Mobile Games Beat PC Games in 2016

It’s official. Mobile games are now ahead of PC games in terms of sales. A recently launched report from the IDC and App Annie has found that 2016 was the best year yet for mobile games, with consumers spending more than 25% as compared to 2014 and 2015.

The Pokémon Go Effect

“The breakout success of Pokémon GO propelled mobile games further ahead of consoles, PC/Mac, and handheld consoles. As augmented and virtual reality technologies continue to emerge, we expect mobile will remain the largest revenue-generating platform for games,” Danielle Levitas, SVP of research at App Annie stated.

Although games represented about 35% of total iOS App Store and Google Play app downloads last year, games generated over 80% of combined direct App Store and Google Play spending worldwide.

As in the past few years, spending on iOS games was significantly higher than the Google Play total and was indeed higher than all Android-based stores put together last year.

The rise of China and Japan as global mobile gaming giants was evident in 2016. The top-grossing iOS game globally last year was Fantasy Westward Journey, published by China’s NetEase.

The most popular Google Play title was Monster Strike, published by Japan’s Mixi. Gaming Spotlight, 2016 Review outlines the top five grossing titles across iOS, Google Play, and handheld game console platforms for all of 2016.

Pokémon Leads in Both Mobile and Handheld

The top-grossing handheld console title in 2016 was Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon for the Nintendo 3DS, published by Japan’s The Pokémon Company.

For mobile games, Pokémon GO came in third in 2016 for total game expenditure across iOS and Google Play, despite being available for only half the year. The title generated about $950 million in direct spending in 2016.

Two of the Most Notable Points to Consider from the Survey Are:

• Around 24 million Americans played an AR game in September 2016, and 56% of this gamer base was under 25 years of age (primarily reflecting Pokémon GO’s popularity among kids and teens).
• About 4.5 million Americans played a VR title on their smartphone last September, and these gamers were somewhat hardcore (46% played mobile games for >15 hours a week, 56% were male, and the group’s average consumer spend on mobile games was 42% above the total mobile/handheld gamer average spend in 3Q 2016).

“2016 was the breakout year for mobile AR games. Since a quality mobile VR gaming experience generally requires a separate hardware purchase such as a Gear VR or Google Daydream viewer, it’s unlikely that mobile VR gaming in 2017 will replicate what AR gaming achieved last year,” mentioned Lewis Ward, research director of gaming and AR/VR at IDC

“The demographics of mobile VR gamers nonetheless point to rapid revenue growth moving forward, and the fact that a large share of mobile VR gamers also played eSports content implies that competitive multiplayer gaming will emerge as an important mobile VR market driver – and help put some distance between the leading suppliers and the competition,” Ward also added.