The best video games represent an executed marketing campaign that requires years in the making and multiple millions in advertising costs. Then, there are video games that go viral! That’s when societal recommendations create a hit.
In the last decade, the mobile gaming business has drastically elevated its popularity, through the invention of slot games via platforms like the 7Slots casino, and other iGaming options. The international interest in player mobile gaming rose with the advancement of smartphone technology, access to a better internet service, and social media.
The Concept of Viral Games and How They Become Such
A viral game is any video game that has been unexpectedly and suddenly made popular, usually due to coverage on social media, which is then picked up by the mainstream media. Quite often, gaming options that have gone viral do significantly better than any launch from a large company.
While many might expect these kinds of games to take off, they need more courage to go as far as they do. They are known to have done better than anyone dreamed possible: card tricks, measly smartphone games, or anything else.
The principal culprit is social networking, an activity that was perfectly matched to the pinnacle of Farmville's popularity. Farmville was intimately associated with Facebook, and many of us weren't so streamlined in our notifications when it came out. Our social networks were bombarded with it, and because everyone was still talking about it, to have an opinion was to take a controversial stance.
Highlighting Some of the Top Viral Games Online
These games began to redefine our whole concept of entertainment; whether or not you consider yourself a gamer, you’ve likely at least played one of these sensations. Here are some of them:
- Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy;
- Pokémon GO;
- Minecraft;
Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy
One of those YouTube hits that the 2020s had to produce was Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy. Its entire premise is simplicity itself, but it was successful in the late 2010s because it was a video game whose virality was driven by streaming.
This is our third foray into what is called a platform game. You control a pot-man with a sledgehammer. The goal is to get to the top of the level using just the sledgehammer. This is much harder than it appears, using unresponsive mouse or trackpad controls.
The streaming quality alone made it a great gaming selection. If you were one of the streaming types, someone who tried to top what the other guys were doing, then you’d constantly be trying to find a better way than how everyone else was doing it. Bennett Foddy’s Gem Getting Over It took off and became a trend of sorts, where failures often generated a kind of emotional climax and threw away a good deal of progress.
Pokémon GO
Granted, A.R. games for smartphones, though not novel in 2016, did not have a single dominant app. Then came Pokémon G.O., the first A.R. smartphone game to have viral fitness built into its foundation of fun.
Pokémon GO was the first popular app on iOS and Android to combine the demand for activity with mass appeal. Virality deepened this game's appeal, requiring players to walk around to hatch eggs and advance their creatures after exploring to capture them.
Combined with the social element of running a battle gym, all these aspects managed to realize a dream that many preteens have hoped for: conscious thought, rooted in language, is not the only way to generate experience. The hugely popular Pokémon G.O. is a testament to the fact that one can have a good viral game.
Minecraft
Once a silly experiment, Minecraft is now one of the most popular video game titles of all time. I often describe its special failure of graphical aesthetics, but it’s equally dependent on human creativity, which is why we are all special snowflakes. Minecraft: The Lego Video Game is a franchise empire funded by humans.
It now has a huge modding base and a large cross-generational fanbase that leads people to call it one of the best video games ever made. For a viral cardboard box knock-off, that’s not bad at all.
Farmville
So it is with the phenomenon of Farmville, the farming simulation video game developed by Zynga, which tapped into the positive reinforcement of social media gaming. In Farmville, people simply worked their farms, and harvested their crops, and visited each other to plant more.
The notion of farming in a game was more or less the same in 2009. After all, the Harvest Moon series of casual games (the original one came out in 1996) was doing much along these lines the entire time. But Farmville brought the social aspect of the casual gaming experience to a whole new level — and that is why it went global!
Player interaction was accessible, easy to understand, and addictive enough for non-gamers to try it out. The 2020 demise of the original game and its impact and momentum is still heavily felt and is still thriving, with sequels being developed to this day.
The Viral Explosion of Multiplayer Mobile Games Explained
The blossom of multiplayer mobile gaming has revolutionized the gaming business and deeply impacted modern culture. It has gained prominence with the help of features such as the integration of social media, accessibility of mobile gaming, and, of course, the advancements in technology.
As the sector grows, key issues such as addiction will need to be addressed, and new potential areas for expansion and increased inclusivity might well be sought. The future for multiplayer mobile gaming looks bright: it will undoubtedly continue to offer new and exciting experiences for mobile gamers everywhere.