Puzzle Titles, Women Drive Mobile Game Market

According to new research released by Telephia in its Telephia Mobile Game Report for Q1 2006, puzzle and strategy games were found to be responsible for one-third of the revenue generated by the U.S. mobile game market. According to the report, four of the top five revenue-generating titles were puzzle or strategy-based games, with Tetris, Tetris Deluxe and Bejeweled securing the top spots. The company found that Tetris and Tetris Deluxe were responsible for 5.2 and 3.6 percent of the total mobile game revenue for the quarter respectively, while Bejeweled posted a 2.6 percent share. The fourth most revenue-generating title in the report was JAMDAT Mahjong with 2.2 percent. All four top titles were published by EA Mobile. "Mobile game purchases continue to grow with more than 8.6 million games bought in April, increasing 60 percent since the beginning of the year," said Kanishka Agarwal, Vice President of New Products, Telephia. The report also found that a full sixty-five percent of mobile game revenue was generated by female wireless subscribers. According to the report, female wireless gamers comprised 72 percent of revenue generated by puzzle and strategy games, compared to the 28 percent generated by men in the same category. The most popular games among females were mobile titles categorized as trivia and word games, such as Cosmic Infinity's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire 2005. While this category represented only 11.4 percent of overall mobile revenue for the quarter, 74 percent of this was generated by female players. "The casual nature of mobile games provides tremendous appeal to women, who are not traditionally hardcore gamers by console or online gaming standards," added Agarwal. "The wireless industry has presented a hungry target audience willing to pay premium access to games through their cell phones."