Mobile gaming is box office business
Over the course of 2016 games for smartphones and tablets generated $40.6 billion in revenues.
It means, according to SuperData Research, that these games are now bringing in as much money as the global box office.
The company's latest report: "Can't Stop, Won't Stop: The 2016 Mobile Games Market", co-authored with Unity Technologies finds that mobile gaming grew 18% over the past year and its popularity shows no signs of abating.
"Players are installing more apps than ever and are more engaged with mobile games than TV and online videos," said John Cheng, General Manager of Unity Analytics. "They play six days a week and watch content only five. It's been phenomenal to watch engagement on the different mobile and VR platforms grow, and that trend will continue to increase in the foreseeable future."
In terms of revenue, mobile games, an area once derided by the established gaming community, is now responsible for generating 50% of all gaming revenue across all genres and all platforms. And as a result, companies that would have traditionally developed games purely for the PlayStation or Xbox are now looking very seriously at smartphones and tablets.
"The sustained growth of the global mobile games market is helping to legitimize games in the traditional media landscape," says Stephanie Llamas, VP of Research and Strategy of SuperData Research. "The size of the market is also attracting the leading players in the gaming market, as can be seen with Activision's Blizzard deal to buy King and Tencent acquiring Supercell."
As for tastes, according to the report, puzzlers are the most popular types of mobile game - played by 58% of gamers, followed by action games (40%) and simulators (26%).
