Mobile Gaming Market Poised For Further Growth

eMarketer: U.S. Mobile Gaming Market Poised For Further Growth Online gaming is moving beyond the PC and console to reach the screen of the handheld cell phone.

A new brief from finds that mobile gaming is growing in the US and globally, with $2.5 billion in worldwide mobile gaming revenue for 2005. eMarketer also cites recent IDC numbers that show US revenues from mobile games rising to $1.5 billion in 2008, from $600 million in 2005.

Puzzle games like Tetris account for nearly half of all free mobile game downloads, and over a quarter of all mobile gaming revenues. But US growth has been slowed by marketplace issues, relative to the rest of the world. Multiple wireless protocols and handset technologies make it difficult to create games which work reliably on all phones,. This is one reason why simple puzzle games are the most popular type in the US so far. These games have low technical requirements and run on a wide variety of phones."

Three key characteristics define the US mobile game audience, according to the report's findings: 1) Women download more puzzle games (the genre driving the most mobile gaming revenue) than men; 2) Over half of all mobile gamers are teenagers, and 3) Mobile gamers spend more on their phones than non-gamers.

As location-based and multiplayer capabilities develop, advertising to wireless gamers will be an exercise in precision targeting, helping to drive the value of mobile gaming beyond the revenue associated with game sales or subscriptions. Powerful branding opportunities arise with the potential to reach a highly-targeted audience wherever they happen to be including, for the first time, places outside of home and work." Mobile Gaming Publ 20060112