Play to win: investing in the mobile gaming sector

HERE'S a game you can play - the next time you're out, whether on the train or waiting in line at your favourite coffee spot, look around and count the number of people tapping and swiping on their smartphones as they gaze blankly at the latest mobile game filling their screens. Does it surprise you to see how ubiquitous mobile gaming has become?

Mobile games have been around for quite a while - 25 years to be precise. Leading the market back then was a game called Tetris, which you could only play on an electronic brick called the Hagenuk MT-2000 (we had to Google it too). Three years later, mobile phone giant Nokia preinstalled the hugely popular Snake on its devices - a watershed moment for the market. The launch of Apple's App Store in 2008 was another turning point, as it heralded the dawn of today's app-based mobile gaming era, which has led to a global industry worth billions of dollars.

A growing multibillion-dollar juggernaut