The video games market has been going strong now for more than thirty years. In all it's history, there has never been such a huge change in the market as has been seen in the past few years. Entire new markets within the marketplace have opened up wide, and due to this a lot more people are firing up the latest game. Moreover, the types of video game selling well have shifted massively, and even their method of distribution has changed. Dont be fooled, much of this shifting has to do with a a mobile phone we call the iPhone.

 

The iPhone first caused a stir back in 2007, when it was first unveiled. A lot of people don't realise, however the iPhone did not launch with the ability to install third party games. There was no App Store, and no games. Apple saw the major magic of their new device as a way to surf the web whilst anywhere, and their initial marketing efforts was based on the 'desktop' browsing features that the iPhone had to offer.

 

It was more than a year until Apple introduced the iPhone App Store, a place where anybody could sell their software to any one of the many millions of iPhone users worldwide. It was made public along with the iPhone 3G, and meant a huge change in the way software was rolled-out to mobile devices. Never before had anyone attempted to centralise the process, providing a one-stop-shop where anybody could extend the functionality of their iPhone. Digital distribution in video gaming was almost unheard of, but the power of this model soon became apparant when combined with a device with an always-on data connection. What business wouldn't want to be accessible for sales 24-7, whilst being carried around in their customer's pockets all the time!

 

On it's launch the App Store had just 500 applications, and nobody could see the gaming potential of Apple's iPhone one bit. Fast forward to the closing days of 2008, and by this time games were the number one use for smart phones outside of actually making calls with the thing, sending emails, and texting. Mobile games had suddenly got bigger than any business application - the intended audience of smartphone devices!

 

Next, the iPhone rags to riches stories that we are so accustomed to read about now a days, were beginning to break.

 

The 1st person to make a lot of money via the App Store was a person called Steve Demeter. He spent just $5000 developing the game Trism. After his game released, he quickly made a quarter of a million dollars in profit in just 2 months!

 

Ethan Nicholas was struggling with mortgage invoices and medical bills when he read about Steve Demeter's success. He thought that even a little slice of such money could help him turn his life around, and worked day and night for 6 weeks to develop his first game, iShoot. Amateur though this title may seem by today's standards, he went on to sell over two million copies of this game at $2.99 a game!

 

More recently, the huge success of the best-selling iPhone game of all time has shown that these kinds of successes are still happening. Back in 2009 a struggling Finnish games company short of funds was in the throes of a make-or-break business plan, when one of their designers came up with the idea for some bird-like characters which they eventually built a game around. That game become Angry Birds, a sales phenomenon which has been downloaded over 40 million times! Angry Birds accounts for 200 million minutes of play worldwide, every single day!

 

Recently the 10 billionth app was downloaded from Apple's App Store, and guess what- it was a game! Her download of Paper Glider netted Gail Davis of the UK a $10,000 iTunes Gift card as a prize. Not bad considering it was a free game!

 

Growth in mobile gaming doesn't look set to stagnate any time soon. Google are shaping up to be a thorn in Apple's side, with their Android platform, and Microsoft have now entered to market with their Windows 7 Phone. One thing is for certain, it's a great time to be a mobile gamer.