Online Casual Gamers Twice As Likely To Play Mobile Games
45% of Online Casual Gamers Would Play Favorite Games on Mobile
San Mateo, Calif - Oct. 29, 2007 - I-play, the mobile entertainment company, has conducted a survey which revealed that 38% of casual online games customers play games on their mobile phones and almost half of respondents - 45% would play their favorite online games, if they were available, on mobile devices.
When asked whether they played games on their mobile phones 22% said 'yes' and 16% said 'sometimes'. The combined 38% compares favorably to the industry average of 20.5% of North Americans who play a mobile game on their handset each month, according to latest figures from M:Metrics. These findings show that online causal gamers are almost twice as likely to play mobile games as the average mobile user.
When online casual games customers were asked how often they play games, 66% said they played on a daily basis and 22% played three times a week. Leading research firm DFC Intelligence forecasts subscription revenue from online casual games will grow from $2 billion in 2005 to $6.8 billion by 2011 while Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that global mobile games revenues will grow from a $3.4 billion industry today to more than $11 billion by 2011.
David Gosen, President, I-play commented: "The frequency with which online casual gamers play is noteworthy and the fact that this group have twice the propensity to play mobile games as the average mobile user is hugely exciting and positive for the mobile games industry. Further potential is shown by the fact that nearly half of people surveyed would want to play their favorite online game on mobile, providing another positive indication of the cross-pollination opportunities between the two gaming communities. This reinforces our position first company to deliver global, integrated casual-games solutions across the 'three screens' of PC, mobile and iTV."
The findings come from a poll of 1,000 online casual games players visiting partner game sites served by Oberon during September. The age demographic represents a relatively equal split across all age ranges:
19% of respondents were 18-24 year olds; 20% of respondents were 25-34 year olds; 17% of respondents were 35-44 year olds; 21% of respondents were 44-54 year olds and 25% of respondents were 55+ year oldsAbout I-play
I-play brings the best in mobile entertainment to an audience of over one billion people via a network of more than 120 carriers worldwide. I-play has been creating mobile games since 1998 and continues to spearhead the creation of mobile entertainment for the next generation.
I-play is a wholly owned subsidiary of Oberon Media, the world's leading casual games company. Oberon's Game Centre platform, is the industry standard and has been adopted by many of the world's largest corporations. The platform combines casual game content, merchandizing and features to fulfil each partner's specific needs. Oberon Media's publishing arm works with the industry's best, award-winning game developers to produce the top-selling casual games, which can be played in more than a dozen languages on PC, web-based, mobile and console platforms.
Founded in 2003, Oberon Media is headquartered in New York, with offices in North America, Europe and Asia.
For more information visit us at http://www.iplay.com/
I-play is a trademark and trading name of Digital Bridges Limited.
Contact:
Anna Brog
I-play
+ 44 (0) 20 7031 8165
anna.brog@iplay.com
Craig Sinel
Fortyseven Communications (for I-play)
323.658.1200
craig@fortyseven.com