Social and Casual Gaming News

Electronic Arts Social and Mobile Game Revenues Rise in Q1 2012
Electronic Arts reported its Q1 FY2012 earnings this week with GAAP total net revenue at $999 million. This is a 22% increase compare to same quarter last year. Net income more than doubled to $215 million from $96 million. The company’s mobile revenues increased 10 percent from the same quarter a year ago to $57 million Electronic Arts’ digital revenues, which include streams from its social and mobile games, is now split almost evenly between mobile games and console content downloads reflecting the switch from traditional console-based games to social or casual games that run on iPhone and Android-powered smartphones. Electronic Arts is currently playing catch up in the social or casual gaming because it has been slower in adopting the free-to-play model than some of its smaller counterparts have endorsed year ago. Source

Distimo: 72% Of App Store Downloads Are Games
Mobile application analytics company Distimo has released a new version of “The Mobile Gaming Trends: Popularity, Pricing and Monetization” report, which covers trends in the mobile casual and gaming market. The current issue which includes data from the Apple App Store, Blackberry App World, Google Android Marketplace and the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, notes that just 10 publishers account for more than half of all downloads in the top 300 most popular paid games for iPhone.

The overall revenue generated by the top grossing games in the Apple App Store increased by 79 percent year-on-year, but the average selling price of mobile games declined by 28 percent compared to the same month last year, while the revenue from the top freemium iPhone games increased tenfold. Virtual currencies is a hugely popular revenue generator in mobile games with 35 percent of the top 300 free games in the Apple App Store using in-app purchases to monetize the game.

When comparing apps versus games downloads in the Apple App Store, the report noted that 72 percent of App Store downloads are games, while the other 28 percent are regular applications. Source