Ever since T-Mobile introduced the Sidekick, and Apple launched the iPhone, cellular devices with larger screens and more buttons have revolutionized the mobile-phone market. They’ve also created a relatively new mobile gaming industry. Despite the youth of the market, the variety of phone games has already multiplied, and consumers can access these popular cell phone games in three common ways:

Buy The Built-In Game

Originally offered as demos, these games are pre-installed in your phone and not very complicated. The rules are quite simple as well. Once your limited demo runs out, you’re done. If you want to continue playing, service providers charge the price of the game to your phone bill. After that, you’re free to pick up where you left off.

The down side to relying upon developer games and games that “came with the phone” is that depending on what service you have the amount of time your demo lasts may be ridiculously short. A newer phone might only come with two or three high-quality games installed. Most of the time this does not include the classics like Pong and Centipede.

Worse, your phone may only have demos of high-tech games and nothing else; if you’re not willing to buy the full version or other full-version games from your service providers’ store, you have no games to play at all.

For those who don’t want to see their phone bill go up and for others who prefer having better control over the cost and management of new games, reject their phone’s built-in games and start evaluating free games.

Free Internet Games

While some cell phone owners don’t mind paying for the better games, others prefer to play free of charge. Websites like Hovr.com and MobileRated.com come into the picture. But many other aspects must be perfectly aligned before a potential gamer can install a single game.

Most services require you register with them or set up an account. From there, you must find out if the website supports the type of phone you have; as well as its brand, its model and your service provider. Without all of those things first, free gaming is not a possibility.

Questionable sites like MobileRated.com, which has a lot of foreign games, pop-up ads and doesn’t offer much information on who they are and what their company is about, offers the largest number of compatible service providers, phones, and models. Shabugames.com, another free game provider, offers what appears to be the most ad-free games. Yet the majority of them are “safe” games, which means they are safe for children and safe for playing, just in case someone is peering over your shoulder.

Like all free services on the Internet, the potential customer has to take them with a grain of salt or at least be a little skeptical of how “free” these services are. When getting mobile phone games from a website, the question of legitimacy is a reasonable concern.

Hovr.com is a service with an endless list of compatible phones and a library of new high-quality games. The company swears it is 100% free, honest and legitimate with no subscriptions, no spam and no telemarketing. Among other things they promise to keep their gamers safe from like no hidden charges and no selling your information to third parties. Other free mobile gaming sites don’t offer such a thorough protection plan.

Pay-To-Play

If you can spare $2.99 a month, then you can purchase games like NBA Street, The Godfather, or Need for Speed Undercover, with a subscription from EAmobile.com. For $9.99 a month, you can buy games like Lego Batman, Resident Evil: Degeneration and Super Street Fighter II from the mobile entertainment company, Thumbplay.com.

You may not need a major platform to play cell phone games, but platform providers are easing their way into the market by selling the best of the best: high-quality, high- performing games recognizable by name alone.

Glu Mobile offers some of the same games for your phone that were popularized through casual gaming sites like Shockwave and Yahoo! Games like the famous Diner Dash series. Glu Mobile also offers The Price Is Right, Call of Duty and Zuma as well as exclusive movie games like The Watchmen and Transformers.

According to Matt Listz, the Vice President of Marketing at Glu Mobile, which currently supports 1,000 devices in 65 countries, the market for selling mobile games is only getting larger.

“At first people played mobile games because of the convenience to play a game whenever they wanted to,” said Listz. “Over the last few years, the quality of phones has increased so dramatically that people are really shocked at the quality and creativity of gameplay. Glu’s original game, Bonsai Blast, on iPhone and Google’s Android has the depth and visual appeal of a PC game; however, it also has touch and tilt features that you could only find on your phone.”

Non-subscription websites like Gameloft have a special section dedicated to iPhone, iPod touch and Blackberry games. At the same time they offer titles such as Oregon Trail, CSI, Chuck Norris: Bring on the Pain and Platinum Sudoku for a one-time fee.

The only major pitfall with using such providers is lots and lots of advertisements. Along with the usual concerns of renewing your subscription and possible hidden charges from watching advertisements.

Regardless of which gaming method is the best for your phone or your budget, it is definitely becoming the next big thing in entertainment.

“The best part is that this is just the beginning,” said Listz. “Every phone maker is coming up with new innovative phone to launch in 2009 which will continue to fuel better and better games.”