Mobile gaming is becoming more and more popular in our daily activities as a recent study indicates. Figures suggest that 84 percent of all mobile gamers in the US and UK play mobile games at least once a week. Among these, 68 percent of respondents play mobile games less than one hour per week. In comparison with 2009, daily mobile game play has tripled going from 13 percent to 35 percent along the two years. The most popular device for mobile games is the smartphone owning a share of 37 percent in comparison with 25 percent of feature phone owners. Of all mobile phone owners in the US and UK, 52 percent have played a game on a mobile phone at some time in the past.

Free games seem to be the main attraction for 72 percent of mobile gamers, and the rest of the factors rely on trying a new mobile phone and improved graphics, preserving the trends perpetuated in the past years. Developers see potential gains from the gaming market and push free game platforms such as OpenFeint in collaboration with Adknowledge. The duo announced a few days ago a scalable freemium platform for iOS developers. Zynga as well is making advances in offering its social games on all platforms, irrespective of devices, aiming at increasing the number of 10 million players it currently has.

Mobile gaming is a powerful tool for advertisers, developers and app store operators as well. In the next period, advertisers will need to work closely with developers to integrate their campaigns with well-known games, and cross-promote them via traditional media and online ads. Developers, on the other side, must profit from each possibility of drawing money out of mobile social games and app store operators should prioritize ‘the best and most lucrative’ games are within players reach.