In the past few years, mobile gaming has become an important market and a large business in the video game industry. According to a study by market research firm Newzoo, in 2021, mobile gaming will be worth $90.7 billion, generating $175.8 billion in income, which represents more than half of global gaming revenues.
Mobile is also the fastest-growing video game segment, with a 4.4 percent increase year-over-year. As smartphones become the leading gaming platform, the mobile gaming market is thriving like never before.
Games have been the most popular category in the Apple and Google app store for quite some time now, representing 10 percent of the users time spent on apps.
According to Statista, on average, there are eight games installed per mobile device in the United States, and globally, users play an average of 2 to 5 games per month. With such demand, it’s no wonder that developers have been focusing on the mobile market, constantly providing gamers with new gameplays and experiences.
A recent study conducted by SuperData Research, an industry analysis firm that focuses on the video game and esports markets, concluded that puzzle games remain the most popular category in mobile gaming, and that three of the top 5 grossing mobile games featured real-time multiplayer gameplay.
According to the same study, the following genres are the most popular in mobile gaming in 2021.
Puzzle games
Games like Candy Crush, Bejeweled, Angry Birds, and even the old-time classic Tetris are still extremely popular among casual players and users who don’t identify as gamers.
According to App Annie, puzzle games accounted for almost 45 percent of the global downloads by gaming genre in the first half of 2020, with hyper casual games being the most popular.
From children to elders, people from all age groups seem to enjoy puzzle games, and the genre generates the majority of revenue in the mobile gaming market, with steady growth in the past few years.
Card games
Last year, with the COVID-19 pandemic, and many land-based gambling facilities forced to shut down physical operations, these mobile versions experienced a surge in the number of players.
Online poker has been a popular activity since the mid-2000s, and was partly responsible for the poker boom, which saw millions of people around the world start playing the game online.
In recent years, however, games like blackjack and baccarat began to attract many online players as well, thanks to the latest technology advancements that made these games much more appealing.
MOBAs
These games are some sort of mix of real-time strategy and action games, putting players in control of a champion or hero with a unique set of skills.
Multiplayer Battle Arenas are notably popular in Asian markets, and according to the SuperData research, these games were among the top three grossing titles in the mobile gaming market.
Vainglory, Mobile Legends, and Arena of Valor are some of the most popular mobile MOBAs, with the latter having reached 200 million unique players in 2017.
MMORPGs
Even though mobile MMORPGs don’t have the same depth and responsiveness as their PC counterparts due to hardware limitations (e.g., processing power, display size, input options), there are some titles that are very popular with different demographics, such as Arcane Legends, Runescape Mobile, and the Dungeon Hunter series.
