Are mobile games disruptive?

I have written previously about the “rise of the mobile core” in China – traditional PC genres such as MOBA / MMO / FPS being fairly successfully converted to mobile.

With the launch success of Clash Royale (see my impressions here, here), I think 2016 could turn out to be the year that synchronous multiplayer games (what I will call “real multiplayer”) also come of age for mobile gamers outside of China.

If this does happen, I think it will be a big deal, as it could be an important data point to evaluate whether the mobile platform is a disruptive innovation on PC/consoles.

Minor aside: above I linked to the wikipedia entry on disruptive innovation, because the term has been used so much that its meaning is not so clear. The theory is actually quite strict as to what qualifies as disruptive innovation¹:

“Generally, disruptive innovations were technologically straightforward, consisting of off-the-shelf components put together in a product architecture that was often simpler than prior approaches. They offered less of what customers in established markets wanted and so could rarely be initially employed there. They offered a different package of attributes valued only in emerging markets remote from, and unimportant to, the mainstream.”

I believe mobile games have so far followed the theory here:

• They have focused on catering to previous non-gamers / casual gamers, and most of the early successes reflected this (Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, Flappy Birds)
• These games were simpler to play, and offered less complexity in the gameplay
• These games were generally looked down upon by core gamers

What gets interesting is what happens next. The disruption theory says that from this low market position, the new entrants are able to mount an attack on the establishment thanks to both product evolution (so they catch up in product experience) and their new attributes which the power users (core gamers) previously didn’t care about.

By the way, what are these “new attributes” for mobile? The obvious ones:

• Never before has there been a personal computer that literally everyone will own. This means that the ceiling for the network effects of a mobile game is theoretically the entire population, which previously has not been true. More concretely, this translates into benefits such as insanely fast match-making, always populated virtual worlds, and much larger social peer pressure (do you really want to be the one guy in your school not playing a particular game?)
• Mobile devices are always on, and people are glued to them. Proximity to other mobile apps, especially social apps, means that players can stay immersed in the game communities they care about (notifications, sharing achievements etc.)
• For developers, the app store infrastructure dramatically lowered the barriers to entry² and made it possible for very small teams to serve 100MM+ players (think Whatsapp / Supercell)

To be clear, there are already plenty of mobile games that appeal to core gamers: for example if you have ever had a friend addicted to Puzzle & Dragons and was trying to min-max the f2p progression, odds are that friend of yours is a pretty heavy gamer generally. It’s just that to date, most of these games have shied away from experiences that directly compete with PC/console³. Some of it was due to appealing to the “casual audience”, or technical limitations (e.g. unreliable network connection).

Another way to frame this: mobile games to date can be seen as mostly complementary experiences to core games – they generally avoided head-on competition, and instead tried to capture core gamers’ downtime with bite-sized entertainment; however, I believe going forward this is going to change to a more cannibalistic/competitive relationship, where just like a core gamer today needs to choose between playing League of Legends or the hot new game The Division, he/she will increasingly need to choose between a mobile game and a non-mobile one.

Core gamers will likely continue to ridicule Clash Royale for its lack of strategic depth, but I have a suspicion it is here to stay, and we will see more real-time PVP games like it. These games will offer gameplay that may be easier in terms of mechanical complexity, but can offer similar degrees of strategic complexity to PC/console titles. They will appeal both to “retiring” core gamers (like myself) and a younger generation native to mobile, and they may eclipse and push core gaming as we know it today into a niche.