Mobile Online Games: A Rising Trend

Online games. they've been here since the birth of the Web. Ever in the early Usenet, people have been itching to checkmate, shoot and frag others. Must’ve wanted a release from the raging flame wars back then.



One of the first online games I remember was chess. Too bad, I didn’t know how to play it. Luckily, games like Doom and Red Alert later came with an online play function, giving us countless hours of team matches in the college dorm room.



As I grew older, the evil game developers decided to come up with new games to fuel my game addiction. MMORPGS like Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies were born. I remember my Galaxies account as the first time I ever needed a credit card. Apparently, so did millions of other nerds, who never left their basements as a result (fortunately, I played in the attic. Ha! Take that fellow geeks!)



Those were the days when us gamers were shunned like lepers. Games were for geeks and nerds in their mom’s basements (at least I played in the attic). Then Flash came along. Thanks to our fellow geeks in Silicon Valley, games like Farmville, Mafia and Restaurant City became mainstream, games that our girlfriends would actually want to play.



By now I’ve tried almost all online games, from fragtastic matches on Quake to the irritating invites of Mafia Wars (yes, I finally gave in). Is there anything left?



Games for the mobile phone have been around for quite some time. I confess: I once reached 4,000 (yes, four thousand) on Nokia’s simple Snake game, the result of too much time and long bus rides to work. Now, there thousands of game apps available on Apple’s Store, as well as Blackberry, Palm and Android’s equivalents. And for smartphone users like me, that means even more lost time and a potentially longer bus ride… after missing the last several stops due to playing.



In fact, a lot of the games on my iPhone now come with a Wi-Fi matching system. These new games (ok, I admit I’m cheap – demo games) combine the iPhone’s nifty features (touchscreen and functionality) with social interaction. Bored in the subway? Fire up a foosball game. Instead of playing with the AI, I can beat other other players online using Wi-Fi (for some reason, most online players are always Asian). Other games even allow cross-functionality with games on social media. From time to time, the wife even snatches away my phone to check her Farmville on my screen. To think I even bought her a 24-inch monitor.



By far the coolest games have to be the online shooters, and I’m not just talking about a phone version of Counterstrike. They require players to actually hunt the "target" in the real world, and "snipe" them using the phone. I think this only works with the iPhone though, since it requires GPS to track players’ movements.



Online games are no longer limited to the keyboard. Whether you own an iPhone or Blackberry, you can expect more online games to crop up soon on your mobile. I wonder what’s next after that? Cross-platform online gaming? If so, sign me and my PC, iPhone and PSP up!

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