Don’t Know Who your Target Audience Should Be!

A study has been released on mobile gamer’s playing habits and the results might be a little surprising for some. The study suggests that the most valuable consumers on the market – the ones you should be targeting with the games you develop – are women in their late 30s that enjoy matching gems and catching monsters. To put it simply; you want to be targeting the older woman playing Candy Crush and Pokémon Go.     

The survey was performed by Verto Analytics, who looked into users who spent time playing games across multiple devices. They came to the conclusion that, as far as “super mobile gamers” go, the average one is a woman nearing 40, who spends around 15 hours per month playing around 127 gaming sessions. They enjoy playing games in short bursts, choosing quantity over quality. Make a game that is best played in plenty of short bursts. To make it profitable you can slip in some small microtransactions here and there. Given how many games there are like that on the market, you’re going to want to make yours stand out. Try taking what works and applying it to a new theme, or coming up with a new feature to hook players. Even a simple change of setting can do wonders. Think of how many Candy Crush clones there are. Candy Crush itself is basically a clone of Bejewelled.

A report from Pocket Gamer shows that mobile games - such as mobile slots and other great mobile games – were the second most-used apps with every demographic included in the Verto Analysis report. The only thing that outperformed games were social apps. People play these mobile games an average of 152 times a month for a total of 14 hours and 42 minutes. The social media apps, on the other hand, were used an average of 685 times for a total of 22 hours and 35 minutes. There’s no competing with that kind of power. Then there are social platforms like Facebook that come with games built in, tackling both markets at once.

It'll come as no surprise but the most popular app among these “super mobile players” is Pokémon Go. They also enjoy playing Candy Crush and Words with Friends, which was the most played game across the United States. It seems like Americans would rather stay at home and try to find words than go outside and try to find colorful little monsters.

Verto Analytics also looked into the amount of devices people owned; finding out more about which demographic of people are using multiple devices. The results showed them that the ones owning the most devices are female millennials; who own an average of three devices more than male millennials. The opposite trend was seen with Generation X however (people between the ages of 35 and 45) – where it’s the men who own more devices than the women.

Mobile gaming has certainly come a long way in the past two decades. Long gone are the pixelated games like Snake. Even games that were considered advanced – like the aforementioned Candy Crush and Clash of Clans – are becoming more average by the day. Soon mobile games will be able to handle modern console games. The market is changing in response to this improved technology, as more people are putting down their computers and picking up their mobiles. There’s still a ways to go until mobile gaming is truly complete, but for now the world is still your oyster when it comes to mobile game development. Let your imagination run wild!