While other forms of entertainment are experiencing declines, gaming is growing year over year. Gaming is the new world’s favourite form of entertainment that is generating more revenue than TV, movies, and music combined.
Video games have gone mainstream and nowadays there are many different ways to consume them: on mobile, console, PC, eSports or watching streaming on Twitch, Facebook and YouTube gaming.
There are a lot of different types of people that play video games with different motivations, level of expertise on the different devices during the day. Therefore, more than one buyer persona can be drawn and the old way to consider gamers into one single cluster is clearly obsolete.
Indeed, according to Newzoo, the old way of segmenting gamers, with personas like casual and core gamers, is linear, incomplete, and offers few benefits to the games business. In the contemporary scenario, it is more appropriate to talk about gaming enthusiasts to describe more accurately people with an interest in gaming, which more frequently than other categories play video games with different motivations.
The following chart published in Newzoo’s Gamer Segmentation, New Era of Game Enthusiasts identify 9 personas that makeup gamer segmentation.
According to a new NewZoo market research we can catalogue mobile enthusiasts within the following cluster:
The Time Filler. With 23% represents the largest percentage against other categories. They play mainly in spare time when they have time or at social events.
Mobile games Audience Analysis By Gender and Age
Despite the common stereotype that gamers are “young tech guys” the audience for mobile gaming today is broadening significantly.
Studies have shown that:
- 51% of mobile gaming enthusiasts are women.
- 46% of all gaming enthusiasts — mobile, console, PC, and more — are women
- 36.3 years is the average age.
The Newzoo VP of research, Sander Bosman, observed:
“While there are almost as many female as male game enthusiasts, there are differences between the top personas for each gender,” writes Newzoo’s VP of research, Sander Bosman, introducing the findings. “Across all 30 markets researched, the top persona among female game enthusiasts is the Time Filler. These are people who play games, typically on mobile, to pass the time. Over a third of all female game enthusiasts fall within this group. Interestingly, the biggest gender differences can also be found here, with 36% of women fitting this persona versus just 19% of men. In fact, almost two-thirds of all Time Fillers are women.”
As you can see, it’s not children but parents who are spending more time on mobile games. Perhaps more striking is the 54% of gamers who fall into the bracket of young professionals or new parents.
Besides, 53% of internet users aged 45-to-54 years old play games on their smartphone.
Mobile Games Interests and Usage
We learned so far that women represent a large part of the mobile gaming market (51%). However, what are the favourite games of mobile enthusiast regardless of their gender?
In this chart, we see the most popular mobile gaming apps by Revenue for January 2021.
The New Reality of Hyper Casual Games
As the name suggests, hyper-casual games are lightweight games with simple mechanics that offer instant gameplay and infinitely replayable. Literally “easy-to-play” designed for The Time Filler player category.
The penetration of smartphones has helped the diffusion of Hyper-casual games for a more mature audience as already analysed above.
Many marketers across industries (automotive, food and apparel) are looking into the potential of gaming enthusiasts to engage them in marketing activities. The most popular marketing activity to engage hyper-casual app gamers through advertising are banners, rewarded videos, and interstitials.
Monetization strategies through in-app purchases might include revenue mechanisms based on timing, agility, puzzle, merge, swerve.
**If you are looking for a software house able to build hyper-casual games prototype within 14 days, we would recommend contacting Umami Games, a Danish-based Independent Game Developer company.
Projections for Growth of Mobile Games
According to market research from Sensor Tower Store Intelligence, the five-year market forecast for app spending will double to $171 billion by 2024. The revenue is projected to grow year-over-year by 20 percent.
As shown in the chart below, the Global Consumer Spending for Mobile Games only for 2020 is expected to grow as well. App Store registers better performance compared to Google Play Store.
The gaming industry worldwide is expanding, and the smartphone is playing a significant role in this expansion.
By 2022, it is predicted that Android games will be responsible for 56% of all mobile game revenue. Source, Ironsrc.
Consumer spending on apps will grow well into the future. That is excellent news for those marketers that aim to include gaming audiences in their marketing strategies to reach specific audiences.
Conclusions
Analysing and exploring who play mobile games today is key to understanding where our opportunities lie.
If it’s true mobile gaming is growing MoM, at the same time it’s important to understand the motivation that lies behind these customers that every day plays mobile games. Addressing your marketing communication to the right segment is important for brands and for startup owners who want to create a steady sustainable stream of revenue.
If you are a tech startup or hardware company reach out to us. Our team have the experience you’re looking for to engage with audiences in gaming.
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