If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the last year or two it’s that games make the mobile world go round. Although messenger apps, social media portals and tools to make our lives easier are all great, none of them can compete with games when it comes to popularity, abundance and review.
In fact, according to a review by App Annie, 85% of all app market revenue was generated by games in 2015. Taking this into account, alongside predictions that app revenue in general will reach $101 billion by 2020, App Annie’s researchers believe mobile games could be worth $74.6 billion by the same year.
However, what this research seems to overlook is the browser-based mobile gaming market. Although the browser vs. app debate has been done to death over the last decade, it’s an argument worth visiting in the context of the gaming market. With more people playing mobile games than ever before, a natural question arises: which medium is best?
Apps are Top for Revenue and Accessibility
From a financial standpoint, it’s clear apps have the advantage given the recent statistics. Apps also offer a more immediate way to play. However, where these products often fall down is memory requirements. There’s no doubt the top mobile games look fantastic, but to power these games you need a lot of processing power. On top of this you need the physical storage space to download the game as well as an ongoing series of updates.
For users with an older device or one that’s already full, this can become restrictive. For example, the UFC mobile game by EA sports requires 641MB of storage space. Not only that, but the moment you access the game, it asks for permission to download 138MB of updates. OK, so that’s not the end of the world for someone with 64GB of storage, but this is only a single game. Add nine more games like that and things start to look very different.
In this instance, browser-based games offer the perfect solution. If someone wanted to test out one of the latest innovations in the iGaming world – live dealer casino tables – the most efficient method would be to use a browser-based platform with a mobile optimized site. Now, if you read more about live dealer tables, you’ll know that they use HD webcams to stream live games to online players. For example, at BitCasino, a player not only has the ability to place bets using bitcoin (an online cryptocurrency) but can do it with the help of a real person.
Mobile Sites are the Answer to Quality Issues
Whether the player is sitting down at one of the site’s live roulette tables or watching cards being dealt and shown on screen with the help of RFID chips, all the action plays out in real time. As you’d expect, for these games to run smoothly, everything from the operator’s servers to the user’s device needs to be capable of processing streams without a delay. Because of these demands, online casinos tend to offer mobile optimized sites. Although there are apps that can cope with live dealer games, they are resource heavy and that means older devices struggle to get the best out of them.
Indeed, this seems to be the biggest argument for using mobile sites over apps and why the market will always remain divided. Even as technology improves and devices become more capable of processing large amounts of data, so too will games improve. These new games will require even more storage space or processing power and it becomes a never-ending game of cat and mouse.
So, while it’s great that mobile gaming apps are reaching new heights, that doesn’t mean the death of mobile sites. As long as operators continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible, there will always be a need for both mediums in the ever-growing world of mobile games.
