• by Josh Lovison , November 9, 2007

Who has the time for casual gaming? With schedules micromanaged to the minute, many people just don't have time to sit down, relax, and play a round of "Bejewled." Oh, sure, some housewives might have the leisure time when the kids are at school, but what about the rest of humanity? How can we game when we're always on the go?

To some extent, I'm simply being facetious, but the underlying point is serious. Casual gaming is really best delivered to mobile devices. The DS entered the "casual" household before the Wii, with games like Brain Age and some of the puzzle games such as Meteos. The DS killer for the casual market is not the PSP -- though Sony would love for this to be so -- but the mobile phone.

Burger King recently announced plans to develop branded games for the mobile platform centered around the company's King character, similar to the very successful games it created for the Xbox. Mobile gaming is on the cusp of a golden era, as is the mobile platform in general. Currently, the biggest issue facing the platform in regards to gaming is the lack of standardization. One phone might want a game written in Java, another on the BREW platform, and yet another a Windows Mobile program. Then there is the issue of the phone display -- what's the resolution, or the processor and memory capacities of the phone?

It's possible that some of the speculation about Google's releasing a new and open platform based on linux will change the market if it proves to be accurate and successful. The industry is familiar with the overall issue, and is working on it. The market today for apps isn't terrible, just in an adolescence. And once this industry grows into itself, and loses the pimples, it's going to be a beauty. And I don't doubt that some major players in game development will get in on the action.

Anyone ready for a round of "Halo RPG" on the phone? (For those not in the know, this is a reference to the best mobile game I've yet played, which was a reworking of the mechanics of "Doom" by Id Software called "Doom RPG").