Faithful Core Gamers and the Rise of Mobile Gaming

One of the things I always find so remarkable when I read news about various companies “refocusing on social/mobile games” obviously at the expense of core games is how clueless it seems.  You would think at some point as a gaming company that they might realize that real gamers (i.e. core gamers) are the ones that buy their products and will do so religiously.  It’s like a love triangle where game publishers are like some high school boy who can’t get over the ditzy flighty cheerleader who gives him occasional looks (i.e. non-gamers generally, and in the current example, mobile “gamers”).  All the while, he shuns the faithful but somewhat plain girlfriend he already has (i.e. core gamers).  You saw it with the Wii*, and that obviously went nowhere fast, and now I am guessing you are seeing it now with games on mobile devices.

Sure, there are a lot of people buying games for iOS and Android right now**, but I would guess a lot of it is the novelty of it (“ooh, look what my iPad can do”), but the thing about non-gamers is that they’re… non-gamers, and they are usually non-gamers for a reason.  Sure, some gamers are buying those games, but the market for $5 iPad games isn’t sexy because of the relatively small proportion of people who have mobile devices who are also gamers.  It’s sexy because of how many people own smart phones (or will) in total.



Of course, predictions are hard and especially about the future, but my guess is that this is going to be another situation where game developers fall all over themselves to develop games for iOS and Android and mobile and touch devices generally and sooner or later find out that the vast majority of mobile users aren’t really that interested in Angry Birds: More than Ever or Infinity Blade 22 and really just want to play Words with Friends or post on Facebook.

All the while the faithful core gamers are left with less core content than if the silly game developers had just focused on their actual customers – you know the people buying stuff from them right now.

*Don’t get me wrong, I was among the throng that bit into the Wii craze and bought a PS Move.  I played it a couple of times with my family, but now I don’t know where it even is.
**I do not currently own a smartphone, but will get one sooner or later as there are some features I would like.  I don’t however see myself gaming on it very much as I find the touchscreen controls far too limiting and use cases as severely limited (how often am I in line at the post office?).