Gaming Studios are Going Mobile

A race for market share is leading to the acquisition of smaller studios, creating a five-horse race in mobile gaming

Dylan Hughes

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Man playing Fortnite on his smartphone
Photo by SCREEN POST on Unsplash

The increased performance of computers, consoles, televisions, and monitors has created a growing market of gamers over the past decade. When the pandemic hit, that market exploded.

While the entertainment industry at large suffered in 2020, anything and everything gaming was thriving.

With the pandemic mostly in the rear-view mirror now, some of those pandemic gamers are handing in their controllers for basketballs, pool noodles, and mugs of beer.

Game developers are having to adjust and have identified an area the global health outlook can’t impact much: mobile gaming.

Mobile-game revenue is projected to make up over half of total video game revenue in 2021. Revenues from PC and console gaming are expected to decline after 2020’s record year.

It makes sense, right? Everyone has a smartphone. With slow social events back in style as well as boring in-person meetings, humanity’s quick cure for boredom will once again become a crutch. For some, it’s Twitter. For others, it’s games.

Large developers such as Electronic Arts (EA), Take-Two Interactive, and Zynga are gobbling up smaller developers to increase their overall user base. EA has spent about $3.5 billion this year to acquire two studios: Playdemic and Glu Mobile.

Playdemic has just one title, but it’s a big one: “Golf Clash,” the top-grossing mobile sports game of the past year. Glu Mobile is a much larger operation and will diversify EA’s portfolio to a wider array of genres.

With technological advancements, popular games that were once bound to PC or console gameplay can now be enjoyed on smartphones. It’s a different experience, but the typical Call of Duty or Fortnite player can plug into their smartphone and connect to the same servers.

Activision Blizzard is the king of developers at this point, producing titles such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch. For mobile games, however, Zynga sits at no. 1.

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Dylan Hughes

Two-time self-development author writing on whatever interests me. Follow me on Instagram: chyaboidylan