Mobile Users Love Gaming -- If It's Free

• Posted: Monday, March 03, 2008
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• Author: pradhana
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• Filed under: Market Survey, Mobile Content, Mobile Services

It's still tough to get mobile users to pay for games.

Nearly three-quarters of the 98.4 million mobile users in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States who played a mobile game in December played a game that came already installed on the handset, according to M:Metrics.

The market research company said that 38.5 million (8.8%) of mobile subscribers played a game they had downloaded and stored on their phones, compared with 35.3 million (8.7%) who had done so in December 2006.

Only 14.4 million, or 3.3%, of mobile subscribers in the United States and Western Europe downloaded a game in the month, compared with 14.6 million (3.6%) in December 2006.

The preference for free mobile games goes beyond merely not wanting to pay for new games, according to Seamus McAteer, chief product architect and senior analyst at M:Metrics.

"One of the greatest challenges facing publishers by the growing adoption of smartphones is the wide availability of free or pirated content for these devices," Mr. McAteer said. [eMarketer]

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