Reports: freemium games

As the digital entertainment worlds grow alongside the traditional IRL entertainment world, the next step in the evolution of the entertainment industry will be to bridge the IRL & digital entertainment spheres together, as and where appropriate. One such opportunity is to build bridges between physical and digital merchandise buying.

The sheer importance and popularity of freemium games in the app economy is evident across the globe as they capture the lion’s share of both the top 100 grossing overall charts, as well as gaming charts globally. But behind the global popularity of freemium games are individual regions at various levels of market maturity, platform penetrations, publisher competitiveness and consumer preferences, which together drive regional nuances for freemium game economy dynamics.

Though mobile games differ largely by genre, demographics and business models, most share the status of social connector and cultural identifier. Much like music companies, mobile gaming companies often struggle with conversion to payment as well as a regular production of hits to retain momentum in the long term.

78% of mobile app revenue is concentrated in 26% of app buyers with the majority of that revenue driven by in-app purchases. These ‘whales’ are the beating heart of the mobile app economy but their small number means that they make precarious foundations for the market.