Tag: mobile gaming revenue

The results of a recent data analysis from Swrve showed that 60 percent of income is generated by 0.23 percent of users.

A new report has now been released by Swrve, a mobile marketing automation company, and it has revealed that a very large portion of the total revenues brought in by mobile games are actually generated from a tiny sliver of the total number of players.

This suggest that the majority of gamers are either cheap or they know that they can enjoy a game without paying.

What the Swrve report indicated was that 60 percent of the total in-app revenues from mobile games were being generated by a tiny 0.23 percent of all of the players. This clearly represents a very small number of the total players and it suggests that these paying players – known by the industry as “whales” – should be treated in the same way that high rollers are treated in Vegas. The report from Swrve was based on data that was collected based on 20 million players of smartphone and tablet based games that are free-to-play.

While this may make it seem that mobile games have a rather dim looking future, that is not necessarily true.

At the same time that it seems that only a very tiny number of players are providing most of the revenue for these mobile apps, the average amount that is being spent on these video games has risen to $29.17 from having been $22 at the same time last year. So there may not be a large percentage of people paying to play, but those who are have an average spending amount that is 33 percent higher within the span of only one year.

Other key findings from this research include:

• Among customers who pay to pay on mobile apps, 44 percent made a single purchase, while 20 percent made 5 or more.
• The average paying player makes an average of 3.5 monthly purchases at an average of $8.27 per purchase.
• 21.9 percent of purchases are of mid-tier virtual items (priced between $10 and $20), and they made up 38.6 percent of the total revenue, which is a figure that had been 22 percent at the same time in 2014.
• The average amount of time spent playing mobile games before the first purchase is made is 15 hours, which has dropped from being just over 23 hours, last year.

New data has found that global revenues from tablet games will reach over $13 billion by 2019.

A recent Juniper Research report found that the growth of tablet mobile gaming will be powered by many important factors, such as a consumer’s preference for ubiquity and convenience, improved graphics capabilities, growing mobile broadband penetration, and devices with better storage capacity.

The predicted 2019 worldwide revenues is three times the amount of the 2014 figure of $3.6 billion.

The report from Juniper Research – “Mobile & Handheld Games: Discover, Monetise, Advertise 2014 – 2019” – also discovered that 2015 could be a crucial year for independent (indie) developers of mobile games. The research said that in mobile marketplaces that now have more than 1 million apps, more funding would be needed for developers to make the most of opportunities when it comes to attaining consumer awareness. Crowdfunding was suggested by the report to be a funding option that would grow in popularity for indie developers.

In addition to this, the report claimed that across emerging markets, with storefront payments being increasingly facilitated by carrier billing deployments in countries with reduced banked penetration rates, there will be impressive monetization growth of mobile games for smartphones. It said that games may have another delivery channel via micro-apps, which are currently being incorporated in messenger services, and this could encourage more growth.

Advertising is becoming more and more important for mobile gaming in terms of generating revenue.

According to the report, it estimates that in 2019 only around 6 percent of mobile games will be paid for by consumers at the point of download and the real revenue generation will come from advertisements. It also noted that diversified gaming offerings have lead to a sudden boost in not only the number of gamers across wider demographics who engage in social/casual gaming, but also how long consumers play games.

According to Juniper Research analyst Eva Hunyadi, social/casual games can be played anywhere and at anytime and are a generally fun pastime that does not require the user to devote time concentrating on certain game specifications.

Hunyadi also commented that although the growth in tablet mobile gaming is astounding, in the near future, its impact on PC and other gaming platforms won’t be meaningful.