Casual and female gamers drive the industry

October 6th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Research & Stats | 1 Comment »

Juniper Research announced our focus should remain on the female and casual gamer. Even though the technologies advance to allow pretty amazing games, Juniper tells us it’s better to stay on the safe side.

"I think mobile games have come of age," Bruce Gibson, Research Director at Juniper Research, said. "The casual games sector is going to be the market driver, even though it may not be at the leading edge of mobile games technology. Casual games make most use of the inherent advantages of the mobile platform.."

ELSPA top 10 May & June

September 25th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Research & Stats | 1 Comment »

There seem to have been some hiccups, but finally both May and June numbers are available. While Tetris is still the overall favorite, Glu is clearly dominating the charts.

June

01 Tetris – EA Mobile
02 Worms – THQ Wireless
03 Sonic The Hedgehog: Part One – Glu
04 FIFA World Cup Germany 2006

NDP knows the consumer!

September 6th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Research & Stats | No Comments »

Neil Stroter, researcher at the NPD group, published an article at gamedaily about our most beloved subject, the consumer. Neil is convinced they found out what makes the consumer buy our games.

The most important factor? The genre of the game. If people played it before, they’ll like it again. Right after that, consumers voted the good old free trial. Karl already commented on that in the way that the free trials are already missing. Who, these days develops still the free trials and makes successful rates of sales on them?

Right after these is the price (understandable) and familiarity with the publisher or developer. This would mean that the name of the developer is more appealing then a branded title? I wonder if I call any of Overloaded’s consumers and ask them to name five mobile game publishers, if they know more then one. Yes developers, it seems you should promote yourself more to the consumer instead of your games. Ok, I admit in the closing statement branded games are pointed toward as important, but it doesn’t show in the graphs.

The research also has bad news for all you reviewers out there. The reason for buying a game due to a review is only 5%. I don’t know what the percentage is for console/pc games, but we really need to improve this figure as reviews are one of the best tools for consumers not to buy a game they don’t like.

NPD also looked at the consumer satisfaction. There is real good news here. A massive 75% of the consumers is (very) satisfied with their mobile gaming experience and 69% of the consumers is thinking about a repeating visit.

The age is also investigated. Top age group is between 13 and 17 year old with 34%. Following after that is 25 till 34, representing 25% of the consumers. Surprisingly 18% of the consumers fall between those groups at ages 18 till 24. Does this mean they interviewed less people in that age group, or are we indeed talking about skipping a generation?

Elspa’s chart for March

August 31st, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Research & Stats | No Comments »

These are the most popular games according to the Elspa counts.

1. Glu – Sonic the Hedgehog
2. EA Mobile

One-Third of Mobile Games Are Free; U.S. Gamers More Competitive

September 27th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Research & Stats | No Comments »

New data on the mobile games market shows that the puzzle/strategy genre has generated the most revenue, but it also has the biggest number of free downloads to give mobile users incentive to download more games. A separate survey also reveals that mobile gamers in the U.S. are generally more competitive than mobile users in Europe. More within…
The results of two different reports on the mobile games market were released today, highlighting the trends in mobile game pricing and genre as well as the differences in behavior between American and European gamers. Read on …

Telephia Reports 30 Percent of Mobile Game Titles Drive 80 Percent of Revenue from the Mobile Games Category

August 25th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Research & Stats | No Comments »

Telephia, the leading provider of performance measurement information to the mobile industry, today reports that nearly 30 percent of mobile game titles account for 80 percent of mobile game revenue. According to the latest data from Telephia’s monthly Mobile Game Report, consumers paid an average of $3.86 per game purchased for their mobile devices. Read on …

Gaming Goes Mobile: Issues and Implications

August 24th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Research & Stats | No Comments »

Mark Finn has writen quite an intresting paper on the mobile gaming market and trends. The paper aims to investigate the industrial and social implications of mobile gaming, by bringing together some of the current research on both mobile communications and computer games.

Beginning with a broad overview of the major stakeholders in the market, the paper examines how mobile gaming functions as a vehicle for convergence, bringing together previously disparate industries around a common form of content. It also examines the regulatory complexities that arise when gaming becomes mobile, and in particular how the rise of technologies like location-based services might impact on issues such as privacy. You can download the paper here …

The top Two (2) reason why people are into mobile gaming – To kill time or to alleviate boredom

August 24th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Research & Stats | No Comments »

A new report published by The NPD Group indicated that half of all USA wireless subscribers now own mobile phones capable of downloading games.  A full 27% play games using their mobile phones, including purchased downloads as well as free demos and pre-loaded games, compared to 20% last year.  Another 6% of current non-gamers confessed an interest in playing on their phone over the next year.  The top Two (2) reason why people are into mobile gaming – To kill time or to alleviate boredom. Read on …

Ziff Davis Video Game Survey: Mobile Gaming Doubles Again

August 19th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Research & Stats | No Comments »

According to Ziff Davis Media’s annual "Digital Gaming in America" survey of more than 1,500 randomly selected U.S. households, cell phone gaming continued its meteoric rise in 2005:  the number of households engaged in cell phone gaming nearly doubled again, jumping from 16.3 million last year to 27.9 million this year.

The 2005 Digital Gaming in America study reveals a number of surprising shifts in mobile and portable gaming habits and consumer preferences.  Mobilephone gamers in the study reported spending 19 minutes per gaming session.They spent an average of $13 on mobile phone games in the last 60 days, and core gamers spent even more on mobile phone games — $19 in the last 60 days. ("Core gamers" are defined as those who bought four or more games in the last
six months and play ten or more hours per week.) Read on … Read on …(2)

NPD: Mobile Market Needs Less Quantity, More Quality

August 19th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Research & Stats | No Comments »

The NPD Group’s latest report on the mobile industry found that 27 percent of U.S. wireless subscribers are playing games, but only 8.5 percent are paying for games. In an exclusive interview with NPD Wireless Analyst Clint Wheelock, Modojo discusses that state of mobile gaming in the U.S. and how the market needs to change in order to grow.

The NPD Group’s recent report "Mobile Games: Who’s Playing" revealed some surprising statistics about the current state of the mobile industry. Although NPD Wireless Analyst Clint Wheelock agrees that the wireless games market is going to continue its rapid growth pattern, he also noted that the study unearthed some more disturbing mobile gaming trends. The report doesn’t indicate that alarm bells should be sounding, but it does show that market consolidation is becoming increasingly likely over the next 12-18 months. Read on …