As the annual Game Developers’ Conference kicks off in San Francisco this week, the industry will be focusing on mobile as never before. “We’re doubling down in the mobile space,” says Jim Ying, senior VP of publishing at 6waves lolapps, “and we’re willing to put our money where our mouth is.” 6waves lolapps, a leader in games for social media sites, recently purchased mobile games developer Escalation Studios, and now the company is guaranteeing a $100,000 marketing budget to each new game that qualifies to be part of its portfolio. The games publisher says it will post a page on its website with details on how to apply.
Analysts at PricewaterhouseCoopers have projected that the mobile gaming market will exceed $13 billion by next year. Venture capitalists and other private equity investors are very active in this space, according to Digi-Capital, with the number of transactions rising 67% to 152 last year.
Nielsen says games are the most frequently used mobile apps, and that most people are still willing to pay to play. But the trend in the industry is toward more free games, supported by sales of virtual goods and sometimes by ads.
Ads in mobile games are an overlooked opportunity, according to analyst Jeremy Copp of ComScore, who gave the keynote at London’s recent Mobile Games Forum. “29% of mobile games players recall seeing ads within the game,’ he said. “Not only are you reaching a large audience, but importantly for your advertisers, there’s great recall for that ad.”
Copp also noted that multiplayer mobile games are doing very well. In the past, multiplayer games were often played on social media sites like Facebook, but that is changing. Zynga, the creator of the popular Words with Friends game, said late last week that users will no longer have to log on to Facebook to play. And 6waves’ Jim Ying sees the shift from social media sites to mobile apps as perhaps the biggest trend in the gaming industry today. “Mobile is the wild, wild west, like social was a couple of years ago,” says Ying.
The growth in mobile gaming is creating new job opportunities for software developers and content creators. The Game Developers Conference says companies from around the world will be recruiting at its show this week.
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