The Impact of Mobile Gaming in the Philippines

It is amazing how the smart phone has given a new light to mobile gaming. The fact that most of these games are free-mium (readily downloadable and playable for free but paying to play it will unlock features or boost the game in one way or another) make them more accessible for anyone with a smart phone.  Social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram play a big role for sharing and promoting these games so much that, in an instant, the whole internet knows about these games. Mobile game developers have also incorporated how having a lot of social media connections can be a help on your game progress.

Over the past years, several game titles for mobile have gone viral and remain popular up until today. Who can forget about Flappy Birds, Temple Run, and Candy Crush?  It has also given way for handheld remakes and spinoffs of popular flash games back from the days like Doodle God, Bowman, Tower Defense, and Bejeweled.  Even video game big players like Square Enix are porting over versions of Final Fantasy into the mobile game platform. Other big hits like Plants vs. Zombies and Facebook games are being created into mobile games as well. It also gives the independent game developer and smaller companies a window to sell their games.

Clash of Clan (CoC) is a mobile game developed by Supercell that is sweeping smart phone users in the Philippines. It has steadily climbed both AppleStore and Google Playstore as one of the highest grossing app. Globally launched in 2012, CoC is game wherein players will build and design their own base, train their own troops, and attack other players. The main goal of the game is to strengthen your own base and troops while enduring enemy attacks by upgrading them using gold that you can loot from other players when you attack. Sounds easy enough? Not really. There more to this game than its cool graphics, wonderful characters, and constant updating and game-play development that Filipinos are willing to spend their Globe, Sun, and Smart load on.

What’s really exciting about this mobile game that it draws in hardcore and casual gamers of different ages is that it a Massively Multiplayer Online Tower Defense game on the tip of your hand that you can play wherever you go, whenever you want to. The game also let you join a clan to participate in even crazier raid called Clan Wars. With this kind of social game play, the game spawned creations of Facebook groups where they can ask for help and request for troops from their clan members and discuss strategy. There are also growing Facebook pages, Wikis, Forum Communities, and YouTube channels dedicated in disseminating information about the game.

The game is such a success in the Philippines that even mobile internet data provider are offering promos that will maximize their customers’ prepaid credits (Globe load, Sun load and Smart load), giving them enough data for  playing the game while checking the internet for reference about the game.

Considering this kind of response for mobile gaming, we can only expect that the future of mobile gaming is shining bright for us.