Smartwatch Gaming Is Coming, But Will It Be Any Fun?

The words “mobile gaming” conjure up images of flinging birds, swapping numbers, and matching candies on a phone or tablet. Or perhaps you imagine Link swinging a sword on a Nintendo 3DS or Sackboy running across a PS Vita screen.

But you’re missing another way to game on the go: a smartwatch.

While smartwatch sales numbers aren’t too promising today — just under 7 million smartwatches were sold in 2014, according to independent research company Smartwatch Group — that’s bound to change. The Apple Watch, due out April 24, is predicted to sell somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 million units in its first year. LG, Motorola, Huawei and others are supporting the wearable Android Wear platform. The Pebble Time watch is the most-funded Kickstarter ever, currently topping a whopping $18 million with two weeks to go.

There’s a lot of time, energy, and money being poured into the new tech. But will you be playing games on your fancy new timekeeper?

Where there’s a screen, there’s a game

“Wherever games exist, gamers will want to play them — including right on their wrists,” says Scott Steinberg, CEO of game consulting firm TechSavvy. “The beauty of smartwatches is that they allow games to travel with users wherever they go and enjoy the added convenience of not having to hold a phone or tablet in their hands or pack along a dedicated handheld device.”

Most smartwatches aren’t really designed with gaming in mind, though, and they often pack less sophisticated play experiences, cautions Steinberg. But he thinks a company like Apple, which has made a killing with games on its other devices, could change that.

“[Apple] may help bridge the gap and elevate wrist-based gaming to widespread popularity as more developers flock to take advantage of these devices and bring novel play experiences along with them,” he says.

Other experts, like Michael Pachter, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, aren’t so sure.

“Only games that don’t require a large screen, perhaps something like Trivia Crack, [might work]. Most other games would be too hard to play on a tiny screen,” he contends.

“It may be possible to create new experiences for the watch, like location-based treasure hunt games,” he grants, but overall he “sees little potential for conventional games on a small screen.”

A few hurdles

While the audience size is currently pretty small, some developers are already releasing games for the young platform.

The aptly named indie developer Teensy Studios recently launched a half-dozen games for Android Wear-based devices like the LG G Watch and Moto 360.

“We decided to experiment with different types of game play on Android and to explore Apple Watch as a platform, and what we found so far was a reasonable degree of success,” says CEO Fozia Ashraf. “But advertising is difficult to do, and people seem to be unwilling to pay for a wearable game.”

That’s an important point. Mobile gamers are used to freemium content — free to play, but usually cluttered with ads or the option to pay for additional content or time — but advertising on a 2-inch screen is challenging (and will undoubtedly have to take up the entire display for any impact). Similarly, monetizing a game with in-app purchases is difficult when it might require a nearby phone to complete the transaction.

Real-time ads are also power suckers, and watches are already dealing with limited battery life.

“Apple Watch has an incredible focus towards power saving, [which] limits our options,” says Ashraf.

One more challenge: Apple Watch does not support Unity, a popular development tool for mobile game-makers.

So how do you get around a small install base, tiny screen, and limited battery life? Teensy Studios is trying to figure that out.

Example: It’s been working on a project tentatively called Teensy Fitness Pets, a virtual pet “tethered to a persistent world on the phone, but living on the watch,” explains Ashraf. Features are linked to your fitness and day-to-day activities.

It’s unclear if that sort of game would take off on the watch, but there are definitely some intriguing ideas to mine here. Even seasoned publishers are excited about what new game types could be played on the platform.

Frank Gibeau, executive vice president of EA Mobile, says he sees “a day when playing games is as ubiquitous as listening to music … smartwatches and wearables are an exciting step in that direction.”

“Great mobile game design delivers bite-sized entertainment that can quickly engage players anytime, anywhere,” Gibeau continues. “And with smartwatches and wearables, it’s easy to imagine experiences that take your daily activity or movement into account, letting people literally play all day long.”

What can you play today?

Right now, the experiences are a little more basic. Games currently number in the tens — as opposed to the tens of thousands of smartphone and tablet games cluttering the App Store and Google Play — but here’s a look at a few of the better rated downloads.

Wear Orbits (Teensy Studios)

You’ve got the entire solar system in the palm of your hand, er, top of your wrist. Built for Android Wear smartwatches, Wear Orbits is about keeping your planet alive by changing its orbit and avoiding stars, planets, and other obstacles hurtling toward you.

Asteroids for Pebble (Ted Gerold)

With black-and-white vector graphics, this tiny take on the coin-op classic lets you control your ship with the up and down buttons, while a quick tap on the Select button fires your laser and a long press thrusts your ship around the map.

Wear Video Poker (Keesoft Apps)

Designed for round or square screens, this is an Android Wear game of Jacks or Better draw poker. Use your fingertip to choose which cards to keep, and the virtual dealer will flip you the rest. Required: an “installer” app on a companion phone.

Skyscraper Jumper (Teensy Studios)

This endless runner game for Android Wear devices challenges you to perfectly time jumps between buildings. Its simple, straightforward controls — tap anywhere to make your character jump — work well with the small screen and limited controls of a smartwatch.

2048 for Android Wear (scoutant.org)

This wrist-mounted clone of 2048 (which, in turn, is a clone of Threes!) is a puzzle game that presents you with a board of 4x4 tiles, and your goal is to double up the numbers by swiping in a desired direction. Its simple controls and graphics make a good match for smartphones.