Though mobile gaming isn’t the front runner in the medium, its future is promising. Yet despite all the hate it gets, many industry experts believe that mobile gaming is on track to see explosive growth in the coming years.

There Are More Potential Mobile Gamers Than Console Gamers

Assuming that a mobile game becomes popular, it can turn out to be more profitable than an equivalent console game. The greater the number of people playing your mobile game, the greater the revenue you can earn via player spending and running in-game ads. Despite this risk, many popular console titles such as League of Legends, Diablo, Apex Legends, and Just Cause are coming to mobile soon to capitalize on the growing number of mobile gamers. The apps above have anywhere from 50 million to one billion downloads on the Google Play Store.

Although downloads are a big variable, revenue earned also depends on other factors such as player retention, time spent in the game, the level of gamification, etc…

Microtransactions Enable Recurring Income

But many developers are immediately put off by the idea of not getting an upfront fee for their game. And although microtransactions have a bad rep in the gaming community, they help developers earn a recurring income, allowing for some much-needed stability. Since, traditionally, consoles games come with a one-time upfront fee, a key way for a developer to earn more from their game is to find new players. Knowing this, mobile games are a better long-term investment for developers.

Smartphones Are Getting More Powerful

A modern smartphone is already pretty powerful. And yet, smartphone OEMs surpass themselves each year with the launch of their new top-tier flagships carrying a faster processor. As this progress continues, developers will be able to create games with better graphics and more fluid controls. This will allow for an increasingly wider user base which in turn leads to higher revenue.

Things like a headphone jack, a built-in cooling system, shoulder triggers, and a dedicated gaming mode are very important to some gamers, especially those who play competitively.

5G Advancements to Mobile Gaming

5G is not the global standard for mobile networks yet. And even though its adoption is not going as fast as tech giants hoped, 5G has a lot to offer, especially to the mobile gaming industry. From faster download speeds to lower latency to shorter loading times to cloud gaming, 5G will help mobile games compete with console games.

A Wired article reports

This will allow developers to handle more arduous processing and rendering duties remotely, and stream a higher quality end result to players. 5G will help extend game demos to more games which will increase discoverability and allow you to find the games you like much faster.

Integration of AR and VR in Mobile Games

Alongside multiplayer experience, 5G will also improve and facilitate the integration of augmented reality and virtual reality on mobile games. If we want to enter the next era of AR and VR mobile games, we have to make 5G more accessible and affordable for everyone. After all, whether a mobile game becomes profitable depends highly on the number of downloads it has. Once developers solve these problems, more people will be willing to try out and adopt the technology.

Mobile Gaming Will Outdo Console Gaming

Mobile gaming in its current form is a work in progress. It will certainly take time for mobile games to look as good as console games.