Category: Mobile Gaming

Mobile games may be the rulers of the gaming industry in 2015.

According to market research firm, Newzoo, the mobile gaming industry may be exceptionally strong next year, as mobile games are expected to beat console games in revenue, hitting the $30.3 billion mark in 2015, an increase from the anticipated $25 billion in 2014.

There has been strong year-to-date growth in both mature and emerging markets for tablet and smartphone games.

Compared to the predictions of SuperData Research, the Amsterdam-based Newzoo has greater optimism when it comes to mobile games. Newzoo’s rival, SuperDatat Research, expects that mobile games will only reach $21.1 billion by the end of 2014. That being said it is anticipated that by 2017, games for mobile devices will hit $40 billion.

According to the newly revised 2014 Newzoo forecast, Western Europe’s mobile games market revenue is anticipated to grow 47%, while North America’s is anticipated to grow 51%. Of all the markets, Southeast Asia and China are predicted to be the fastest growing and will expand by 86%

Newzoo credits the high mobile growth rate to “organic growth” for boosting the market in general and “cannibalistic growth”, which comes at the cost of other segments. Spending for massively multiplayer online games and online PC games is moving toward tablets and smartphones, while social, casual and handheld console gaming have weakened.

Apple mobile gaming is doing better than Nintendo.

It also appears that the game revenues of Apple could actually be two times greater than Nintendo in 2014. The electronics giant is expected to produce $4 billion in revenue from mobile games sold in iTunes. Meanwhile, Google may generate game revenue totaling $3 billion this year. On the flip side of the coin, Nintendo’s revenues were $2.4 billion in 2013 and this number is predicted to drop in 2014.

Newzoo CEO Peter Warman commented that in the mature Western mobile gaming markets, the battle between Android and iOS is shifting its focus to tablets. Although the iPad gives iOS the advantage in general mobile game spending, the Android market is split across diverse devices and operating systems.

Considering the penetration of smartphones, it isn’t entirely shocking that 44 percent of gamers use that device to play.

According to the Entertainment Software Association report “2014 Sales, Demographic, and Usage Data: Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Gaming Industry,” mobile gaming is rapidly on the rise as 44 percent of all gamers are using their smartphones as their device of choice.

This has been presenting considerable challenges as mobile devices are run exclusively on batteries.

Unlike video game consoles, in which the primary component is plugged into a wall socket in order to provide power – even if the controllers are wireless – mobile gaming relies exclusively on devices that are run on smartphone batteries. When considering that Big Fish Games has predicted that the market for smartphone and tablet based gaming is expected to double by 2016, that’s a lot of drain in the built in power bank.

This trend has made the portable phone charger an essential tool for the mobile gaming industry.

Beside smartphones, tablets are also becoming extremely important mobile gaming devices. This is picking up as penetration of those devices starts to pick up, though it remains nowhere near that of smartphones, for the moment. New data cited by Big Fish Games has suggested that these will be among the most important gaming devices in terms of popularity, as revenue from those games will have grown 400 percent by 2016. The larger screens and better hardware have made those gadgets specifically appealing to gamers.

Even gamers who are loyal to PC and consoles are playing tablet and smartphone games. Among American households that have a dedicated PC or a gaming console, 53 percent play games on smartphones, too.

While smartphone battery technology is improving, it is not doing so nearly fast enough to keep up with the power demands on those devices, particularly as mobile gaming continues to pick up. Those apps cause a notable drain and can lead the device to run out of juice before it is convenient for the user to recharge it. For this – among other reasons – high quality external battery charger power banks from companies such as Mogix have become a vital tool for gamers, regardless of their mobile device of choice.