Game on: Mobile gaming expected to be worth US$3bn by end of 2015

20 Feb 2015

With the entire gaming industry making more money than Hollywood these days, it may come as little surprise to see that new research puts the mobile gaming market alone at a valuation of US$3bn by the end of 2015.

With smartphones now more common than not in many countries, the growth of casual mobile games has been exponential drawing in people who, until their first smartphone, may have never played a computer game before.

Now, according to eMarketer, this figure in financial terms for this year will be an increase of 16.5pc on 2014 and will account for 30.9pc of the entire mobile phone market’s revenue in 2015.

Driving these huge profits is the freemium business model, which offers apps initially for free, but then offers in-app purchases in the form of aesthetic improvements or ones that give users the chance to level-up in the game more quickly.

While the model continues to stoke controversy for perceptions that it makes games ‘pay-to-win’, the developers and business people behind these games are certainly not sympathising with these claims, given that eMarketer’s figures show that in-app purchases will account for US$1.82bn in revenue to the mobile gaming industry or in percentage terms, just less than 60pc of its entire revenues.

Next year, this figure is expected to grow to nearly US$2bn.

Outside of gaming, e-books appear to be one of the other major leaders of mobile revenue, with expected sales in 2015 to be in the region of US$4.25bn or 43.3pc of the entire mobile market.

Father and daughter gaming image via Shutterstock

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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