Revenues from in-game purchases will surpass the pay-per-download figures by 2013, pushing mobile gaming revenues to more than US$11bn by 2015.
This is nearly double what they were in 2009, which saw $6bn in total end-user revenues.
Many games, which are free when you buy them first offer in-game purchases, which includes extra levels or items. This is done in order for developers and publishers to monetise them once the player has the game.
The research shows that the mobile games industry is in a healthy position. It sees the iPhone and Apple’s App Store as setting the benchmark, offering a higher share of revenue for developers.
However, discoverability is still an issue, due to the vast quantity of mobile games available.
“Discoverability can be a ‘chicken and egg’ problem: high downloads lead to prominence, but achieving a high number of downloads is largely dependent on already being prominent,” said Mobile Games report author Daniel Ashdown in a statement.
“Consequently, a small minority of games achieve very high downloads, while the vast majority achieve very small download figures.”
