Set to surpass a market value of $136 billion in 2022, mobile gaming is no longer a side of the handheld market that can be denied. Finding its place in entertainment, the popularity of mobile gaming has expanded far beyond its launching place. Affecting many parts of the total mobile ecosystem, mobile gaming is responsible for considerable shifts in how users engage with new technologies like mobile payments and transactions. While unintentional, the results of this introduction laid the framework for our current environment, and whatever is to come.
Building a Foundation
The very first mobile games arrived in the mid-1990s, with a form of Tetris pre-installed on a device named the Hagenuk MT-2000 in 1994. Many other usually brick-based games would follow, though these were limited by the features of these early systems. It wasn’t until the popularisation of the smartphone with Apple’s iPhone in 2007 that mobile systems would offer more robust potential.
With the iPhone, and the smartphone market that trailed, mobiles became not just capable for users, but also an unprecedented new market for developers to target. Limited as they were as tools at this historic point, they were extremely well-suited to gaming. Players had already grown acclimated to mobile gaming via systems like the Game Boy, so taking the step onto a mobile was a natural evolution of the concept.
Opening Payment as an Option
Gaming on mobile set the world on fire with titles like Angry Birds and Candy Crush Saga. These were simple titles, but they leveraged mobile technology to a fantastic degree. Combined with ease of access, they had a basic framework from which to build. The question was, how would they monetise this framework?
At the time, full-priced games on smartphones were rare, and the undeveloped nature of the market meant that few users were willing to make such a leap. Instead, developers turned to what is now called free-to-play (F2P). F2P offered access and many features without payment while letting players drop small transactions on bonuses like energy refills for continued and longer play.
Starting Small
In terms of introductions for users into the mobile payment space, starting small acted as the perfect push. Small steps rather than huge leaps made this move more palatable, leading greater portions of the population to take notice. Over time, the security of these payment systems became similarly well known. Mobile payments were safe, they were easy, and they had found a way into the technological zeitgeist.
Over the years, these would combine with a wide range of other industries already popular on traditional desktop and laptop internet to raise the profile of all online industries to new heights. The best trading platforms are strong examples of this, extending their capacities into even more mobile spaces. With these services offering the same advantages like low minimum deposits and platform fees, and a huge range of tools, diversifying into more systems has helped all sides achieve sustainable growth.
While only one part of the online business world, gaming and its relationship with mobile online payments is still an important one. Though payment system integration into the mobile space was inevitable, gaming as a starting point helped accelerate the process, and ease users in. Even for those not interested in gaming, thanks have to go to this arm of digital technology, for all that it has done and continues to do.
