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Adults living in the US and UK are playing more games more frequently on their mobiles, according to new research.
A survey commissioned by casual gaming company PopCap Games (of Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies fame,) found that among mobile phone gamers, the mobile phone is now the primary gaming device of choice, leapfrogging video game consoles and personal computers in less than two years.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it discovered that smartphone owners are the most avid consumers of mobile games and purchase trends suggest that the significant growth seen in the mobile games sector will continue ‘for the foreseeable future'.
Just over half of the 2,425 respondents for the online survey conducted in January, said they had played a game on their phone at some point, with almost three quarters of Brits admitting they had played a phone game at least once, compared to 44 percent of US respondents.
More interestingly, around a third of all the people surveyed have played a game on their phone in the past month, making them ‘mobile phone gamers' for the survey and almost a quarter in the past week, making them ‘avid mobile phone gamers'.
Interestingly, 83 percent of mobile gamers who own a smartphone played in the last week, indicating the significance and appeal of gaming apps.
Around half of mobile gamers also said they have increased the amount of time they spend playing on mobile games in the last year, with the figure climbing to almost 70 percent for smartphone owners.
Furthermore, 78 percent of mobile phone gamers said playing games on their handsets has become a regular part of their weekly activities and almost 60 percent squeeze them into their daily routine.
When asked which gaming-capable device they play games on most often, 44 percent of mobile phone gamers chose their phones, catapulting handsets past video game consoles at 21 percent and computers at 30 percent, to the top of the list.
Just over half of avid mobile gamers and 55 percent of those mobile gamers who own smartphones indicated they played games most often on their phones, rather than choosing another device.
Amazingly, the survey also found that mobile phone users spend around a quarter of their mobile usage time (excluding time spent chatting) playing games on their handsets.
Looking at the financial implications of the trends, the research found that 43 percent of mobile gamers and 49 percent of smartphone gamers upgraded a free trial, forking out for a paid version of a game in the past year. More than a quarter of all mobile gamers and a third of smartphone gamers have also paid for extra content for a free game in the past year.
Finally, the average smartphone mobile gamer bought twice as many costly games as those with less flash handsets in 2010 and spent almost $10 more on mobile games.
Dennis Ryan, EVP of worldwide publishing at PopCap, said: "Mobile games are, along with social games, the hottest sector of the video game industry by far. As more people purchase smartphones and the entire process of finding, purchasing and playing mobile games becomes as simple as browsing the internet, the mobile games market is going to accelerate even more."
