Skip to main content

Paid Mobile Learning Content Shapes B2C Serious Games Market

Consumers are the top buyers worldwide of edugame packaged content and suppliers are capitalizing on consumers’ interests: early childhood education, tourism, health, fitness and wellness, cognitive fitness, nature, and sustainability

Tyson Greer, Ambient Insight LLC CEO, delivered a great presentation on Mobile Edugame Market Innovations at Serious Play Conference 2013  held last week.

Ambient Insight forecasts revenues for six types of Mobile Educational Serious Games:

. Knowledge-based games
. Skills-based games
. Brain training and cognitive fitness games
. Language learning games
. Location-based learning games (emerged in 2009)
. Mobile augmented reality games (emerged in 2010)

Key findings from Ambient Insight Research reveal that in North America the growth rate for all Game-based Learning is 10.1%, but for mobile edugames is 15.3% - and from 2012 to 2017 mobile edugames revenues will more than double. Cross-platform products (web & app on device) are increasing and, and although augmented reality (AR) browsers are not yet standard on new mobile devices, AR edugames growth rate is high.

Regarding the buyers, consumers are the top buyers worldwide of edugame packaged content and suppliers are capitalizing on consumers’ interests: early childhood education, tourism, health, fitness and wellness, cognitive fitness, nature, and sustainability. 

Top “selling” (or downloaded) apps are for young children and as a result edugames that offer parental involvement are on the rise. Cultural institutions continue to invest heavily in edugames, with a mix of in-house and custom content services. Finally, the emergence of easy-to-use mobile game-building tools could support a cultural shift towards using game-creation as an educational experience.