How to approach your first big app development and marketing project? This type of question requires an answer supported by a lot of researching, analysis, goal-planning, creativity, skills, and most off all, patience. So, if you have a steady will and a desire to make it, welcome to the world of gaming applications.
Here is a comprehensive guide to the gaming industry, upcoming trends, app-development essentials, rules of marketing, and some tips and tricks to build a successful future in this business.
Games Market Overview
This was supposed to be a truly good year for the global games market as, according to the Newzoo report, 2.2 billion gamers were expected to generate $108.9 billion in revenue. For this massive increase, $7.8 billion to be precise, from the year before, we owe it all to the rise in mobile gaming.
But these numbers don’t look so surprising. Thanks to the increase in smartphone and tablet usage (and quality), more than $35 billion will come from smartphone gaming alone. After all, at the end of 2016, there were 2.8 billion monthly active mobile game users worldwide.
Around that time, it was also found that U.S. gamers played 3.6 mobile games per month on average and 1.3 games daily. What’s more interesting, the infiltration of mobile gaming in the United States is expected to surpass 60% until it reaches 63.7% by 2020.
These are promising times for enthusiastic app developers because the path to revenue leads back to them. Since this part of the industry’s field draws special attention from investors, developers can expect to see an expenditure in app development job demands. And while app downloads are spiraling out of control, software developers keep popping up behind every corner.
Android & IOS App Download and Usage
Have you heard the news? The Android app industry is likely to surpass the iOS App Store in revenue this year. In other words, Android app users are massively growing which gives leverage to independent app developers and their projects.
“The analytics firm predicts that worldwide app downloads will surpass 352 billion in 2021, while consumer spending across all platforms will crack $139 billion. The App Store is expected to account for a large percentage of that spending, bringing in over $60 billion during 2021 according to App Annie’s estimates.”
These projections are not far from the truth, because only last year, the total number of iOS app downloads accounted for 25+ billion, contrary to 90 billion of Android app downloads. But let’s crunch the numbers some more and see what the app statistics for this year have to say.
It 2017, the total number of app downloads reached 197 billion. Out of all available apps, 2.2 million iOS apps are currently featured on the App store whereas Google Play holds 3 million Android apps. What are the most popular ones you ask? On both app stores, gaming apps take the lead.
But why is this important? Not only do you need to know that you have the upper hand, but also that you get to choose the market you want to breach. In order to make a strong impact and succeed with your app, app developers have to be aware of the state and scope of the market as well as where they can find their target audience.
