New data from research firm Newzoo reveals that more than 100 million consumers in the United States are playing games on various hand-held and mobile devices including smartphones, tablets, and iPods. The amount of users playing games on portable devices has grown by more than a third compared to last year, according to Newzoo data. In Europe smartphone and tablet gamers (from seven key territories) has also increased to 70 million, a 15 percent year-over-year increase. The data comes from Newzoo's Mobile Games Trend Report.
Of the estimated 100 million U.S. mobile gamers, 69 percent played on a smartphone, 21 percent on a tablet, and 18 percent on an iPod Touch. In Europe, 69 percent also play on a smartphone, 16 percent on a tablet, and 11 percent on an iPod Touch.
Newzoo also said that the amount of time and money consumers are spending on mobile games is a lot higher than last year. Mobile gaming took up around 13 percent of all the time spent on games worldwide - 130 million hours a day - and 9 percent of the total money spent on games - $5.8 billion. Newzoo sees this growth coming from in-game purchases in freemium or free-to-play mobile titles on various devices.
Around 90 percent of mobile game spending in the U.S came from free-to-play games, and 79 percent in Europe. Newzoo said that the top five grossing games for both Europe and the U.S. last month were free-to-play games.
Source: Gamasutra , image provided by Shutterstock.
