Like many things in our lives, the choice between mobile apps and websites for gaming depends on cost, usability, required features, but mainly our personal preference. Gaming insiders tell us that users prefer mobile gaming apps over mobile websites. However, this blanket statement is not the whole story. While it makes for a robust augment favouring mobile apps, so-called insiders don’t know everything.
Here’s the thing, gaming has never been as popular as it is now; as a fan, I can verify there’s nothing more annoying than being unable to play whenever and wherever I want.
Read on to find out whether an app or browser is better for gaming. The results may surprise you.
Mobile Apps are Personal
Marketing is all about personalisation, tailored communication direct to the user based on their genre interests, location and usage behaviour. Gaming is no different, and a mobile gaming app can let the user set up their preferences. Companies producing games can offer gamers customised content that will enhance engagement and provide geography-specific content based on the user’s location.
Mobile Device Features
Mobile apps have the advantage of encompassing all the features of a mobile device. You can use your camera, send a message to your contact list, GPS, talk and play phone calls, compass, and direct social media access, making the experience interactive and fun.
More importantly, these features reduce the efforts gamers would have to make to match the engagement through a browser. The mobile phone features can significantly shorten the time it takes gamers to perform a specific task allowing for more time spent in the game.
Offline Ability
One of the essential points of this contest is that a mobile application can efficiently work offline by self-managing with updates as soon as a network connection is available, making gaming possible even without a signal.
Additionally, playing offline allows increased performance because no reaching out for a server means no waiting time for server response. Content updates can happen while browsing through the application, which provides the game with a better experience.
Apps Work Faster Than Websites
A well-designed game played on a mobile app can perform quicker than mobile browsers. Apps store their data locally on mobile devices; thus, data retrieval happens quickly in mobile apps making the experience inclusive. Gaming apps can also save time by remembering their user’s preferences and taking proactive actions on the users’ behalf.
Good Looking Interface
There are no visual restraints with an app, whereas there are with browsers. For instance, a browser is limited by a navigation bar – a feature that must be included on every responsive website displayed on mobile. Features like a navigation bar are unavoidable for a browser game but don’t have to be included on an app. This means apps have more flexibility when designing an interface and more room on the application screen for customisation. As a result, apps are better for creating a more immersive gaming experience.
Javascript Slows Down Play
There is also a technical reason as to why mobile apps can work faster than a browser. Mobile websites use javascript to perform most of their functions, javascript is a code, but you guys know that! Meaning the framework that mobile gaming apps use can run almost five times faster than anything using a javascript code!
While all this is background stuff, mobile users get to complete actions quicker on the front-end of mobile apps, contributing to an improved user experience as there’s no pause to play.
Mobile App vs Mobile Site For Gaming
Developing both a mobile app and a mobile website for your game can prove to be costly. While both have their pros and cons, significantly, mobile apps can help you enjoy greater personalisation and operational efficiency, along with lots and lots of other exclusive features.
It’s also true that casual games are run better in a browser window, and most mobile games out there are casual. People don’t generally engage them for hours as they do with multiplayer online games on laptops or PCs.
If gamers seek quick action and fast, easily accessible entertainment that doesn’t require commitment, mobile browser games make a perfect choice, pick up and play, no obligation required. This type of gaming is more of a pre-game snack than a main meal.
The Burning Question – Which one is better?
The best answer to this question is not really an answer; it’s another question. You need to ask yourself: “what do you want from your game”?. So the answer has to be; it depends on the app’s complexity and the processing power necessary to run it. It also depends on what you want from your experience. Let’s not forget the practical point which makes all this analysis useless – if you don’t have a good enough device to run the game on the whole exercise is futile anyway.
