U.S. Mobile Gamers Smartphone Data

Apr 16, 2010 by Dan Taylor    1 Comment     Posted under: Games

Industry leading metrics firm ComScore recently released their mobile gaming study data, with some interesting results. Although ComScore found a 13 percent drop in the number of U.S. mobile gamers over the past year, the same study saw mobile gaming on smartphones surge: up 60 percent. ComScore point out that the overall decline in mobile gamers is driven primarily by a 35 percent decline in mobile gaming on feature phones, which currently dominate the market with 80 percent.

“Although the number of mobile gamers has declined in the past year, there is reason for significant optimism about the future of this market,” said Mark Donovan, comScore SVP Mobile and senior analyst. “As the market transitions from feature phones to smartphones, the dynamics of gameplay are also shifting towards a higher quality experience. As a result, we can expect to see a profound increase in adoption of this activity, both in terms of audience size and overall engagement.”

Smartphone owners are heavy on mobile games

The ComScore data also found that smartphone owners are three times more likely than feature phone owners to play games on their device at least once a month. These same smartphone owners are more than five times more likely to play games almost every day.

Perhaps owing to the ease, smartphone owners also install significantly more games on their devices with 27.3 percent having installed at least one game, as compared to feature phone owners, who came in at a paulty 5.6 percent. Moreover, 33 percent of smartphone owners that install games have more than five games on their phone at any given time. By contrast, less than 1 percent of feature phone owners have more than 5 games installed.

“Smartphones offer a more accessible and compelling mobile gaming experience that is enabling adoption of this behavior, even among consumers who have not traditionally been gamers,” added Donovan. “Marketers and advertisers ought to be paying close attention to the opportunity this presents for reaching consumers in new and engaging ways in a cross-platform environment. The potential for highly creative marketing efforts is exciting.”

Arcade Puzzle games take top priority

In each area of gaming surveyed, smartphone owners are playing the pants off their feature phone counterparts. The games genre with the highest usages among smartphone owners is Arcade Puzzle games, garnering 12.9 percent of the market. Second place belongs to Card games (11.9 percent), Word/Number games in third (11.4 percent), Casino games scores fourth on players’ go-to list (7.6 percent), and Retro Arcade titles round out the top five (6.3 percent).

Casual vs. Hardcore

The ComScore study found that while casual games have a higher penetration rate over hardcore gaming titles and genres (sports, racing, action/adventure, FPS), the hardcore games exhibit a significantly higher adoption rate among smartphone owners.