Mobile game

A mobile game is a video game that is typically played on a mobile device. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, such as mobile phones (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to handheld game console, portable media player or graphing calculator, with and without network availability. The earliest known game on a mobile phone was a Tetris variant on the Hagenuk MT-2000 device from 1994.

In 1997, Nokia launched Snake, an early mobile game. Snake, which was pre-installed on most mobile devices manufactured by Nokia, was at one time found on 350 million devices worldwide. As mobile devices became more powerful, users began to download games onto their devices, though these were initially limited to stores controlled by mobile carriers. Mobile gaming grew greatly with the development of app stores in 2008, such as the iOS App Store from Apple. As the first mobile content marketplace operated directly by a mobile-platform holder, the App Store significantly changed the consumer behavior and quickly broadened the market for mobile games, as almost every smartphone owner started to download mobile apps.

Mobile gaming is the largest and most lucrative sector of the video game industry today, accounting for 49% of total global gaming revenue in 2025.

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