The Advantages of Mobile Games to Mobile Operators
Mobiles have changed the way we play games. Playing games has become more like a hobby than a pastime, more people are now addicted to playing games on their phones. Mobile games are increasingly more popular, especially among kids and teenagers. As a result, more companies are now producing games specifically for mobiles.
A mobile game is basically a game that is usually played on a mobile device. The term also applies to all other games which are played either on any mobile device, such as cell phone, PDA, tablet, smartphone or even with a Bluetooth headset. The most popular mobile games include action, arcade, card, puzzle, simulation, timing and visual games. For the most part, the biggest audience for the majority of these games is teens and young adults although many adults enjoy playing some of them.
Games which are downloaded from the mobile apps store are called apps and can have different names according to the platform on which they are developed. An example of an app is the game of Chinese checker which is available on the Android and iPhone. This app has been developed in a programming language known as Android Native Programming and uses the Android APIs to interact with the devices. Another example is Angry Birds which was developed using an Adobe Flash program. The game was later made available on the iPhones and was immediately popular among a large audience who were using the iPhones.
App development companies are responsible for developing the mobile games and mobile operators are happy to have such companies because the revenues that they generate from the app stores are greatly enhanced by the game developer. This means that a big part of their operational budget is not spent on development alone but on marketing. They pay the mobile operator to promote the app store and the mobile games on their behalf. This enables the mobile operator to introduce more subscribers to the app store and generate higher profits as a result. Such is the case with mobile games developed by mobile operators.
Not all smartphone apps that are developed by app developers belong to the Google smartphone platforms. A very good example of this is the Facebook application developed by Facebook. It is not technically developed using the Google Android platform, but it does resemble the look and feel of Android so it is integrated into the Android system due to this reason. The app developer uses the popular Facebook APIs to interface with the device and to deliver features and functionality which are similar to the standard Android framework. Therefore, developers do not have to learn the programming language required for the Google Android platform.
Mobile operators have the ability to offer a large number of subscription options for the mobile games which are designed by Google, Apple or third-party app developers. The subscription model enables users to gain access to a wide variety of mobile games on pay per play basis. Users can thus test a number of mobile games before committing to buy them. In fact, the popularity of pay per play mobile games is on the rise, giving operators another way to monetize their subscription base.