Mobile games are popular because they’re easy to play anywhere, anytime on your smartphone, and they’re perfect for the short attention spans of today’s busy people. Simple controls and short play times that are easily accessible to people of all ages are the main reasons why simple games have become the long-term favorites in the mobile gaming market instead of complex ones.

Today, like any other day, I turned on my smartphone and started browsing through the Play Store, which is full of mobile games. As you scroll through the various games ranked from #1 to #500, you’ll notice that while many games come and go from the top of the charts, the ones that stay there for a long time are all simple to play. As games have evolved to better represent reality in other games, why is it that mobile games seem to be going against the grain?
Simple games dominate the mobile gaming market
Whether it’s PC or console gaming, games with better graphics, more expansive stories, and flashier effects are the ones that are gaining traction, and development continues to move in that direction. If you look at games like GTA or Diablo, their sequels have even better graphics. This means that high graphical quality is essential for a game to stand out in the PC gaming market. These games usually have a huge amount of content, and there’s a lot of character movement and other factors to take into account in order to enjoy all that goodness. With the advent of smartphones, we’re now able to run PC-quality games on our phones. So, shouldn’t the mobile gaming market be seeing the same kind of demand for high-end games as PC gaming?
In the mobile gaming market, a lot of games are created and released, but only 5% of them last more than a month. The games that have survived for a long time include “Cookie Run,” where you control running cookies to score points, “Candy Crush Saga,” a puzzle game where you reposition candies to complete missions, and “Clash of Clans,” where you draw units to plunder enemy resources, all of which can be played with simple controls. When we say simple, we mean that it takes a small number of actions to complete a stage. In particular, a recent game called “1 Minute RPG” is a text-only mud game, which is the ultimate game where you can achieve all the content with just a few clicks, but it has even reached the top of the mobile game rankings.
Before the rise of mobile gaming, these games were looked down upon as old-fashioned, flash games, and only a few people played them, but with mobile gaming, they have become games that are played by millions of people.

Simplicity in the mobile gaming market: a short time

Why have we fallen in love with simple games that we ignored on PC? The main reason is the purpose of the users who play mobile games. Modern people are short on time. Students are juggling school and tutoring, college students are juggling classes and assignments, and working people are juggling commuting and work. With such a tight schedule, sitting in front of a computer to play games is a burden.
But what about mobile gaming? Just because you have a job doesn’t mean that all your time is spent working. There’s also downtime, such as breaks between work and traveling. Mobile games have found their place in the gaps between work and travel. When people have free time, they can easily access mobile games by turning on their mobile phones, which are always with them. They’ll play mobile games to have fun and relieve stress. However, in order to get the most fun and stress relief in their spare time, they need to finish the game within a short period of time and see the results. This inevitably leads to mobile games being organized into separate stages. Mobile games with small stages require simple controls. The short timeframe means that complex controls will only make the game less effective. As a tool for entertainment, mobile games that dominate our time are simple enough to fulfill their purpose with moderate graphics and simple controls.

Simplicity in the mobile gaming market: shifting gender ratios

In a market that used to boast colorful graphics, gaming was almost exclusively thought of as a man’s game. So much so that women sitting in PC cafes were looked upon as a novelty, and the number of female users who played games was far less than their male counterparts. However, as smartphone penetration in South Korea is expected to reach 95% by 2024, the gender gap in the mobile gaming market is not as large as it used to be. In fact, women spend more money per month on mobile games in Korea, making them an important part of the mobile gaming market. So why have women been underrepresented in the gaming market?
To become a user of a game, you have to start playing it. However, other gaming markets have evolved so much to suit the tastes of their customers that there is a disconnect between first-time users, especially women who have never played games before. This is often referred to as a barrier to entry, and in a market that’s all about high specs and a lot of consideration to achieve in-game goals, it’s hard for women to break through.
On the other hand, the mobile game market has not been active for a long time, so there are many different games. Among them, games with simple operations that are easy to start have become popular not only among men, but also among women and older people, and have been popular for a long time.
Today’s mobile gaming market is experiencing a “retro craze” where simple games that were popular in the early days are making a comeback. In the digital market, where the world is changing every day, the ‘retro craze’ of simple mobile games is an attempt to encompass both new and old generations, men and women. In addition, in our tired lives where we always have to do ‘something’, games for stress relief have been interpreted as something that is beneficial to work and something that eats up time. However, mobile games have overcome this and have become a natural part of our daily lives because of their simplicity and shortness.

The interaction between smartphone technology and mobile games

The evolution of smartphone technology has had a huge impact on the evolution of mobile games. From the simple text-based games of the early days, we now have games that utilize AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) technologies. Games like Pokémon Go are blending the real and virtual worlds to create new experiences for users and expand the possibilities of mobile gaming. However, despite these technological advances, games with simple controls and short play times are still popular. This is because users prefer games that are easy to access and play anytime, anywhere.
Simplicity is what made all this possible, but the results are no longer simple. The mobile gaming market is constantly changing and evolving to meet the needs of its users. We can’t wait to see where the mobile gaming market goes from here.