Social mobile gaming on the rise

According to market research, the global market for social gaming – of which a large portion takes place on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices – will reach $17.4 billion (R182,552,100,000) in 2019. Currently, the market is worth $5.4 billion (R56,654,100,000).

The forecast was made in a report released by Research and Markets after analysis of the global social gaming market.

“Individuals and console-based game manufacturers and designers have started recognising the potential and importance of social networking sites, which is in turn contributing to the growth of social games,” the report stated.

“People have always been attracted to video games and these console based games come at prices that is not affordable to the common man. Today’s generation spend their time on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace among other sites to socialise with family and friends. During their time on the web, the users spend over 50% of their time on social games competing with friends and colleagues. Many of the game developers are now looking to tap the social media market and develop games for the social networking sites.”

The report said that just over 200 million social network users play games online, and this is expected to increase each year. By 2019 over 400 million users are predicted to be playing online games.

“To meet the demands of the users, organisations are designing games of different genres such as casino games, virtual villages, sport role playing games, social role playing games, and ownership games among others. Casino and virtual village games are quite popular among the gamers.”

Contributing to this expected growth is growing demand for smartphones and tablets. Games are being, and will be, tailored to run smoothly on these devices, and the free-to-play element is one that has to be considered by all game developers.

“It is expected that in 2014 one third of internet users are likely to take to social gaming,” the report ended.

Is mobile gaming where developers will look to cash in in the future? Let us know your thoughts on these predicted trends in the comments and forum.