Remember the days before Angry Birds or Farmville? These days it’s hard to do as social and mobile games have taken over nearly everyone’s social media accounts and mobile devices.
An early social success, Farmville, was based on a simple premise: maintain your own online farm and let your friends in on the fun. Though simple, Farmville charmed 40 million people per month into playing, and ended up very profitable, as advertisers could reach an audience quickly and effectively, and users could purchase crops to better their farm (and best their online neighbor).
Mobile, on the other hand, has evolved from simple games like Snake and Tetris to more complex offerings like Angry Birds and Candy Crush. Though the graphics and gameplay of these titles are often relatively simple, these have become an integral part of mobile devices today and have only increased in popularity, as phones have gotten smarter. In 2012, Angry Birds hit its 1 billionth download.