AfterDawn: News

Mobile game sales are "flatlining", says report

A new Juniper research report has stated that despite increased interest in mobile gaming, sales of games have "flatlined across North America and Western Europe".

The total retail value of the mobile gaming market is expected to almost double in the next 5 years from $5.4 billion USD to $10 billion USD however "limited on-portal revenue share for publishers is driving some away from the sector and poor games marketing fails to capture customer attention."



"The revenue share offered by Apple to games publishers is incredibly attractive," said Dr Windsor Holden, author of the report, speaking about how iPhone gaming has helped bring increased interest to the market.

"The danger is that if operators do not respond with a similar business model, publishers faced with low margins may simply exit Java completely, thereby reducing consumer choice in the longer term."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Nov 2008 21:40

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• 8 comments

• Leningrad

  who needs games on mobiles. i think that they should cease developing cellphone games and concentrate on a major platform.

  19.11.2008 23:07 #1

• Evastar

  As well as that, people are changing their phones every few months, and they can't take the games to the new phone, so that's why i don't bother.
  

  
  

  20.11.2008 03:18 #2

• emugamer

  I'm curious too about who is actually interested in mobile games. Maybe commuters who car pool? Even if I was a student, I woudn't be playing my mobile games on the Subway in NY? I don't get excited to get home and fire up my mobile games on a 4" screen. Even when a few basic games were included free on phones, I never found the need or desire to try them. Nobody I know with even the fanciest phone downloads games.
  
  Whoopee...mobile chuzzle!!

  20.11.2008 11:59 #3

• Evastar

  The only time i ever found them useful was out with the kids, if they hadn't got their ds or gameboy with them and they were bored the phone would keep them occupied for half an hour or so.
  

  
  

  20.11.2008 12:06 #4

• Icanbe

  My phone came with a few games and I've never even played any of them.
  So I'm not about to d/l any and pay for them.

  21.11.2008 16:57 #5

• Mez

  So what you are all saying is there is not much of a market for sophisticated mobile games unless there was a technological break through. The present mobil phone is not a good platform for serious games.

  24.11.2008 08:19 #6

• IguanaC64

  #1 - Portability - Paying 2 or more times for the same content just leaves a sour taste in your mouth
  #2 - Controls - I love Galaga, but playing it on a cell phone was extremely uncomfortable
  #3 - Principle - On my Razr v3m from Sprint they locked down the Java by using some encrypted form of Java that only lets you put apps on if you buy them from pay servers. That put a sour taste in my mouth and I haven't bothered to mess with this stuff again.
  #4 - Scam - The said version of Galaga that I was messing with had a "download full version" key which I accidentally tapped while trying to start a game. It said downloading and I aborted the download. Didn't matter, I had to call my provider and get the charge removed (they said it might come back but it didn't). After that I quit checking out games because I didn't want to fatfinger a key and end up calling my provider to remove the charges again. I figure most would have just sucked it up and paid instead of calling their provider and feeling stupid for accidentally downloading.

  24.11.2008 09:52 #7

• mycellbay

  I am not intrested in playing games on cell phones. It is bad for your eyes,because the screen is so small,compared to TV and PC.

  25.11.2008 00:34 #8