Gamers were once a more solitary lot than they are today. Thankfully the horrible old stereotype of gamers being lonely men who play from dank basement rooms is long gone. The gamers of today are multicultural, many gendered, modern human beings who want to get the most from their gaming experience.
When mobile gaming entered the chat, it changed the gaming world forever. What used to require gamers to come together in a LAN now only required the touch of a button and a device so tiny that it could fit into your pocket. Online technology has come a long way since its inception too. Where once games lagged and froze, they now play far more smoothly and with no irritating connection drops, and this applies to mobile gaming too. The devices themselves have evolved as well.
Instead of needing a full gaming setup, you can now carry only a smartphone and still get a sharp, well-rendered experience every time you play. When a sector evolves, those within the sector must evolve with it or find themselves out in the cold, so to speak. And gamers have indeed evolved in the way they play and connect.
These days, mobile gaming apps offer not only the chance to play a game that will sharpen skills or while away some free time, but they also offer a chance to connect with other gamers from all over the world. Mobile gaming means that gamers from opposite sides of the globe can play together and be in contact at any time of the day or night. What does this mean for gaming, gamers and the sector? Let’s find out.
Together But Far Apart
Thanks to the wonder of technology, gamers have more access to the games they love and to each other than ever before. The people of the world wake and sleep in different timezones, which means, whatever the time of day or night where you are, there’s probably going to be someone somewhere who’s awake and ready for a round or two of your favorite game.
Gamers don’t have to wait during their bus commute or twiddle their thumbs over lunchtime, wishing the hours away until they can get home to finish that next level. They have access to both the games they love and each other, even if they only have a 15-minute ride time available in which to play.
Multiplayer games offer gamers the opportunity not only to connect with each other and learn about different kinds of people but also to sharpen skills that can help them a lot in their work and personal lives. There are different benefits to be reaped from different kinds of games, of course.
For example, if you like playing combat games, then you are likely to sharpen your teamwork and delegation skills before anything else. You need to make sure that each member of the unit knows what they’re responsible for and make sure that everyone has their back covered at all times.
If you play word games with your friends, you’ll be sharpening your language skills and cognitive abilities, as well as critical thinking. You need to figure out what words can fit where or how you can make a high-scoring word out of the letter that you have, and you need to do it as a team.
If you’re playing a survival game or even a life simulator like the classic Sims, your interpersonal and social skills will be sharpened without you even knowing it’s happening. The idea that socializing can only happen in person is so 2020!
Social skills are now deployed online at least as much as they are in person, so online is a perfectly valid place to exercise and hone them. Gaming was once seen by most of the world as only a hobby, and not a particularly cool or useful one at that, but things have changed a lot over the last few decades and the industry is better for it.
Multiplayer mobile gaming apps offer a framework for all of these things: connection, learning and creation. Without the apps that offer us these opportunities, we would still be in a far less sophisticated age of gaming and connection. These days you can play with and learn from people whose cultures, mindsets and skills you would otherwise never have been exposed to.
The world is brought closer together by online gaming and multiplayer gaming apps, and we are offered a far more diverse group of people to befriend. Though some say that the world is shrinking, we believe it is opening up and becoming far more accessible, just as gaming now is to millions of people who own smartphones instead of traditional gaming setups or consoles.
Wrap Up
Gaming, particularly multiplayer gaming, and connection are inextricably linked these days. Whether you play with friends or strangers, mobile gaming keeps you connected to them in meaningful and exciting ways. Who knows what we can expect as AR and VR become more and more a part of these industries too?