I think "the mobile revolution" is a joke and never materialized. 95+% of mobile games are unoriginal clones with layers of mechanisms to reduce fun unless the user pays. People who enjoy games have largely abandoned mobile, save a handful of decent titles that were ported from other platforms.
Mobile-first gamers are: people (mostly kids) who are so naive about games they will accept garbage (or cant afford a better gaming system) and whales who enjoy spending large amounts of money to move up the leaderboards.
Mobile gaming C-level's loved talking about the mobile revolution for a decade, but I really think it was all optimistic nonsense in service of their fundraising.
I don't think they meant just in terms of gaming, but the mobile revolution in terms of how smartphones took over the world and Microsoft missed the boat.
Ah, that's fair. I was working on a service ancillary to the gaming industry during the big hype, so I mostly associate the term with the push toward mobile games. Definitely valid outside gaming.
(Simplistically) Business people think about money, gamers and ground level game developers think about games. The "mobile revolution" as told by C-level executives was about the former, and it's been a screaming success.
Mobile games were never going to replace more traditional games because it's a totally different market, but companies don't really care about that anyway - they might not have /understood/ that mobile games were never going to supplant traditional console and PC gaming, but they didn't need to because they made fistfuls of cash anyway.
Mobile gaming is mostly crap, sure, but it is still quite profitable. I think the parent was referring to having a successful mobile platform like Google or Apple so that Microsoft could skim their commission off all those mobile games.
Mobile-first gamers are: people (mostly kids) who are so naive about games they will accept garbage (or cant afford a better gaming system) and whales who enjoy spending large amounts of money to move up the leaderboards.
Mobile gaming C-level's loved talking about the mobile revolution for a decade, but I really think it was all optimistic nonsense in service of their fundraising.