Mobile Games To Be A $10 Billion Industry By 2014

Hopefully that's not just 10 billion copies of Angry Birds

Oct 27 2010, 4:11pm CDT | by Jordan Cressman

Mobile Games To Be A $10 Billion Industry By 2014

Just a few years ago, if you actually downloaded a game on your phone, you were deemed either a total dork or someone who liked to throw away money (like, $10 for a crappy version of Monopoly). But now the industry is starting to grow up.

In fact, this year alone, the iPhone is expected to rake in more than $1.7 billion in app sales. That's three times more than what Android is expected to bring in, even though there are more Android phones in the US.

This is all according to Futuresource Consulting, an analyst group specializing in the mobile industry. Just to provide some context for how big $10 billion is - that's about one-fourth of the 2009 revenue of the entire video game industry. As you may know, the video game industry has risen over a span of more than 30 years. Comparatively, most people had never even thought of buying a game on their mobile phone more than five years ago.

The highest area of growth in mobile is expected to be "freemium" games, or games that are free to download but then coerce players into buying additional content once they've been sucked in. We personally hate that word - just as much as we hate refudiate and staycation - but it's gonna start dominating the lexicon pretty soon.

Futuresource also expects to see a big rise in the number of ad-funded games. So start marking your calendars for when you'll start seeing Best Buy, Colgate, and Tide iPhone games. You know it's coming.

So what does all this mean to you? Well, first off, if you don't have a smartphone you better get one. I mean, seriously. Secondly, expect the iPhone and others to continue to get more attention from the big publishers. Casual games will grow to an even bigger industry, but hopefully with more sophisticated phones and more hardcore gamers going mobile, we can get some serious titles for our iPhones too.

Updates

GTA V Coming Q1 2013 According to Analyst

Source: Got Game News

Analyst Arvind Bhatia, from Sterne Agee predicts that Grand Theft Auto V will be out early next year. While talking to GameSpot, Bhatia said that the game should be out in the first quarter of 2013. In addition, he expects that the game will make ab ...
Full article at: Got Game News More like this 1 hour ago, 6:35pm CDT

'At the Edge' special programs

Source: The Morning Call

•"Monsters, Aliens and Bizarre Creatures," with Jordu Schell, world renowned creature and character designer for the film, gaming and collecibles industry. 2 p.m. June 3 •"Roger Dean: Pathways and Bridges," with the British artis ...
Full article at: The Morning Call More like this 1 hour ago, 6:33pm CDT

Allentown Art Museum kicks off summer with 'Art of the Fantastic'

Source: The Morning Call

Everyone had seen them: captivating scenes of barbarians slicing their way through misty primordial lands, wizards meeting on distant planets, ghostly specters threatening scantily clad damsels in distress. And works by ...
Full article at: The Morning Call More like this 1 hour ago, 6:33pm CDT