As 2013 fades into memory, it's time to look back at the events that dominated the last 12 months in mobile gaming.
As such, we've asked the industry's great and good to give their take on the last year, as well as predicting the trends that will come to pass in 2014.
Kirk Mckeand is one of PocketGamer.biz's regular contributors, serving up scores of 'making of' features detailing the development process behind some of mobile's biggest and most interesting titles.
Pocket Gamer: What do you think was the most significant event for the mobile games industry in 2013?
Kirk Mckeand: This year has proved two things. The first, is that F2P can dominate the charts - Candy Crush generating as much money as it has, turning naysayers into players, has lea to even more companies following the F2P rainbow, trying to find that elusive mountain of cash.
The second significant thing that's happened this year, is that there are still plenty of developers making successful premium games: DEVICE 6, Oceanhorn, XCOM, etc.
In short, there's still an audience for games where that one small purchase gives you access to the full experience.
XCOM in particularly is an interesting one, mainly because its relatively expensive for a mobile game, yet still it proved successful. We could start to see more console experiences condensed down for mobile going forward.
We already have TellTale and 2K onboard. Who knows, maybe this could change the mobile marketplace as much as the F2P model has.
What was the most significant event for Pocket Gamer?
Well that has to be hiring me as a freelancer.
But, joking aside, I've not been with Pocket Gamer long enough to answer this question seriously. I know it has a great team of writers and editors, and the site is fortunate enough to get cooperation from a multitude of developers all coming at the mobile industry from different angles.
I would say the most significant event has just been all the people dedicating their time to the site - I'm especially thankful to all the developers who have put up with my questions for our weekly 'making of' articles.
What was your favorite mobile game of the year?
For me, the best mobile game has to be Rymdkapsel. It was between that and Home, but I had to go with Rymdkapsel for the amount of time I've spent with it. So much time, in fact, that I can even spell it without searching on Google.
It's just a minimalist masterpiece. Simplicity in the controls make it a perfect fit for iOS and each failure feels like it was your fault - even if failure is inevitable. Its the only mobile game this year thats lead to me missing my bus stop, twice.
I have to wave at Simogo too, for putting out two of the best mobile games in one year. Bravo, Simogo. If we were talking about all mobile platforms, Tearaway on Vita wins, hands-down. Beautiful experience.
Rymdkapsel
What do you predict will be the most important trends in 2014?
As mentioned before, depending on the publishers, triple-A games on iOS could be an increasingly regular occurrence. Of course, it would only work for certain games - Bethesda games would be horrible on mobile.
Strategy and puzzle games obviously lend themselves well to touch controls, but shooters and the like aren't quite there yet. Deus Ex: The Fall gave it a good go, but it was still quite the way off feeling right in its controls.
Speaking of Deus Ex, this could just as easily be another trend we see increasing next year: the high-profile spin-off. Square Enix are beavering away incessantly on the mobile scene already and, although we've already seen a fair bit of input from triple-A console publishers, we could begin to see more universes expanded on mobile.
Whatever happens though, we'll all look back on 2014 as the year of the companion app. With the second screen infatuation of both the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One, we can expect to see cross-platform functionality sneaking its way onto our touch screens for many of next years big console releases.
What's your New Year's resolution and what resolution would you enforce on the industry?
My New Year's resolution is to do as much games writing as I possibly can. This year has been a great start for my writing career and I just want to keep that momentum going into next year. A six-pack would also be pretty cool.
If I was to enforce a resolution onto the industry it would be this: be nice to each other.
People in this industry seem to love watching people fail, and we all know it's a tough industry as it is, whatever you do within it, so try be happy for other peoples' success. And, although it's not always easy, try not to sneer when something - or someone - you're not a fan of fails.
