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** This article appears in the March issue of PLAYED, our monthly gaming newsletter. Download the entire issue here. **

By many accounts, it’s been “the year of mobile” in one form or another for the past ten years. However, if the latest trend in the space holds true, mobile’s decade of dominance may really just be beginning. Alongside a surge of gaming innovation for the smaller screen, the “moving to mobile” trend, is seeing some of gaming’s best and brightest abandon the AAA, multi-million dollar production budget game development space in favor of creating for the “second screen”, gaming’s ubiquitous console.

In the past nine months alone, we’ve read reports of industry vets quitting shops like EA, Freestyle Games, and Lucas Arts; leaving behind hugely successful AAA titles like Madden, DJ Hero, and Maniac Mansion. Just last week, storied game designer Peter Molyneux shocked the industry by announcing his departure from Microsoft’s Lionhead Studios, where he’d created the hit Fable series, in favor of starting his own shop with former Lionhead CTO Tim Rance. Molyneux’s new venture, , is rumored to focus on the burgeoning mobile and social realms as well.

So, why the exodus? Why give up opportunities to work on revered franchises to start over in a flooded market against an army of competitors that likely includes your former employer? A chance at a piece of that $4 billion (with a “B”) Apple has paid out to App Store developers thus far surely couldn’t hurt.

Since opening in July of 2008, the App Store has generated over 25 billion downloads and earned over $5.71 billion in revenue; 70% of which is paid directly to developers. A closer inspection of those 25 billion downloads reveals that 75% of the top grossing apps are games, and the most profitable apps are of the freemium variety – those titles that are free to download and play, but give users the option to augment their gameplay experience via microtransactions for virtual goods. Unfortunately, this freemium approach makes it difficult for smaller developers to break through thanks to the rampant manipulation of the discovery mechanisms, user reviews, and rankings built into the games and App Store itself – a battle Apple is constantly fighting.

Amongst the freemium and fraud, however, are titles that have shaped and revolutionized what we all now see as possible on the mobile platform. Games that have called for the end of consoles, or at least a drastic rethinking of what to expect from the next next-generation. Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs was so “amazed” by the graphical prowess of Chair Entertainment’s Infinity Blade that the franchise is now a veritable staple at iOS device launches, including its latest iteration, Infinity Blade Dungeons, announced at this month’s “new iPad” reveal. Chair’s newest title should do well to augment the $30 million in revenue the franchise has already earned, and with the iPad’s updated tech specs (A5X chip with quad-core graphics processing as well as a bump to 1GB of RAM), other amazing titles are sure to follow.

While perhaps not an equal in the revenue department, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, has definitely wowed gamers with what’s possible, not only on a mobile device, but as a gaming experience overall. Often mentioned in the “evolution of games” discussion since its release last March, Sword & Sworcery is built on classic adventure videogame tenets, but is also perfectly tuned to its platform, using touch and changes in device orientation to immerse the player “in a record you can hang out in”, says Nathan Vella, president of publisher Capy. Originally planned as an eight-month project for a $110,000 budget, the game’s development doubled in time and cost in an attempt to follow through on the title’s original vision and battle the “sea of sameness” in the App Store: “Making a game for ‘everyone’ means you’re not making a game for ‘anyone,’” says Vella. And while not everyone has played thus far (the title has been downloaded more than 350,000 times to date), everyone probably should.

The newest comer to the “moving to mobile” space, , is actually co-founded by former Denuo’er Tim Harris, who left Denuo once before in 2007 to start hardcore flash game development shop SevenLights, creators of The Continuum, an online collectible wargame. Alongside Bungie co-founder, and co-creator of Halo, Alex Seropian, the two are assembling a “dream team” of “misfit superheroes” from varied pasts and skills to create great mobile games for core gamers that capitalize on experiences that are accessible without sacrificing quality; filling a badly under-served “niche” that seems to be growing daily.

Leaving the AAA world behind didn’t seem difficult for Seropian, especially considering the flexibility of the mobile platform:

“The biggest thing is the scope of the games we can build on this platform. The development timelines are just much shorter. And also the way that the platform works, which is true for most platforms now. Both those things amplify our ability to make the gamer part of the development process. And that’s one of the things we fully intend to do. Letting the gamers be the 12th man on the field. Because the iteration cycles are quick, and you can get things out, and it’s live, and keep releasing content updates. We can build that–the community–into our games. And that’s pretty cool.”

While gamers aren’t necessarily abandoning their consoles in favor of mobile devices, they can’t have a controller in their hands all the time either. Their “always on” mentality fits perfectly with this ubiquitous platform, however; a connection that will only grow as the content, and content creators evolve.