Google Survey, Tablet Use - April 2011

Research finds that 84% of tablet owners are playing games, versus 51% who are consuming music and videos

A survey of more than 1,400 tablet owners in the US by Google's AdMob subsidiary has found that gaming is the most popular use for these devices, considerably ahead of music, video and ebooks.
According to the survey, 84% of tablet owners play games, ahead of even searching for information (78%), emailing (74%) and reading the news (61%). 56% of tablet owners use social networking services on their device, while 51% consume music and/or videos, and 46% read ebooks.
AdMob does not break out which tablets were owned by the users, but the survey was conducted in March this year, at a point when Apple's iPad accounted for the lion's share of the tablet market in the US – although Samsung's Galaxy Tab had also been available for a few months.
The survey found that 38% of respondents spend more than two hours a day using their tablets, while another 30% spend 1-2 hours. It appears that tablets are predominantly domestic devices, with 82% of people primarily using their tablets at home, versus 11% who say they are used primarily on the go, and 7% who said at work.
28% of respondents say their tablet is now their primary computer, while 43% say they spend more time using their tablet than they do their desktop or laptop computer.
It's the games stat that provides the biggest surprise though. It's not shocking that games are popular on tablets: the App Store charts for iPad apps make that crystal clear already. However, this is the first survey where games have come ahead of email as a usage for tablets.
What's missing from Google's survey, though, is data on time spent doing these various activities – for example, comparing the proportion of heavy tablet gamers with heavy emailers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2011/apr/08/tablets-mainly-for-games-survey

Tablet Games Set To Make £2bn Revenues In 2014

Juniper Research, an analyst firm, has published predictions for the global tablet games market. The firm claims that revenues in the market will rise from $491m (£310m) in 2011 to $3.1bn (just under £2bn) in 2014.

The larger screen size and improved graphics and processing capabilities are thought to be central to this growth, spurring more purchase of games and in-game currency and items.

The author of the report, Charlotte Miller, says: "The tablet device is perfect for playing mobile games... Tablet owners also tend to have a larger disposable income. Higher user satisfation with games and a bigger wallet mean that tablet games look to be highly lucrative."

Juniper also thinks that tablet games will account for a third of the mobile games market's revenue by 2016; spending on non-smartphone mobile games is expected to plummet as more people upgrade to new phone models.

Source

Fans finance 'Double Fine's new gaming venture

 

Double Fine, an American video game developer, have used Kickstarter (a "funding platform for creative projects") to gather money for a new point-and-click adventure game.

Double Fine's founder, Tim Schafer, says that publishers would laugh in his face if he were to pitch an adventure game. The adventure genre died off over a decade ago.

$400,000 is what the company requested, in order to make both the game and a documentary which will be available only to the people who have funded them ('backers'). In addition, backers will also have access to a private online community where they will be able to run over ideas with developers.

Double Fine hit their target $400,000 in a matter of hours, though they are still accepting funding in order to support the development of ports and translations into other languages.

Source