Category: Featured News

Mobile games account for majority of mobile applications market revenue for 2012

| December 18, 2012

Mobile games generate significant profits

Mobile applications represent a huge and massively lucrative market. According to Flurry, a leading analytic firm operating in the mobile space, mobile applications accounted for $10 billion in revenue during 2012. The firm has released a report concerning the lucrative mobile applications business, which highlights the impact of free mobile games. The report shows that though free mobile games do not cost anything to play, that account for the majority of the revenue seen in the mobile applications market.

80% of revenue generated through free mobile games

Mobile games are among the most popular applications that are available to consumers with smart phones and tablets. These games often provide hours of entertainment and are typically designed to be very addicting. For many, mobile games are valuable assets because most of these games are free-to-play. Most of these games are filled with advertisements, however, which is part of the reason why they are generating so much money. According to the Flurry report, free mobile games accounted for 80% of the $10 billion in revenue the app market saw t his year.

In-app advertisements help generate revenueMobile Games market revenue

In-app advertisements are not the only thing generating income for mobile games. Many games come equipped with a “cash shop,” which offers bonuses, new equipment, and exclusive features to gamers that want to spend money on the game itself. These cash shop marketplaces are very common in free-to-play games and account for the majority of the revenue they manage to generate. The report also shows that consumers spend large amounts of time on free-to-play games, thus increasing the likelihood that they will purchase something from the cash shop.

Free-to-play games are a lucrative business

The free-to-play model has become very lucrative for developers of mobile games. The report suggests that most developers have yet to identify the ideal niche in which these types of games flourish. Companies like Electronic Arts and Zynga have managed to find a way to make free-to-play games highly appealing to consumers with some cash to spend. Though the latter has been experiencing financial problems of late, Electronic Arts may serve as a powerful example of how to develop games that emphasis participation in a cash shop.

Bing takes on augmented reality

| December 18, 2012

Augmented RealityBing working on developing new augmented reality platforms

Microsoft’s search division Bing has been hard at work developing an augmented reality platform and applications that could gain traction with consumers. Microsoft has been showing a great deal of support in augmented reality recently. The company has plans to incorporate the technology into its next generation gaming platform, tentatively dubbed the Xbox 720. Bing is another sector in which Microsoft is looking to flex its developing augmented reality muscles.

AR team aims to develop new technologies

Bing has established an augmented reality team, which has been tasked with building a platform that acts as a place for users to find information in a natural way. The augmented reality team is working on camera tracking, visual and audio recognition, optical character tracking, translation, and vision-based technologies. These technologies will be used in mobile applications as well as the basic structure of the Bing search engine and its various services, such as Bing Maps.

Google may finally see some competition in the search space

Though Google continues to dominate the online search engine space, Bing is becoming a more popular platform. If augmented reality can be successful introduced, Google may have its first real competitor in the search sector. Bing is basing its augmented reality efforts around “naturalism,” that is, Bing aims to present its augmented reality services in a way that seem wholly natural to consumers. The user interface of the applications and platforms Bing is working on will be intuitive to consumers, no matter what their experience with augmented reality may be.

Companies have yet to show they can deliver with augmented reality

Bing’s augmented reality endeavors may find significant success if its applications and new augmented reality platform can appeal to consumers. Many consumers have already shown interest in the technology because of its dynamic nature, but there are few augmented reality platforms available from major companies like Microsoft and Google. Whether these companies can successfully develop platforms that can attract and keep consumers engaged has yet to be seen.