Analysts at Frank N. Magid Associates compared the penetration of games in the US and Chinese markets. As it turned out, in China this parameter reached a whopping 84%, while in America it was only 69%.
The Magid report shows that the development of the gaming industry in China is mainly due to the growing popularity of tablets and smartphones. Which is quite logical, because earlier the gaming culture was concentrated in Internet cafes and represented a kind of niche segment of the market. Tablets and smartphones became the first computer devices available to the “broad masses” and significantly expanded access to games. In China, 90% of respondents said they could not live without their devices. Only 43% of Americans said the same about their smartphones.
As for buying habits, the data for the countries under consideration are also very different. In China, more than 60% of tablet device users purchase virtual goods, and in the United States this figure falls short of 40%. However, Magid representatives believe that developers of free-to-play applications have nothing to fear. Chinese publishers such as Tencent and Nexon have been optimizing their freemium offerings for a long time. Approximately the same thing is happening now in the American market, which means that the gap should soon be narrowed.
The data was obtained during an online study. 2,400 Americans aged 8 to 64 and 1,000 Chinese aged 13 to 64 were interviewed.
Source: www.gamesindustry.biz