Mobile Games: A Market Poised To Power Up

NPD Group has released a survey of more than 8,500 teens and adults about mobile games. “The world of mobile gaming is like the Wild West,” said Clint Wheelock, vice president of wireless research for The NPD Group, who oversaw the study. Well, some of the FPS ones, maybe…
According to the group half of mobile phone users in the US own handsets capable of downloading games, although there is no indication as to how many had actually downloaded games. “A full 27 percent play games on those devices, including purchased downloads as well as free demos and pre-loaded games, compared to 20 percent last year. Even better for the industry, the market hasn’t come close to tapping its potential — another six percent of current non-gamers confessed an interest in playing on their phone over the next year. The reason most often cited for the burgeoning interest: ‘to kill time or alleviate boredom’. In fact, the average gaming session is a mere 11 minutes.”
The survey found that consumers who play games on other devices are twice as likely to play on their phones (hardly surprising) but limited screen size and navigation make puzzle and card games the most popular.
Some demographics: Kids between the ages of 13 and 17 (60 percent) are nearly three times as likely as adults (23 percent) to be mobile gamers; Compared to typical wireless subscribers, mobile gamers are twice as likely to be African-American, Hispanic or Asian.
The report also found that mobile gamers tend so spend an average of 57 percent more on handsets, although that’s probably an inverse relation — people who buy expensive multimedia phones are more likely to play the more interesting games available for them. “They also tend to be heavier users of their mobile phones for regular calls, using 48 percent more wireless minutes than non-gamers, and their monthly wireless bills are 22 percent higher than the average subscriber.”
The report found the price is a big issue (one-third of gamers buy games, the rest use the free/pre-loaded games), which is a good argument for carriers taking a smaller slice of the pie — which would then grow. Most games are single downloads, subscription models are very rare…
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Russian Market of Mobile Games Keeps Growing

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