Games represents the largest single app category on Apple’s various App Stores, and accounts for half of the downloads of both free and paid apps via this channel, according to research from Distimo and Newzoo. In total, more than five million games per day were downloaded in the US and six European territories across March 2011, with the 63 million iOS gamers across these markets downloading an average of 2.5 games per month.
It was noted that offering gamers the chance to spend money in-app is becoming “a must have feature for game developers.” While some 88 percent of downloaded top 300 iOS games are now offered for free, in-game purchases (within both free and paid games) generated approximately two-fifths of total revenues. In-game spending on free games grossed 40 percent of the total revenue for iPhone/iPod Touch and 32 percent for iPad.
According to a National Gamers Survey, held in March 2011, between six and seven percent of the online population has an iPhone in the US, UK, France and Germany, which dips to three to four percent in the Netherlands and Belgium. The share of iPhone owners who play iOS games is between 50 percent and 75 percent. Nearly 15 million active American mobile gamers use an iPad, while in Europe this total is seven million, meaning the iPad is ahead of the PlayStation Portable in terms of the total number of users of a specific device.
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