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Cell Phone Gaming Taking Off

According to a new consumer study conducted by research firm Information Solutions Group on behalf of casual games publisher PopCap Games, 57% of AT&T wireless subscribers play mobile games.

The advent of the iPhone and its App Store have made the download and usage of mobile games easier than ever, and the mobile gaming industry is expected to grow more than 10% per year to hit $6.3 billion in user spending by 2011, according to a report from Gartner.

52% of gamers cited “distraction from daily life issues” as the top benefit derived from mobile gaming, followed by “relaxation and stress relief” (40%) and “improved mood” (12%)–in addition, 52% of gamers said they play mobile titles during work hours, and 14% selected “during my work day, when I need a short break” as the time when they most often play games on their phone.

60% of all mobile gamers cited “while waiting for an appointment” as a time when they play mobile games, with “during the day on weekdays” selected by 34% of respondents and “when traveling on vacation” and “on the weekend” tying for third at 25% each.

The Information Solutions Group study reports that 59% of AT&T gamers play games on their phone at least once a month, and 40% said they play weekly or more often–41% said they played less than once per month. 91% of mobile gaming sessions last fewer than 30 minutes, and 62% extend fewer than 15 minutes. In all, 71% of mobile gamers play games on their phone for less than an hour per week, although 52% of those who play daily said they play for three or more hours per week.

Asked to name “games you enjoy playing on your cell phone,” 20% of AT&T gamers cited Tetris, followed by Bejeweled at 18% and Solitaire at 17%. Puzzle games topped popular genres at 66%, followed by card/casino titles at 51%–board games earned 15% of the vote, with action/adventure trailing at 11%.

86% of mobile gamers also play video games on one or more other devices, with 76% of gamers playing on computers, 41% on consoles and 24% on handheld game devices.

17% of mobile gamers consider their mobile handset their primary gaming device.

EA and Glu Report Mobile Game Sales Results

Two of the biggest mobile game developers in the world, Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Glu Mobile (NASDAQ: GLUU) announced quarterly results this week.

While EA’s overall business continues to struggle, mobile was a bright spot with the company reporting that their mobile revenues were up 24% year-over-year to $189 million. For the fiscal fourth quarter, EA Mobile recorded $48 million in revenues, up 14% year-over-year.

Glu reported revenues of $20.8 million, compared to $20.6 million in the first quarter of 2008 which represents less than a 1% increase year over year.

If I was a Glu shareholder I’d be pretty disappointed with Glu’s results. Although EA is a bigger company , the mobile games business is growing fairly rapidly (see post coming soon) and Glu should be growing at a similar pace to EA.

If you read Glu’s full release and if you’ve been following the company over the last year, a lot of their lack of growth is due to the fact that Glu was very late to the iPhone party. They’ve started to ramp up lately with a number of high quality releases on that platform including the very fun Glyder title, but it’s clear that they’ve still got a lot of work to do to get their business to take off further.

EA, on the other hand, was early to the iPhone an their games have done very well. Just in the past couple weeks, EA announced five new iPhone titles and executives said they expect to introduce 30 games for the iPhone this year.

M-Commerce Usage Grows According to PriceGrabber

According to a new report from PriceGrabber.com, the increased popularity of Web-enabled phones in the United States has helped online shoppers become mobile Internet shoppers. One in 10 online consumers said they purchase online from their mobile device, 16% compare prices and another 16% research product details/specifications. Of the online consumers making purchases from their mobile phones, 58% have purchased digital content for their phone, 51% have purchased consumer electronics, 37% have purchased computers, 36% have purchased books, and 31% have purchased clothing.

Smartphone and iPhone owners are comfortable using the mobile Internet to make purchases. 56% of Apple iPhone owners and 28% of smartphone owners already are comparing prices online with their mobile phones. Additionally, 27% of iPhone owners and 35% of smartphone owners anticipate that they will be comparing prices within two years.

Click here to read the full report.

The report is based on a survey of 3,305 U.S. online consumers with mobile phones, which was conducted from March 10-31, 2009.

App Review: Flight Control for iPhone

Flight Control Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Ever want to be a flight controller? The most stressful job (so I hear) ever? Well, if you want the fun, but don’t want the stress, Flight Control is the game for you.

With Flight Control, you play a flight controller who needs to guide planes in for a safe landing. You have two runways (red and yellow) and one helicopter pad (blue). As planes fly in, they are either red or yellow, indicating which runway they need to land on (helicopters can only land on the pad). Your job is to guide the planes to the appropriate runway while avoiding in-air collisions.

