The NPD had some interesting stats just come out showing that kids 2-17 spend more time playing stuff on mobile devices than on consoles or PC. 63 percent of people in that age range spend the majority of their time on the platform. Moreover, they're even moving away from computers as their entry point into digital entertainment. To top it all off, the amount of money being spent on mobile by these kids is going up fast.
This brings some interesting questions as to where gaming could go in a decade from now. Will mobile remain the primary gaming platform when these kids become adults? Will they want something with more meat on their bones? Maybe they'll start making more robust mobile games to suit the more sophisticated tastes of adulthood? There are lots of ways this could go.
The writing has been on the wall for a while, though, that mobile gaming is going to be where a good chunk of society plays games in the future. Japan has already seen a huge shift there from stem to stern in their gaming industry. We have our big games here, but it feels a lot more fad-ish and a bit of a mess like the wild west, but I could see it becoming more unified and the quality of the games increasing as this cohort of kids grow up and some of them try to push the medium further.
- Jeff
