Editorial

Sunday, 03 January 2010 23:27

Mobile, or cell phone casino games like blackjack have been available for a few years, but has its recent evolution and technological advancement resulted in a game really worth playing?

The whole purpose of creating a suite of mobile casino gaming options has been to expand an already hugely successful industry into the realms of the "go anywhere, play anywhere" set. These are the gamers who like to enjoy the freedom from their home computers that the ability to gamble on their cell phones provides them with. It is also a side of online casino games that the industry has been working hard to bring into the mainstream area to maximise the revenue potential that analysts believe is there for the taking.

The journey to provide that functionality and playability of the many online casino games on a medium that is, by anyone's standards, small and lacking the playing speed of the home computer software versions, has been a long and arduous one for developers. The problems to be surmounted have been monumental with both hardware and connectivity restrictions to be overcome.

This was evident in past incarnations of mobile blackjack that relied on the old Java platform (J2ME) to provide a very basic form of blackjack to mobile users. The best you could get were blackjack table commands which were operated with the available keypad and which had to be downloaded onto the phone. The low resolution graphics and lack of strategic and tactical options made for a game that was barely playable at best, let alone engaging, entertaining and exciting enough to hold a player's attention for more than a few minutes at a time. 

Something had to be done to improve the game, which as casino card games go is hugely popular. This is mainly because playing blackjack involves having a decent level of knowledge and skill in the player combined with the game itself having a very attractive house edge to keep serious gamblers playing in the hopes of winning big over the long haul.

Cell phone hardware was improving all the time with manufacturers regularly unveiling new more advanced handsets. Along with that, the service providers were working on constantly improving coverage and connectivity speeds. The emergence of the third generation, or 3G phones meant gamers were able to take advantage of faster connection speeds these phones were capable of utilising. Smart phones began to appear that came with full blown computer operating systems based on Microsoft's mobile Windows platform. Suddenly a huge collection of smart mobile phones were being released by manufacturers that sported larger, higher resolution screens. Some of them came with touch screens and the ability to run sophisticated software applications which included the new generation of mobile casino games.

The software companies were quick to exploit the new mobile phone technology with major names such as Playtech, Microgaming, Vegas Technologies and RealTime Gaming to name but a few all releasing high end mobile casino games including incarnations of blackjack that were now fully functional, highly engaging and entertaining. As cell phones continued to get better, with PDA's and pocket PCs and their operating systems becoming ever more powerful, the scene was set for rapid improvements in the software they were capable of running.

With the appearance of the iPhone, it seems that finally the hardware is become available that can handle the high end graphics and game play speeds needed to appeal to a wider audience. The software is ready and the customers waiting for their chance to try out the latest version of their favourite casino card game. Apple have created their own iBlackjack game, which, incidentally was the first casino game created exclusively for the iPhone. One of the really popular traits of Apple's Blackjack game is that the game can either be played using the mobile Safari browser, or it can be downloaded and installed directly onto the iPhone.

How much further can the humble casino game of blackjack be taken on the mobile platform? Is it possible that the game can evolve any further? Only time will tell for a game that now has all the functionality and player experience on a cell phone that it has on a larger home computer. It may be that further advances in the larger arena will then migrate to the mobile arena, but for those, we will just have to wait and see. After all, how much more real can it get?

Maybe in the realms of science fiction, a holographic dealer, complete with table and guest players will be projected from a cell phone into our office or the back seat of our car. Or maybe the industry will evolve to such a degree that the whole experience will be played out via a tiny chip embedded in our brains, without the need for any external hardware whatsoever. Are these the experiences that dreams are made of, or the dreams that experiences are made of, perhaps?