Sounds easy, right? Sure it is…when there are only one or two planes coming in at a time. But as time progresses, more and more planes enter the playing field, increasing the risk of close calls and collisions.

The process of guiding a plane is very simple. Simply tap the plane, and slide you finger along the path you want the plane to take. As you are creating the path, it appears as a dotted line. When you lift you finger, the planes path is “set”, and it starts to follow it. Need to adjust a path? Just tap the plane and slide your finger to create a new path. Not sure you know where you want the plane to go? Draw it flying in circles or a big loop, and then come back to it later. Don’t forget about a plane though! If a plane finished it’s path and hasn’t landed, it just keeps flying straight (pilots are sort of dumb like that).

This game is really sort of cool, and there aren’t any other games out there like it. The controls are very easy, making good use of the touch screen. The game warns your of potential collisions and incoming aircraft (which are offscreen so you can’t see them). As with most games, I wish there were some sort of multiplayer or competitive option, but the game can get pretty hectic on it’s own. The game’s difficulty increases quickly – one or two planes on the screen is fine, but with 5 or 6 planes it can be very difficult to keep track of them all.

I would love to see some different “airport” options – different layouts of runways and helicopter pads, so you could choose which airport you wanted. This would also be a good way to allow different difficulty levels. But the included airport is fun. The stats page gives you a nice rundown of your performance, including your average score, the most planes on the screen at one time, you highest score, etc.

Pros:

• New game concept,
• easy game play

Cons:

• No multiple airports

Conclusion

All in all, this is a fun little game. It takes the iPhone and brings a new game concept to it (at least a concept I haven’t seen before). The game design is perfect for the iPhone. At $.99 (current grand opening sale) the game is a must try. The normal price is probably going to be $2.99, and even at that price it is worth it.

TiPb Forum Review Rating

[Flight Control is available via the iTunes App Store]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

App Review: Flight Control for iPhone

Digital Chocolate Dominating the App Store

Mobile games and applications developer Digital Chocolate reports its five titles for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch have topped the 8 million download mark less than 100 days since going live in the App Store. According to DChoc, games like Crazy Penguin Catapult, Tower Bloxx, and 3D Brick Breaker Revolution–available in both premium and free editions–currently represent 2% of total App Store downloads.

“Based on the app downloads chart they just showed this week, we have represented two percent of all downloads of all kinds since we made our debut,” said Trip Hawkins, CEO of Digital Chocolate. “The unprecedented and record-setting aspects of our performance suggest that something big is going on.”

All five Digital Chocolate games now rank in the Top 90 of the App Store’s Free Games list, and have received more than 200,000 consumer reviews since their inception.

“Apple is showing many industries how the world can take computers, content, community, and retailing to a new level,” explained Hawkins. “If I brought a man from Mars down to Earth and showed him a Wal-Mart, the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and the on-device iPhone App Store experience, which do you think he would find the most amazing?

“This merchandising model on a mobile device is the wave of the future and will someday be used by billions of people. For consumers, this experience is well beyond what the writers of Star Trek came up with when given thousands of years to imagine. It is arguably the greatest achievement in the history of human commerce,” he continued.

Congrats to Digital Chocolate on their tremendous success with this platform. The company has always produced great games but never could quite compete in the “traditional” carrier controlled ecosystem. They’ve obviously figured out this new distribution option and hopefully they can continue their success here.

iPhone Game Review – Sky Force Reloaded

Thanks to Infinite Dreams, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time recently playing a fun vertical shooter game called Sky Force Reloaded.

Sky Force Reloaded is the sequel to Sky Force, an advanced and highly acclaimed arcade shooter. The game reminds me of an old favorite – 1942. It is a pretty simple game mechanism where you maneuver your airplane/space-ship using the touchscreen to shoot down various sized aircraft, tanks, guns etc while trying to rescue humans and collect stars along the way.

First off, you choose from 3 ships with variable speed and shield capabilities. Then you pick the level you want to play. The game includes a total of 8 levels; 3 easy levels, 3 medium levels and two hard levels. The main difference between the levels is the opponents “aggressiveness” and the % of enemies you have to destroy in order to pass the level.

For example, in Easy Level 2 you have to shoot down 80% of the targets to qualify. Sound easy? Well, the game is not simple and it took me a number of tries to pass the easy levels but after awhile I started getting the hang of it. When you get the laser going, things get really fun as you’re basically torching the whole screen.

The game features a leader-board as well as support for 8 languages. Nothing overly fancy here – just a fun, straight forward shooter game that is well worth the $.99! they are currently charging.

It’s definitely worth a buck – click here to get it now.

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