Maybe you're into gaming, maybe you're not, but there's no denying the popularity of the option. Indeed, the explosive growth of Pokemon GO has underlined that a great many people are interested in games, mobile games in particular, making it a huge opportunity for brands to reach their audiences.
To get a better idea of the popularity and impact of mobile gaming, Facebook commissioned market research company TNS to survey people ages 18+ across 12 countries in different geographic regions, including North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, to get a sense of their use of their mobiles as a gaming device.
And the results are pretty eye-opening - some of their key findings include:
- Gamers worldwide will generate $99.6 billion in revenue for 2016, with mobile gaming accounting for $36.9 billion alone
- Smartphones are now the number one gaming device (71%), ahead of PCs (64%), Tablets (34%) and consoles (26%)
- Women and men use mobile games in almost equal measure, with women more into puzzles and men more into strategy games.
Again, as evidenced by the massive popularity of Pokemon GO, there's clearly a huge market for games, and given the rise of interactive content and fun-focused social apps like Snapchat, creating engaging, interesting ways to build engagement through games could be a significant marketing opportunity worth investigating. Alternatively, in-game advertising may also be of benefit, dependent on your target audience.
The full data from Facebook's "5 Global Mobile Gaming Trends" report is included in this new infographic and is definitely worth a look.