Consumers To Fuel Demand for Mobile Educational Serious Games

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In North America, the growth rate for mobile game-based learning is more than double than for all types of mobile learning combined 
 
The revenues for Mobile Educational Serious Games in North America reached $227.9 million in 2013, according to a new report by Ambient Insight called the “2013-2018 North America Mobile Edugame Market.” The five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is 12.5% and revenues will spike to $410.27 million by 2018.
 

Consumers are by far the major buyers of mobile edugame digital content in Canada and the US and they will continue to dominate throughout the forecast period. The majority of consumer purchases fall into the two ends of the age spectrum: math and language learning for young children (targeting parents through a B2C model) and brain trainers and brain fitness apps for elders.
 
Among the secondary findings are a) Top “selling” edugames are for young children; the number of edugames that offer parental involvement are on the increase and b) Emergence of easy-to-use mobile game-building tools supports the cultural shift towards game-creation as an educational experience
 
 
A significant challenge for edugame suppliers serving the consumer segment is determining the mobile platform they will target. B2C segments are easier to target, since they often standardize on specific platforms. The consumer segment is more difficult since it uses all the mobile platforms including dedicated gaming devices, rarely in use in the other segments.
 
 
The number of new edugames coming on the North America market is exploding. New products are coming from veteran game developers, brands, ad agencies, one-person startup shops, and hobbyists. Targeting specific buyers with particular edugame types is key to generating revenues in North America.
Typically, the buyer segments that contribute the most to revenues for edugame packaged content are consumers, PreK-12, and higher education. Revenues for content services are concentrated in the government, corporate, healthcare, and nonprofit segments. This report identifies trends that affect buying behaviors.
 
There are four analysis sections in this report: trends, demand-side, supply-side, and investments patterns/business models. The demand-side analysis provides suppliers with insights into the buying behaviors and market catalysts. The supply-side analysis breaks out forecast revenues by six types of mobile edugames: knowledge based, skill-based, brain trainers, language learning, location-based learning, and augmented reality.
 
Ambient Insight CEO, Tyson Greer, will share key findings from the company’s latest market research in “2013-2018 Worldwide Game-based Learning Market” and “2013-2018 Mobile Edugame Market” sessions at the Serious Games Association’s Serious Play Conference to be held at the University of Southern California in July.
 
“Identifying the buyer can be a daunting task in the Game-based Learning market,” says Greer. “This session will include a breakout by buying segment, with emphasis on North America and Asia, where substantial revenues are being generated.”
 
The “2013-2018 North America Mobile Edugame Market” report is available now in the Ambient Insight Store and the free Abstract for the report is available at http://www.ambientinsight.com/Resources/Documents/Ambient-Insight-2013-2018-North-America-Mobile-Edugame-Market-Abstract.pdf