Oh boy, here we go...
Well, there's always good and bad in everything. First of all, there's awareness, indie developers have an easier time to be known and develop good videogames ideas, have a revenue and grow up as a developer. More people buy "games", more people get to know videogaming, etc. One problem (which has been steadily been decreasing thanks to awareness) is considering gaming both an art form and a professional career. Way back in the dark ages of non-technology, people would see gamers as lazy people who did nothing but "lose their time with childish toys". Thanks to that awareness gaming has been having across many platforms (including apps), people do see it is a form of entertainment and a way of life (that can generate revenue).
Now it has even become a joke that people who play (or used to play) Trivia Crack, Farmville, Poker games, etc. on Facebook are always our "old folks", parents or grandparents. That is the awareness gaming actually needs to go further. Our generation already acknowledges that (how many of us would LOVE to be streamers or youtubers? It's getting paid for gaming a lot!)
The biggest con is the business side of it. The more people tend to move towards app gaming, the more risk there is that big corporations are going to start pouring money into app gaming and leave console gaming behind. Yes, let's be honest, right now it may not seem as really plausible that console gaming may die, but in all logic, it is a possibility. For example, did you know Clash Royale, one game born from the Clash of Clans line of app games and created by Supercell, has a League system? Yep, just like League of Legends which has different ranks (Bronze, Silver, [...] up to Challenger), the Clash Royale game has ranks (called Leagues) and people have been doing tournaments also! From an App game. S
In conclusion, app gaming has the potential to hurt console gaming? YES, definitely. Right now it doesn't represent a big threat, but! (here's the biggie) IF people start to get into it and show more attention to app gaming instead of console gaming and companies are smart enough to jump on that bandwagon, that's when console gaming businesses will have to re-develop their internal structure that they have been having so far.
- - - Post Merge - - -
I can definitely keep talking but that's like a summary (sorry I didn't write this in the same post, forgot to write it up)