Do you remember the rush you got racing your friends in Mario Kart 7 on your Nintendo DS, or the joy capturing Pokémon alongside your best buds brought you? These feelings have become easy to relive right from the comfort of your phone screen.  

Mobile gaming has become a very popular gaming avenue as of recently. So popular that it may seem as if every piece of media is being formed into a new compact and portable application that’s stored on your device. It’s a form of advertisement for the media that’s being turned into these games. It makes people that haven’t consumed this media want to, and people who have consumed the media to become more invested.   

There are many examples of how popular turning media into mobile games truly is. One of the clearest examples of this is Pokémon Go, the game came out in July 2016 and was instantly a smash hit. Common sense media gave it a rating of 3/5. Most can agree that it’s not a groundbreaking game, but a phenomenal experience.  

It was played by a majority of the teens and young adults that were loyal to its predecessor and was a phenomenon amongst phone games. So many people left their homes to wander around looking for Pokémon using the game, people would even meet up at “training gyms” to play together. This game was the perfect mix of nostalgia and popularity.   

Even though the shelf-life of these games is relatively short-lived, the mass amount of success they garner in the period the game is popular is revolutionary. Pokémon was a game that many Generation-Z and Millennials grew up with and loved, so making it into a game that they can play on their phones is a million-dollar idea.   

This phenomenon has reoccurred through the new mobile game; Mario Kart Tour, that came out on September 25th, 2019. It had the same important aspect of nostalgia. The same generation that loved Pokémon Go is now obsessed with Mario Kart and it’s taken everyone by storm. Now classes are filled with people racing Mario characters on their phone.   

Even though this new trend is spreading like a wildfire, it’s most likely that the hype will die down and people will stop playing the game for a few months and then it will start up again. That seems to be the overall trend that repeats it’s self with most games.  

The rush of nostalgia and child-like excitement these games bring to the people that grew up with them is refreshing. In a world of pay-to-play and resource management mobile games, its nice to play games that many of us have an emotional attachment to. Even if these companies are playing on people’s sense of nostalgia and love for the originals, people will still play and support their mobile remakes because they make people happy. It allows you to revert back to that little kid playing video games with their friends on their Nintendo DS, full of child-like happiness and bliss.