Gaming on smartphones has changed a lot over the years. While you could be forgiven for thinking that things have moved on little from the days of Doodle Jump or Fruit Ninja – in fact, advancements in hardware and investment by developers has made it a hugely respected and viable gaming platform to rival anything else out there.
All told there are over half a million games to explore and play on the leading mobile operating systems of Android and iOS – so many that you could question why anyone would ever need to look elsewhere for quality gameplay experiences.
But unfortunately not all of these games are of the same quality. In fact, many are little more than cheap knock-offs of better known and more polished titles. So-called “shovelware” is one of the perennial problems with game discovery on the app stores, and while both Apple and Google do their utmost to police their libraries and root out low quality apps – it’s always going to be an uphill battle.
There’s another reason why the rich selection of games the app stores represent may not satisfy every would-be gamer, and that’s down to policy. Understandably, the app stores have clearly defined rules about what sorts of games they offer and while this is noble and assists in ensuring quality throughout, it does mean that certain game types end up being disproportionately underrepresented on them.
So where does that leave you, as a gamer that wants to make the most of their device for entertainment, but finds the app stores coming up short on worthwhile gaming experiences? If you fall into this camp, consider these alternatives below.
Browser-Based Gaming
Long before people played casual games through apps, generations of gamers surfed the open internet for hidden treasure. There, one could find richly populated portals of indie and casual games, all running on the since expired animation codec, Macromedia Flash.
While Flash became officially consigned to history in 2020, its successor HTML5 is still alive and kicking, as are many of the sites that made their name in the Flash era. Newgrounds and Kongregate are perhaps the two most storied, and they’re fully worth your time today if you want to see the true diversity of gaming you can encounter online. The beauty of the smartphone, after all, is that it’s actually just a pocket computer, replete with its own web browser that can easily access these sites today.
Browser gaming is also chiefly home of the online casino sector, making it the best way to access and play leading card and table titles on your smartphone today. There are a wide array of reputable platforms such as PokerStars Casino on which one can access a growing selection of variants on classics like blackjack, or try one’s hand at novel live dealer titles and digital slots. Most leading providers, such as these, come with full mobile optimisations meaning that even if they ply their offerings without an app, their mobile sites run smoothly and capably on all smartphones.
Subscriber Libraries
Increasingly, services offering gaming to the smartphone sector are taking a leaf out of the playbook of over-the-top subscription services like Netflix in order to serve up curated selections of games to explore.
These came in many shapes and sizes to suit different tastes. For example, the cloud gaming sector is truly one to watch. These refer to platforms that enable games to stream titles to their devices from server-side gaming rigs. As all the legwork of running the game is done before it hits your device, you’re freed up to play games that would never be able to run natively on even the most powerful smartphone today. The cloud features that come bundled with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, for example, will permit you to play the likes of Halo: Infinite and Forza Motorsport right from your device.
Apple has also got into the curated gaming space with its Apple Arcade service. For a nominal monthly fee, it grants you access to a special selection of leading iOS store app games, alongside a growing catalogue of first party exclusive titles like Japanese Rural Life Adventure. The best part? You can play Apple Arcade games across any device in the Apple ecosystem.