Development of the Mobile Gaming Industry in 2022: Statistics and Trends

Mobile gaming
LEIPZIG, GERMANY - FEBRUARY 15: A participant stands with a mobile phone to play a video game at the 2019 DreamHack video gaming festival on February 15, 2019 in Leipzig, Germany. The three-day event brings together gaming enthusiasts, mainly from German-speaking countries, for events including eSports tournaments, cosplay contests and a LAN party with 1,500 participants. (Photo by Jens Schlueter/Getty Images)

Mankind has always sought to make life easier for itself by developing new technologies. Mobile phones have firmly entered into everyday life, becoming not just a means of communication, but a full-fledged entertainment gadget with many functions.

It is difficult to believe that the first phones didn’t have built-in games at all, or were equipped with them as a free add-on along with a calculator or an alarm clock. 

For several years, the gaming world and the telephone world did not intersect. Until the first mobile operating systems appeared. The surge in popularity of mobile phones has helped companies realize that these devices have a great future. Consumers chose models that had more games – the audience wanted new sensations and opportunities. Mobile games continue to explode in the entertainment industry. More people are playing games than ever before as they look for social interaction and fun ways to spend their free time.

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What the most popular mobile games are, and what the trends of mobile games in 2022 are, we will talk about this and much more in this article.

Mobile games industry statistics

The mobile gaming market is about to hit another landmark. It is predicted to break the $100 billion mark this year, actually $103.5 billion. This indicates that in 2022, mobile games will give for more than half of all gaming income.

For example, the global recorded music market brought in about $57.05 billion in wholesale revenue in the same year, according to The Business Research Company. In other words, mobile games alone bring in more annual income than the music and film industries combined.

 There are some mobile gaming industry statistics:

  • The 2021 year is characterized by 82.98 billion downloaded games.
  • Mobile games account for 57% of total gaming income.
  • The Asia Pacific is the most significant and fastest growing regional market for mobile games.
  • Google Play income continues to grow higher than iOS App Store revenue, from 19.6% to 13.2%.
  • 21% of downloaded Android apps and 25% of iOS apps are games.

Mobile games market

What is the most popular genre of mobile games? Study shows that hyper-casual games were the number one downloaded genre in the third quarter of 2021, accounting for over 3.5 billion downloads worldwide. If talking about the overall genre, puzzle, simulation, and action games were the most widespread.

Here are the top 10 mobile games from 2021 by downloads:

  1. Hair Challenge (Rollic)
  2. Phone Case DIY (Crazy Labs)
  3. Going Balls (Supersonic)
  4. DOP 2: Delete One Part (SayGames)
  5. Sculpt People (Crazy Labs)
  6. Bridge Race (Supersonic)
  7. Count Masters (Ascella Mobile)
  8. High Heels (Zynga)
  9. Stacky Dash (Supersonic)
  10. My Talking Angela 2 (Outfit7)

We would like to present you with several major trends in the world of the mobile gaming industry that you should pay attention to:

  1. Play to Earn

Play-to-earn (P2E) is the most influential business model since free and paid games. Developed using blockchain technology, P2E games allow players to earn real income stored in a crypto wallet – they can even resell their assets whenever they want.

In a free-to-play or pay-to-play model, users spend virtual currency to get upgrades, progression boosts, character skins, etc., but the currency has no value outside the game. So, the money vanishes if you leave the game.

On the other side, the Play-to-earn model allows gaining resources and money and then trading them with other gamers. Outside the game, they can be exchanged for cryptocurrencies and converted into money.

  1. More gaming companies

Big entertainment companies and big tech giants have been experimenting with games in the past year, intrigued by the size of the market and the breadth of the industry.

Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass are subscription-based mobile game libraries. While Amazon’s gaming division has been around for a while, last year it released its first hit in nearly a decade, the MMO New World. Even Netflix has moved away from its core business model by making games available on iOS devices around the world. And TikTok and Snapchat prove that social media apps can be great publishing platforms.

  1. Growth of Metaverse

“Metaverse” became a buzzword last year. It is not yet clear exactly what the metaverse will look like for the industry, but most likely the metaverse will be:

  • persistent
  • without any restrictions for concurrent users
  • synchronized and alive
  • a fully functioning economy
  • filled with all kinds of content and experiences, created and managed by a huge number of contributors
  • with unparalleled interoperability of data and digital assets

In 2022, games will intertwine with the metaverse, creating more innovative gaming experiences like Fortnite concerts. To support the infrastructure of the metaverse, and with an influx of investor money, startups will emerge that will provide users with resources to create the metaverse, such as creating realistic avatars. There will also be more developments in crypto and NFTs and new ways to use these assets.

Conclusion

The mobile gaming industry is a rapidly growing industry that is becoming more and more popular every year. This year is no exception. Every year mobile games bring in more and more income and more and more companies seek to be involved in this industry.