How Smartphones Have Redefined Gaming in the 2020s
Once upon a time playing games required effort. Not Olympic level effort but some effort. You had to sit down properly, maybe even negotiate the family TV and if you were playing on a PC there was always a chance some sprawling update would take an age to download before you could even start. It was an event.
Now the ritual is gone. No need to turn on the console, no cables to untangle, no save files to load. The game is already in your pocket, between your contacts and your banking app, waiting to be tapped into with a few swipes of the screen.
And tapped in it is. All the time. Waiting for a bus? Have a go at a puzzle game. Lunch break at work? A quick battle royale won’t hurt. Watching TV? Well, it’s just background noise anyway—you can squeeze in a few levels of something mindless.
Gaming used to be an activity you did with purpose. Now it’s something you drift into absent-mindedly like scrolling through the news or checking if anyone’s texted you (they haven’t).
A Casino, a Football Pitch and a Battlefield in Your Pocket
If video games used to be the preserve of the enthusiasts—the ones who queued up at midnight for new releases or spent an evening adjusting their gaming chair just so—then smartphones have turned the whole thing on its head. The barriers to entry have fallen away. You no longer need a big PC or the latest console. You don’t even need a dedicated controller.
And so gaming is now for everyone. Not just those who grew up with it but your mum, your neighbour, the colleague who still uses two fingers to type. A whole generation of people who would never have called themselves “gamers” now rack up hours in mobile games without thinking twice.
It helps that there’s a game for every kind of person. If you want to speed through a neon city in a sports car you’ll never be able to afford in real life, you can. If you want to build a little farm and potter about harvesting digital crops, that’s an option too. And if you fancy a reliable online casino gaming experience with live dealers, themed slots and, if you’re lucky, the odd win to keep you coming back for more, there are entire platforms dedicated to that very thing. The casino is no longer a physical place. It’s an app, a notification, a series of increasingly enticing offers.
But here’s the thing about smartphone gaming—it never really stops. It doesn’t respect the old playtime boundaries. There’s no “game over”, no satisfying moment where you put the controller down and call it a day. Instead there’s always another match, another daily challenge, another reason to keep going.
The Business of Never Stopping
Of course, none of this is an accident. The people making these games don’t really care if you play for a bit and then move on with your life. They want you hooked, coming back again and again, because that’s where the money is.
And money is the key word here. In the 2020s, the most successful games aren’t the ones that cost £50 upfront; they’re the ones that are “free”. Free to download, free to play, but certainly not free to fully enjoy.
It starts subtly. Perhaps there’s a level that takes a bit too long to beat, or a reward that’s just out of reach. But look. You could speed things up, get that special item, skip the grind—all for a few quid.
It’s clever, really. If you’d been asked to spend £20 on a mobile game you’d have laughed. But spend a few pounds here, a few more there? It doesn’t feel like spending at all. And before you know it you’ve spent more than you would have ever done on a traditional game, all without really meaning to.
The Rise of Mobile Esports
For a long time, competitive gaming was the domain of those with powerful PCs, ergonomic chairs and an encyclopaedic knowledge of hotkeys. The idea of playing an esport on a smartphone would have been laughable. And yet here we are.
Games like PUBG Mobile and Clash Royale have become big business. There are international tournaments, sponsorship deals and professional players who make more in a year than most people will in a lifetime. It’s gaming but not as you once knew it. The stereotype of a lone teenager playing in a darkened bedroom doesn’t apply here. These are stadiums full of spectators, commentators analysing every move, the whole thing streamed live to millions of fans.
AI and the Future of Mobile Gaming
If the 2020s have shown us anything it’s that AI is seeping into everything. Mobile gaming is no exception.
Already AI is being used to create smarter opponents, tweak game difficulty on the fly and even generate entire in-game worlds. At first glance it all seems rather helpful. Games that adapt to your skill level? Brilliant. Worlds that feel alive and unpredictable? Fantastic.
But then comes the creepy bit. What happens when AI isn’t just part of the game but the game itself? We’re already seeing AI-generated art and dialogue in mobile games. How long before entire games are created by algorithms, not for artistic merit but for engagement metrics?
It’s not that these games will be bad. It’s that they’ll be too good—too perfectly designed to keep you playing, keep you spending, keep you in an endless loop of dopamine hits and carefully crafted challenges.
By podcast24.co.uk - Published 3/3/2025
Updated 3/3/2025
