Phones are, if you didn't know, the most popular gaming platform in the world. But for gamers, or anybody that calls themself a gamer, phone games have a reputation for being 'fake games' in that they're underbaked, over-monetized versions of 'real' games you can find on PC and console. When mobile phones were a lot less powerful back in the day, this was certainly true, but is this still a fact of life today in 2023?
Not to worry, because in this article we'll tell you whether or not gaming on your phone is worse than gaming on PC or console.
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Phone Games Can Be Real Games
There's this idea out there that phone games are, still, on the level of Bejeweled and Temple Run and Flappy Bird, but that's just not true. You can find loads of genuine, real, authentic games that come to other gaming platforms on mobile just as much as you can find the above sorts of games.
Fortnite, PUBG, Minecraft, Terraria, Hearthstone, Genshin Impact, Call of Duty, Runescape, Roblox, Stardew Valley, League of Legends, and so, so much more can be found on mobile. Put simply, if it's a popular game that isn't the most technically demanding ever, it'll probably come to mobile.
So, while it's certainly possible to play 'traditional' mobile games on your phone designed for bite-sized play sessions and filled with opportunities to spend real money, you don't have to play that way, if you don't want. Of course, mobile isn't as robust a platform as something like PlayStation or PC, but there are more than enough games on mobile that you can spend thousands and thousands of hours gaming with.
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Phone Games Can Be Played on Controller
Another big existential problem for mobile gaming comes down to controls. In most cases, a touch screen just isn't the best way to play. Sure, maybe for a card game like Hearthstone or a strategy game like Civilization a touch screen works really naturally and feels excellent, but for most games, it doesn't.
However, gone are the days of being forced to play your games via the touch screen on mobile devices. Today, gamepad support on mobile is pretty widespread. Usually, you can connect just about whatever controller you'd like to your phone, or you can buy any number of controller-type devices you can slot your phone right into turning it into something of a Nintendo Switch.
Tons of actual games on mobile are designed to support gamepad playback as well, so you won't get stuck in that awkward place where you can connect a controller but can't play games with controller all that often, either. It's a little less comfortable to use a traditional, say, Xbox controller with your phone than an Xbox, but that's where the all-in-one case-style controllers that you can holster your phone in, as mentioned above, come in.
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Streaming Any Game to Your Phone
Whether it's Xbox Game Pass, GeForce Now, PS Remote Play, Steam Link or anything else, there are a ton of different game streaming services out there that support all kinds of PC/console games not available on phones themselves, meaning you aren't just limited to phone games on your phone.
Of course, game streaming has its own plusses and minuses, and in general, games streamed won't play as smoothly and look as gorgeous as they can running natively on a console or PC, but if you've got a decent internet connection, it's certainly a workable situation.
Not only does game streaming open up your phone to a huge library of games you can play anywhere, but it's also an effective way to game for cheap, allowing you to play tons of different games for just the price of a monthly subscription that will rarely break any banks.
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Phone Games and Crossplay
Over the years, crossplay has become more and more ubiquitous. In the past, it was a rare sight you almost never came across, but today, well, it's an astonishingly common thing. What's more, though, is that this can even extend to mobile games, too.
Games like Terrarria, Minecraft, Hearthstone, Stardew Valley, Genshin Impact and so much more offer up real, true crossplay, so even if you're playing on your phone you can still game with friends on PCs or consoles, making the phone gaming experience oftentimes less isolating than it once was in the past.
Of course, though, not every game will support crossplay, and some games do have mobile versions that are designed specifically for mobile and to play with other mobile players, but the crossplay situation is one that's only getting better and better with each passing day as phones get even more capable.
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