Online & Smartphone Gaming

Online & Smartphone Gaming: Today and Tomorrow

Humans have been playing games since the dawn of civilization. Games have come a long way since the Ancient Egyptians played Senet – they’ve moved from wooden boards and tokens of yesteryear to the online platforms and smartphones of today.

Games remain incredibly popular, especially since the coronavirus pandemic sent people scrounging for home entertainment that wouldn’t cost them a fortune. To fill the void, many turned to online games using their smartphones. In fact, games now account for 43 percent of all smartphone use.

Statistica reported game sales skyrocketed 63 percent in just one week back in March of 2020, suggesting that people were turning to home entertainment to fill the void created by self-isolation during the pandemic. During that same month, Steam hit a peak of 23,434,674 concurrent players, smashing their record set a week prior by more than a million players and an enormous increase over the 20 million concurrent Steam players recorded at the beginning of March.

Mobile gaming accounted for more than 58 percent of the gaming market in 2019, and the global pandemic is fueling its growth. In fact, experts think the global mobile gaming market will likely reach $165.9 billion in 2020.

Players can choose from several different types of games, including action games, adventure games, card and casino games, puzzles, role-playing games (RPGs), first-person shooter games, sports and strategy games. Trivia games are especially hot these days.

Launched by ClickStream on September 30, 2020, WinQuik is the latest and greatest entry into the online trivia market. This innovative real-time gaming platform pays users money and prizes. WinQuik pops out up to five multi-player quiz games ever day, featuring well-known hosts, including boxer/actor Pooch Hall, Emmy award-winning journalist/ documentary filmmaker/tech executive Amber Theoharis, chef/TV personality Jordan Andino, and NFL quarterback/aerospace engineer/NASA intern Joshua Dobbs.

WinQuik platform offers a wide variety of new and fascinating topics to keep the games interesting. Quiz categories include survival, crime, history, the human body, cars, food, gaming, geography and more.

Using famous hosts isn’t the only thing that sets WinQuik apart from other gaming apps – it also targets a completely different audience. Unlike apps that hope to attract fantasy players or sports betters over the long haul, ClickStream caters to those casual users who prefer spending just a few seconds to interact with a gaming platform in order to win prizes and real money. Users can get involved in as little as 20 seconds and receive their game results via push notifications.

WinQuik is also free, at least for now. ClickStream will monetize the app with corporate sponsors and advertisers.

Future of Online and Smartphone Gaming

Until quite recently, substandard graphics and slow speeds were the hallmarks of online and mobile games, particularly in comparison to games for PCs and consoles. Because of improvements and advances in technology that provide better support for graphics, though, many notable titles are making the leap from PCs and consoles to mobile platforms. League of Legends: Wild Rift and Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall went mobile in 2020, and many other titles are set to follow. The seismic shift from PCs and consoles will likely shake up the mobile gaming market to create an entirely new experience over the next decade.

A number of factors will shape online and smartphone gaming in the near and far future.

Better graphics

Graphics are significantly more immersive and sophisticated than they were in the days of Pong and Leisure Suit Larry – today’s graphics are smooth and realistic.

Advanced VR And AR Tech

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology will play an increasingly important role in video gaming in the future, especially as the price of virtual headsets drops and their quality rises. A number of online platforms are adopting VR and AR technologies to make their games more exciting, realistic, and immersive.

5G

Slow internet speeds have been the bane of gaming since the dawn of the internet. 5G will change all that with blistering fast speeds and reduced network congestion. Download speeds of 5G will be around 10 times faster than 4G speeds, which will increase download times and accessibility.

Cloud Based Gaming

In the past, users had to store games entirely on their PCs or laptops. Hardware storage demands a significant amount of memory, of course, and this limited the potential power of the game. Local storage also limited where the users could enjoy their favorite games. Cloud-based technology changed all that – users can now play anywhere they can use their phone, and because games are now stored on expansive cloud-based servers, they are no longer limited by the size of their home computer.

It’s hard to say where we’ll be in a few years, when the pandemic is over and technology will have advanced even more, but one thing is certain – we’ll still be playing games.

FRANK MAGLIOCHETTI

Frank Magliochetti owes his professional success to his expertise in two areas: medicine and finance. After obtaining a BS in pharmacy from Northeastern University, he stayed on to enroll in the Masters of Toxicology program. He later specialized in corporate finance, receiving an MBA from The Sawyer School of Business at Suffolk University. His educational background includes completion of the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School and the General Management Program at Stanford Business School. Frank Magliochett i has held senior positions at Baxter International, Kontron Instruments, Haemonetics Corporation, and Sandoz. Since 2000, he has been a managing partner at Parcae Capita l, where he focuses on financial restructuring and interim management services for companies in the healthcare, media, and alternative energy industries. Last year, he was appointed chairman of the board at Grace Health Technology, a company providing an enterprise solution for the laboratory environment. Frank is also CEO of ClickStream, ClickStream’s business operations are focused on the development and implementation of WinQuik™, a free to play synchronized mobile app and digital gaming platform. The platform is designed to enable WinQuik™ users to have fun, interact and compete against each other in order to win real money and prizes. Twitter at @ClickstreamC and @WinQuikApp.

Frank was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Designer Genomics International, Inc. The Company has accumulated a growing body of evidence that highlights a link between alterations in the immune and inflammatory systems and the development of chronic human disease. The Company is visionary and has established itself as a leader in the field of inflammatory and immune genetic DNA and RNA biomarkers that play a causative role in debilitating conditions, such as atherosclerosis/heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) and cancer.
A proprietary state-of-the art data mining bioinformatics program, called ‘cluster analysis’ will be used to measure disease development susceptibility with potential for earlier diagnosis and intervention. The company is developing a healthcare program based on its proprietary genetic panels that will allow people to be their own healthcare advocate and take an active role in their health status as well as longevity.