The computer games industry has been going strong now for more than 30 years. However times are changing, there has never been such a massive change in the industry as we have seen in the recent past. Whole new sub-markets within the market have appeared over night, and because of this more people are firing up the latest game. Whats more, the types of game selling well have changed dramatically, and even the way they are delivered and consumed has changed. Dont be fooled, a huge amount of this shifting has to do with a little device we call the iPhone.
The iPhone first made ripples back in 2007, when it was first released. A lot of people don't remember, however the iPhone did not launch with the ability to install 3rd party software. There was no App Store, and no games. Apple saw the primary magic of their new device as a way to surf the web whilst away from home, indeed their initial marketing efforts was based on the 'desktop' internet features that the iPhone had to offer.
It was over a year until Apple introduced the iPhone App Store, a place where any Tom, Dick or Harry could sell their software to any one of the millions of iPhone enthusiasts the world over. It was made public along with the iPhone 3G, and meant a unprecedented change in the way software was sold to mobile phones. Never before had anyone attempted to centralise the purchasing process, essentially providing a one-stop-shop where anybody could extend the functionality of their phone. Digital distribution in video gaming was pretty much unheard of, but the potential of this business model soon became apparant when coupled with a device with a ubiquitous data connection. What industry wouldn't want to be open for sales 24-7, whilst being carried around in their customer's pockets all the time!
On it's launch the App Store offered only 500 apps, and nobody saw the gaming potential of Apple's iPhone one bit. But move forward to the closing days of 2008, and by this time games were the most popular use for smartphones outside of actually making calls with the thing, email, and texting. Mobile games had suddenly got bigger than any business application - the intended audience of smartphone devices!
Sure enough, the iPhone rags to riches stories that we are so used to read about now a days, were beginning to break.
The 1st person to make a lot of money via the App Store was a person called Steve Demeter. His initial investment in developing his first game, Trism, was just $5000. After his game released, he at record speed accumulated a quarter of a million dollars in profit in just 2 short months!
Ethan Nicholas was having a hard time with mortgage invoices and medical bills when he read about Steve Demeter's success. He decided that even a tiny slice of that kind of success could help him turn his life around, and worked flat-out for 6 weeks to release his first game, iShoot. Amateur though this title may seem by today's standards, he went on to sell over 2 million copies of this game at $2.99 a piece!
More recently, the huge success of the best-selling iPhone game of all time has shown that these kinds of successes are still happening. Back in 2009 a struggling Finnish games company short of funds was in the throes of a make-or-break business plan, when one of their designers came up with the idea for some bird-like characters which they eventually built a game around. That game become Angry Birds, a sales phenomenon which has been downloaded over 40 million times! Angry Birds accounts for 200 million minutes of play worldwide, every single day!
Recently the 10 billionth app was downloaded from Apple's App Store, and guess what- it was a game! Her download of Paper Glider netted Gail Davis of the UK a $10,000 iTunes Gift card as a prize. Not bad considering it was a free game!
Growth in mobile gaming doesn't look set to stagnate any time soon. Google are shaping up to be a thorn in Apple's side, with their Android platform, and Microsoft have now entered to market with their Windows 7 Phone. One thing is for certain, it's a great time to be a mobile gamer.
