Games Conquer App Arena

Games like Angry Birds have iPhone users gaming 14.7 hours per month.

Image: RovioMobile via Youtube

Listen up, app developers. Let’s presume you would prefer mobile users spend tons of time on your applications and, naturally, you would love for them to pay for your products.

We have two words of advice for you: iPhone games.

Mobile games remain the most popular app category across all devices, according to new research from Nielsen. The report also shows that downloaders are willing to pay for games more than any other type of program, further evidence that gaming is the most lucrative sector of the app market.

Games accounted for 64 percent of the apps used in the past 30 days, according to the report, followed by weather (60 percent) and social-networking programs (56 percent). During that same period, among those who downloaded apps, 93 percent said they were willing to pay for games. By contrast, less than 80 percent would pay for food and news applications.

So to which device should you introduce your blockbuster mobile game? According to the report, developers should steer clear of feature phone and Blackberry devices, as their users play downloaded games less than 30 percent of the time (most play preloaded games instead). On the other hand, more than two thirds of the games used by Apple, Windows, and Android consumers were downloaded.

With the decision narrowed down to those three operating systems, developers should take into account one last bit of data from Nielsen.

“The average gamer plays an average of 7.8 hours a month,” according to a statement from the company. “Those with iPhones tend to play around 14.7 hours each month,” with Android users a distant second (9.3 hours) and Windows users even farther behind (4.7 hours).

By all accounts, iPhone game developers appear best positioned to cash in on their products. But don’t panic if you specialize in games for a different mobile operating system. Life could be worse—you could be a game developer for consoles.

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