearts.

The game was released around the time of Jetpack Joyride and Temple Run and provided the basis for the launch of other advanced and exciting games.

Other Games During This Time

After the huge popularity of Angry birds, other games like Candy Crush, Subway Surf, Sonic Dash, Fruit Ninja, Sudoku, and other puzzle games made their way into the mobile gaming industry and stole the hearts of the tech generation.

Nintendo Marks its Entry into the Mobile Gaming Industry

When Nintendo broke the news of it entering into the mobile market in 2016, it was not less than a shock for the world. And there came to its mind-blowing franchise Pokémon!

Nintendo partnered with Niantic and launched a simple gaming application that took the gaming world by storm. Based on the animated cartoon series Pokémon, the game lets the users catch a Pokémon just by swiping fingers to throw a Poke ball. However, the Pokémon just appears on the mobile screen when one projects and navigates the camera towards different nearby locations.

Let alone children, even the adults went crazy after this game as the best-animated cartoon series of their childhood became a game with an almost realistic experience.

The technology of touch-screen smartphones has been the practical basis for the rapid evolution of the mobile gaming industry. With the launch of new and unique mobile games, the developers are also making use of technology to bring the old classic video games over the mobile screens in order to modify the gaming experience!

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