Even with games like Angry Birds and the dozens of properties that Zynga shamelessly rips off takes inspiration from making millions upon millions of dollars, there there is still a sizable chunk of people out there who will argue that social/mobile gaming isn’t “real gaming”, whatever the hell that means. I think it’s safe to say that, in 2012, people who have this mindset are blithering idiots. The truth of the matter is that social games and mobile games are here for the long-haul, and I argue that a sizable part of their success can be traced directly to where you do your business. After all, we’re all guilty of taking our Game Boy, or our DS, or our PSP, or our iPad (for the sake of this post, “iPad” includes any tablet), or phone into the bathroom to squeeze in one or two rounds of Bejeweled or Fruit Ninja. Sure, it’s one of those things we don’t talk about, but we’ve all done it once or twice in our lives.
I believe that Toilet Gaming (admittedly not the sexiest or most marketable term) is largely responsible for the rise of social and mobile games in the past few years. It hasn’t been a conscious effort, of course — I doubt anyone has perused the iTunes App Store while thinking “what’s a great game to play while I’m dropping the kids off at the pool?”. But at the same time, the truth of the matter is that people want and, in many instances, expect to be entertained all the time. This is why most people listen to the music in the shower. This is why a lot of people surf Facebook or Twitter when at work, and this is why an overwhelming majority of smartphone owners actually own a smartphone.
Now, some people are going to roll their eyes at me, or say that the entire notion of the existence of a “toilet gamer” demographic is silly. To them, and to everyone else, I pose this question: how many times have you gone into the bathroom and emerged ten, fifteen, twenty or more minutes later because you were immersed in a game of Fruit Ninja, or Tetris?
