Storm8 reaches major milestone in mobile gaming

Mobile gaming is quickly becoming a field that cannot be ignored. While much of the game industry continues to hold a strong focus on traditional platforms, some developers are adopting an exclusive focus on the mobile space, producing games that are designed specifically for mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets. Storm8 is one such company. The developer was founded by former Facebook engineers who had a strong passion for games and the company has recently been making waves in the mobile gaming space.

Developer catching up to the dethroned Zynga

Zynga, the former champion of mobile gaming, recently announced that it saw 33 million daily active users in July of 2012. While this is somewhat lower than what the developer had seen in previous years, it shows that Zynga still holds a strong grip on mobile gaming, even amidst its downfall. Storm8, however, is catching up very quickly. The developer recently announced that it has reached the 10 million daily active users milestone.

Social games mark success for developer

Storm8, which was founded in 2009, has developed a variety of mobile games that have garnered a massive fan base. Like other companies involved in mobile gaming, Storm8 tends to design games to be addictive and provide instant, or near-instant, gratification. These games are generally easy to get involved in and require a modest time investment to see any reward. While gamers do not have to spend hours playing Storm8 titles, they typically do because these games have strong ties to social networks, encouraging community more so than solitude.

Developer finds success despite lack of funding

Storm8 is somewhat unique in the game industry, especially in the mobile sector, in the fact that it has not yet taken any funding from investors. With the poor performance of Zynga in public markets and the rapidly evolving nature of the funding landscape, investors are showing more caution in regards to the ventures they support. Storm8 has little to worry about, however, as the developer has managed to etch out significant success without having to rely on the investments of outside parties.

The example of Sephora has been used to support this claim about the channel.

Experts in mobile commerce and marketing have been looking at some of the larger players in the channel and have stated that they expect a positive future for shopping over smartphones.

Those in the industry are increasingly convinced that this environment has become vital to a company’s survival.

Johnna Marcus, an executive from Sephora, the beauty product retailer, explained that mobile commerce had been a highly positive experience for that company, and that it anticipates further gains in that sphere will present themselves in 2013. Based on last year’s numbers, that business is justified in feeling positive about the potential from smartphone shoppers.

When speaking at a conference, the executive revealed considerable mobile commerce growth data.

According to Marcus, Sephora saw an increase in orders over mobile commerce of 167 percent. Moreover, there was a spike of 75 percent in the traffic that the site saw from smartphones and tablets. Furthermore, over 50 percent of the emails that are sent by the company are opened using these devices, as opposed to laptops and desktop computers.

Sephora has developed a unique mobile commerce strategy which is attempting to make the smartphone or tablet into a type of digital personal shopper for consumers. The devices will allow them to keep track of the brands that they prefer, read reviews, and keep an eye on the very latest items.

The company has also placed a considerable amount of focus on the concept of a mobile wallet which will integrate with the gift cards that they sell. Beyond that, there is a handy feature in the company’s app, which allows consumers to scan the barcodes on the packages in-store, or on the items that have already been purchased. This provides immediate access to product information, reviews, and options for purchasing that item online.

Of course, this was only one example of mobile commerce successes over the last year. A recent eMarketer study has indicated that this year, consumers will be using their devices to purchase $37.44 billion worth of retail products. This is a massive increase over last year, when $23.72 billion was spent.