Or you could be waiting at the bus stop, and you could pull out your iPhone or Blackberry to play Angry Birds for a few minutes before catching your bus.
These games might all seem very different, but they have one thing in common: the number of players accessing them is growing all the time.
Through the sheer force of numbers, online social games and mobile gaming are quickly eclipsing more traditional gaming, like games played on Microsoft’s Xbox 360, or a personal computer.
Facebook has only been around since 2004, but in the ensuing years, the number of users playing Facebook-supported games like Cityville has topped 80 million, according to AppData, an independent service which tracks app traffic on Facebook.
That’s above and beyond any number of users traditional video games have ever reached, says Graeme Barlow, the co-founder and CEO of Rocket Owl Inc., an Ottawa-based online social game developer.
Rocket Owl just launched their first Facebook game in June. The game, titled GreenSpace, deposits the player on an unknown planet covered in toxic waste, encouraging them to clean it up and transform it into a livable utopia.
The key reason for the huge jump in the number of online social players is accessibility, Barlow says.
“Traditionally, in gaming spaces, you need a TV, a gaming console, the game and everything like that. What social gaming has opened up is that all you need is Facebook. And everybody has Facebook, so you can see a much, much larger player base showing up for that.”
Even multiplayer online role-playing games, like World of Warcraft, don’t come close to attracting as many players, Barlow says.
“[Online social games] just blow all traditional numbers out of the water. There’s no comparison,” he says.
“You look at a company like Blizzard, which launched World of Warcraft, which was the standard for massive multiplayer online games, and they have 13 million players. And they’re the gold standard for success. And then you look at the social networks, and you’ve got close to a hundred million players on one game. It’s just a completely different league.”
Since it’s all streamlined into a larger site, it’s easier for users to spend money by buying games or making in-game purchases, Barlow says. For example, users can pay for Facebook credits to buy things on the site.
“When money’s involved, you see a lot more development and creativity because there’s an incentive to pursue it,” Barlow says. “That would not be possible without some kind of universal platform where players were comfortable.”
But the rapidly changing gaming market isn’t limited to just online social games. The mobile app industry is booming as well. Just this year alone, mobile users in the United States spent $886 million on apps for their mobile devices, according to a May 2011 report by Mintel, a market research company. That's a 100 per cent jump in revenue from five years ago.
And the industry is still growing, as Mintel forecasts growth by another 31 per cent between 2010 and 2014, thanks to Apple iOS and Android devices.
Joshua Ostrowalker is one entrepreneur who has taken interest in the expanding mobile game market. In 2002, he helped co-found Magmic, the mobile entertainment developer behind games like the New York Times Crossword and the Rubik’s Cube.
Similar to online social games, the big selling point for mobile games is their accessibility and ability to reach so many people, Ostrowalker says.
“The mobile phone has always been a social device. We originally used the phone for voice phone calls and text-messaging people. Now phones have gone way beyond that,” he adds. “Game-ifying [phones’ social connection] creates that entertainment value that everybody wants.”
The majority of Magmic’s customers are BlackBerry users, Ostrowalker says, and while BlackBerry devices are still perceived as business tools, their portability makes them perfect for gaming on the go.
So while some gamers might still opt for the TV screen, console and controllers combination because of high resolution graphic, complex storylines and better gameplay, it seems mobile gamers just want something quick, fun and convenient, Ostrowalker says.
“While the number of game consoles and gaming hardware in the world numbers in millions, the number of mobile phones out there numbers in billions,” he says.
“There are about five billion mobile phones out there in people’s hands right now. Most of those people are not hardcore gamers. They’re looking for a different kind of gaming experience.”
“If you want to sit down and play three, four hours of gaming or have a massively multiplayer gaming experience, then commit yourself in front of your Playstation 3 or your Xbox 360 and away you go. But casual gaming has really exploded, and people who didn’t play before are playing now.”
Ostrowalker points out that more and more women are mobile gaming. In fact, a study published by Flurry, a San Francisco based mobile app research company, showed that 53 per cent of mobile and mobile social gamers are women.
So how might the less traditional, online and mobile gaming industries look in the next five to 10 years?
Both Barlow and Ostrowalker agree the industry shows no signs of slowing down.
Ostrowalker says he expects it to grow as the technology behind it improves. There could be more convergence between mobile phones and desktop computers, he adds. As of now, tablets like the iPad are a happy medium between the two.
“I think we’ll see a much larger gaming subculture come out of social games on Facebook than what’s out there presently,” Barlow says. “It’ll be really interesting to watch.”