Tag: mobile advertisements

Mobile gaming addicting to young consumers

| January 23, 2013

Mobile Gaming addictive for childrenMobile gaming draws criticism for focus on children

It is no secret that mobile games are designed to keep people playing them as long as possible. The longer a person plays a mobile game, the more exposed they are to the various advertisements and services being offered through that game. The mobile gaming space has been seeing more criticism for this common practice recently, however, because of the fact that many mobile games are played, if not designed specifically for, children.

Kytephone report shows Rovio games are the most addictive

A new report from Kytephone, a company that offers tools for the Android platform that are designed for child safety, shows that children are very susceptible to addictive mobile games. The report shows that many mobile games, especially those that are free to download, are very popular among the younger audience. The company drew its data from more than 13,000 children between the ages of 8 and 14. Kytephone found that the most addicting titles in the mobile gaming space came from Rovio, the developers of the Angry Birds franchise.

Rovio games beat out other titles on the mobile platform

During the 2012 holiday season, Kytephone found that children were spending 51% more time on mobile gaming than they had been during other times of the year. The majority of this time was spent on various Rovio titles, including Angry Birds and Angry Birds Star Wars. Other titles that are popular with children on other platforms, such as Minecraft, fell well behind Rovio in terms of mobile gaming. While most of these games are not associated with any fees, they do expose children to advertisements and often encourage the spending of money in order to unlock new services.

Mobile games could be exposing children to advertisements designed to encourage them to pay for services

Mobile gaming has begun attracting critical attention because of its apparent focus on appealing to a very young audience. For entertainment purposes, this is rarely a problematic issue. Mobile gaming applications do not exist for the sole purpose of entertainment, however, as most developers in the mobile gaming space rely heavily on putting advertisements within the games to generate revenue. These advertisements can also collect personal information from a consumer, putting a child’s personal information at some degree of risk.

Blinkbox reports major increase in mobile sales

| January 16, 2013

Blinkbox report mobile salesBlinkbox sees business from mobile platforms spike

Blinkbox, a video-on-demand service based in the United Kingdom, has reported that its sales through mobile devices from November to December 2012 jumped 180%. The service is very similar to that of Netflix, but more accommodating to mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets. In the United Kingdom, Blinkbox has become a very popular service for mobile consumers, many of whom use the service to watch videos while they are traveling or away from home for any extended period of time.

Tablets and game consoles lead to surge in sales

Blinkbox notes that the surge in mobile sales it has seen recently come from a mix of devices, including smart phones, tablets, and game consoles. While the company attributes a significant amount of success to its appeal to smart phone owners, Blinkbox notes that its recent surge is largely due to the rising availability of tablets and game consoles.

Blinkbox able to beat out competitors

During the 2012 holiday season, Blinkbox saw a major influx of new customers. This is likely due to the fact that many people got tablets and new gaming consoles during this time of year as presents. Blinkbox had also instituted several innovative incentives to help attract new users, many of which were greatly successful. The company notes that was able to beat out competitors because it offered access to many of the most recent movies to be released, whereas Netflix users would have to wait months before gaining access to these titles.

Initiatives prove successful for Blinkbox

Last year, Blinkbox launched the Movie Mondays initiative, which gives users a chance to purchase on-demand videos at a significantly lower rate than usual. Blinkbox has recently announced its partnership with Papa John’s Pizza, which will be providing a large pizza at the same rate as Movie Monday videos. This is another incentive designed to attract new customers, as well as retain those that Blinkbox has already managed to capture.