Only 20 percent of mobile gamers are fully engaged when playing | Pocket Gamer.biz
A new report by LoopMe examined mobile gaming habits in the US, UK and Singapore.
62 percent of the 18,340 surveyed consumers play games on their mobile devices. The UK saw the largest share of mobile gamers at 66 percent, followed by 64 percent in the US and 57 percent in Singapore.
The majority of gamers play games several times a day, with 34 percent of respondents playing between two to four times while 31 percent play more than five times. In the UK, the majority of players played two to four times a day, at 38 percent, while US players would play more than five times at 35 percent.
38 percent of respondents across all three regions play an average of one to two hours a day, while fifteen percent play more than five hours a day. Again, America led the way in terms of gaming time, with 17 percent of those surveyed spending more than five hours a day in the game, compared to 14 percent in the UK and 16 percent in Singapore.
A failure to engage
Despite this, the study shows that only 20 percent of respondents are fully engaged in mobile gaming, with the other 80 percent doing so while multitasking.
Of those who admitted to playing games while doing something else, television was the biggest draw at 43 percent. American gamers were more likely than any other group to watch television while playing games on their phones, at 52 percent. British gamers came in close behind, at 48 percent, while 28 percent of gamers in Singapore watch television.
The preference of television among mobile gamers is even greater compared to other distractions. No other form of entertainment exceeded 20 percent on average, with only gamers in Singapore achieving this figure, with 20 percent playing games while checking social media and 23 percent listening to music. Singapore also saw the highest percentage of respondents who play mobile games while doing nothing else.
57 percent of respondents play mobile games during their free time. This was highest in the UK (63 per cent), followed by the US (60 per cent) and Singapore (48 per cent). In contrast, Singapore saw the highest percentage of people who reported playing mobile games while commuting, compared to 6 percent in the UK and 4 percent in the US. This suggests that despite the convenience of picking up mobile games on the go, the majority of commuters in the US and UK prefer to find other forms of entertainment, such as reading or browsing the internet while in transit.
A Newzoo report published last month predicts that the mobile gaming market will shrink by 6.4 percent in 2022.
