Dean Takahashi, Maria Alegre, and Diana Moldovsky at the Mobile Summit
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From backwater to blockbuster: The lessons that games can teach mobile companies (interview)

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 7 min

SAUSALITO, Calif. — Games used to be a backwater. They were viewed as being too violent. They appealed to boys. They were addictive. They were for nerds. But now everyone wants to learn from them because it has become one of the hottest sectors on the hot platforms of social, mobile, and online content.

The switch from backwater to blockbuster has happened as the mobile audience for games has skyrocketed. Games account for a third of mobile usage. Accidental or intentional, the biggest game companies now include platform makers like Apple, Google, and Amazon. As far as game platforms go, it’s not just Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo anymore.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.