Collaborate To Monetize Mobile Gaming

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Google recently announced that mobile searches have surpassed desktop searches for the first time. With smartphone penetration averaging at 50 per cent across MENA countries, it is no doubt that the region is accelerating towards a mobile-first economy. Internationally messaging apps are dominating with monthly active users expected to exceed 1 billion by the end of 2015.

At the same time, there has been a significant shift in the mobile gaming world which is expected to see 15 per cent annual growth, from USD 29 billion in 2015 to 45 billion in 2018. “There has been an evolution in way the people interact with content. There is a higher degree of people playing games and now nearly 70 per cent are willing to pay for games,” commented Abdullah AlZabin, Founder & CEO, Lumba Labs.

Gaming industry in the Arab World has been developing for years with an increase in popular international games being localized. “The general behavior seen is that players are more attached to brand and trust. In the last couple of years, we are seeing games being translated to Arabic as mobile gamers are expecting more localized content. This is a good time to offer Arabic gaming apps,” shared Erik Duindam, Co-Founder, Cloud Games.

With the gaming industry heading towards a boom in terms of monetization, mobile game app developers are using different strategies to connect with gamers.

“The key is to understand your niche audience and find out what appeals to them. With our audience being between the age of 18-46 years, we researched what mattered to this huge demographic and tried to connect with them by developing games that made them closer to their roots and history. So we developed games with localized and high quality content which worked with the audience,” said Mr AlZabin.

Despite monetization of gaming apps becoming difficult as more than 94 per cent app downloads are expected to be free by 2017, the mobile gaming industry is still seeing high revenue growth. “With a proper advertisement module and integrated payment method, we are seeing a growth in revenue in emerging markets like the Middle East. There is a significant number of users paying for games on iTunes with 50 per cent paying through the iTunes card,” informed Mr AlZabin.

In MENA, there are a high number of entrepreneurs and SMEs who are developing gaming apps but are unable to monetize it. “These independent game developers should instead partner with big legacy game companies to bring their product out there,” advised Mr Duindam.

“The region has a great amount of talent to develop gaming app but half of the battle is to focus on the user acquisition marketing which can bring business revenues for mobile game developers,” added Mr AlZabin.

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