The gaming industry has come a long way since Pong was launched in 1972. It seems incredible now that it caused such a stir. Two on-screen paddles were used to volley a hardly spherical ball backward and forwards. It started as an arcade game manufactured by Atari and in 1975, they launched it as a console game that could be played at home.
For a long time, this was the way with video games. A title would be developed for the arcade and transfer to the console. Sega who was predominately an arcade games manufacturer went head-to-head with Nintendo in the original battle of the consoles. Super Mario was Nintendo’s star player up against Sega’s spinning blue Sonic The Hedgehog. Microsoft and Sony entered the arena next with Xbox and PlayStation and it is the PlayStation that remained the all-time best seller. Gaming was a relatively solitary experience and games came in the form of a cartridge that was inserted into a console.
Nintendo were the pioneers in the nascent mobile gaming industry when they brought the Gameboy to the market. This small handheld 8-bit console was launched in Japan in 1989. Each game was its own cartridge, and overtime saw many incarnations and innovations.
Mobile consoles were all the rage, Mario Kart had crossed over to handheld and another popular game was Tetris. However, it was the rage for collecting Pokémon that saw a massive uplift in the clunky little fold-up console. Then in 1997, Nokia released cell phones with the simple game Snake as part of the operating system It was hard to imagine that mobile phones were going to shake up the gaming industry forever.
The advances of both the internet and then the mobile phone network brought massive changes to the gaming experience. It soon became possible to simply download a game to a device rather than relying on a CD-ROM or cartridge to install the game.
In 2007 Apple launched the iPhone and this was to change everything. Angry Birds was the first game on a mobile phone to go viral. While it was a simplistic version of video gaming compared to the complex worlds on offer on fixed consoles and PCs, it became the go-to game that everyone was playing everywhere. It was a free game that created an enormous media franchise. Candy Crush Saga in 2012 was the first game to popularize limited plays and in-app purchases for more chances to play. Essentially people were offered bonus plays and prizes which could not be achieved through free play alone.
This became the standard that is now commonplace in most online gaming environments – download a playing experience for free but to get more out of the game and unlock particular features you need to make a purchase. Mobile gambling games have followed this route to success. Whether on Apple or Android casino and gambling apps are widely available and free to download. While you need to register an account and deposit money to play there are also plenty of ways to make your initial stake go further. Many online casinos offer bonus codes and if you find them you can have even more fun without having to pay out any extra cash. Keep your eyes out for the best casino bonuses from free spins to matched deposits and cash bonuses.
Online gaming also moved gaming away from a solitary experience to a sociable one with players being able to hook up with their friends via Discord as they played on their consoles or gaming pc. Other games such a Minecraft were all about the social experience, with people meeting up with friends or making new ones across a wide range of servers and goalless games. Once the perceived preserve of adolescent boys, online gaming is now enjoyed by all ages and genders.