The 1st London Mobile Games Week (www.mobilegamesweek.london) kicked off on January 19 and runs through January 23. Although mobile gaming is still in its infancy, it has quickly become a significant slice of the £540 million that the UK's Department of Culture, Media & Sport estimates that the UK games industry contributes annually to the British economy. Industry associations, mobile games studios and companies involved in any aspect of the creation of mobile games have been able to create and host free to attend events under the London Mobile Games Week banner. Events scheduled include: * Microsoft: Cloud Gaming Day; * The Afternoon Club: from Zero to Hero, showing how to grow and monetize your gaming business; * MGF London 2015, which discusses the business of mobile games; * Next-Level Indie Forum 2015; * Transforming Gaming, which presents the benefits of enhanced gaming as a service; * Open Companies Day; * PlayMob: Play Nice, which helps developers and publishers gain a better understanding of using games for social change.
Many people think of games as just kids' stuff, but the “2014 Global Games Market Report” by Newzoo predicts that the international games market will rocket past the $100 billion mark in the next three years to reach at least $102.9 billion by 2017. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of +8.1 percent, outstripping the previous year's estimate due to the relentless growth of both Asian markets and mobile gaming. The market for smartphones and tablets will rise from $17.6 billion (a total market share of 23 percent in 2013) to an impressive $35.4 billion in 2017 – ultimately dominating one third of the global games market. Newzoo originally predicted that mobile gaming would rise to $21.7 billion in 2014, generating 27 percent of global revenues. In October they revised that estimate upwards to $25 billion. This estimate includes local Android stores, particularly popular in China as well as web-based and feature phone gaming. The latter is typical of the Japanese mobile games market and still accounts for several billion dollars in revenues. According to Newzoo, 1.5 billion consumers worldwide have played a game on a smartphone or tablet. This is 51 percent of the connected global population. Almost a third (32%) of these gamers have spent money on, or rather in, smartphone and tablet games. North America is the leader in mobile games revenues and 2014 spending shows that mature markets are still where most mobile gaming revenues are made. Newzoo believes this proves that there is enormous room for growth globally, with the share of spenders on smartphone and tablet games steadily growing closer to that of console and PC games.
