Real-time communication in mobile gaming allows players to connect live with one another through their gaming apps. Text chats let participants comment on live videos or interact with one another in a sidebar chatroom while playing card games. Voice chats take the functionality of real-time communication to another level, injecting more emotion and excitement into the experience. Furthermore, including real-time communications within your games can give you a powerful opportunity to stay at the forefront of mobile app development.
Real-Time Competition Adds Excitement
Integrating real-time communication with mobile gaming allows players to engage in a fresh new way. Where battles with a computer-generated opponent can eventually fall flat, competition with real-life rivals may work better to keep players engaged over the long term. The element of competition is enhanced when players can communicate with each other, offering challenges and providing a more immersive experience for one another.
On mobile devices, this level of communication is something users are coming to expect. With apps like Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts, and FaceTime keeping mobile users in near-constant contact with one another, it only makes sense to extend that functionality into the gaming space.
Personal Communication Boosts Social Appeal
Video games provide a key landscape for bonding, particularly among teenage boys. Prior to the advent of modern connectivity, gamers were confined to in-person interactions. These are still popular with 91% of teenage boys playing video games with others in the same room. However, the readily available virtual landscape opens a whole new world of additional possibilities.
About 72% of teens play video games on some type of device, and 75% of these teen gamers play with others online. These gamers use real-time communication features to connect to a wide range of people. While 89% of teens play with friends whom they know in person, 54% play with people they only know online. Over a third of teens have met new friends online while playing video games.
Adding real-time communication features to mobile games will allow players to connect with these friends from not only their living room gaming systems but also their cell phones, which are readily accessible almost anywhere. With the right technology to support live-communication features in mobile games, the alluring social appeal of interactive gaming fits into the palm of the hand.
Efficient Communication Enhances Collaboration
Real-time communication makes it possible for players to collaborate in multiplayer games like PUBG or Call Of Duty Mobile in fresh new ways. You can work together to slay the monster, solve puzzles, or go on out-of-this-world adventures. Even simpler gaming experiences, like HQ Trivia, can benefit from collaboration. In select rounds, the mobile-trivia behemoth allows players to compare answers with their friends for a last-second weigh-in on which answer is best.
Mobile Gaming Is Poised for Growth
The mobile-gaming industry offers massive opportunities for growth among those innovative enough to capture a share of the market. In 2017, mobile-gaming apps accounted for more than 80% of total app revenue in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store (iOS). Mobile-gaming revenue is expected to increase to $72 billion by 2020. Candy Crush Saga alone rakes in over $800 million in annual revenue.
It seems like common sense that the popularity of mobile devices and video games would eventually combine. But you may be surprised at the profile of the average mobile gamer. The majority of mobile gamers are female. 60% of these female gamers play mobile games every day. The social factor is important to women when they’re discovering new games. About 20% of women discover new games through social networks, and nearly 40% find new games through friends and family.
Adding real-time communication to mobile games may further enhance the social appeal of gaming for women. With a largely female audience to cater to, it’s important for developers to think about what women may want from the gaming experience.
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