Tag: mobile game apps

She will be following closely on the heels of the successes of Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry.

For more than ten years, Paris Hilton has hardly struggled to find her way into the spotlight, and to stay there, and now this “it girl” who has been “famous for being famous” is stepping into mobile games and into a trend that has been growing among celebrities.

Though she may not be in the headlines as much as she once was, she continually remains in the public eye.

There has been a massive business that has been constructed around her name, allowing it to be licensed to a tremendous range of different kinds of product, from Chihuahua clothing lines to fake lashes. Now, her name will also be applied to mobile games, as Animoca Brands (an ASX listed company) is betting on her ability to appeal to smartphone and tablet users who download gaming apps.

Paris Hilton is far from the first celebrity to take the leap into mobile games and other types of apps.

Kim Kardashian’s “Hollywood” game app, which was put out by Glu Mobile in 2014 saw considerable successes. That mobile app, says Adweek’s figures, has already received over 28 million downloads and its players have spent more than 11 billion minutes on it. This brought a hefty $74 million to Glu Mobile, last year (not including the 45 percent cut that belongs to Kardashian).

Glu Mobile’s success with celebrity themed mobile apps encouraged it to continue with the trend, last month announcing that it had signed a contract with Katy Perry that gave them the rights for featuring her “voice, likeness, and personality” within mobile gaming apps that are based on simulations of the music industry.

Kanye West also recently brought up the fact that he is working on a video game. This makes sense, considering that his wife has seen such success in doing it.

Animoca and Glu both use the same type of freemium mobile games strategy model for their products. While the download, itself, is free, they include advertising and opportunities to make various types of in-app purchases.

Within the highly competitive mobile apps market, it appears that gaming is coming out on top, at the moment.

According to the results of a study that were only just recently released, the revenues being generated from downloads of mobile games in the United States, as well as those brought in from in-game app purchases is expected to reach a growth rate of 16.5 percent, this year, over last year’s figure.

This would bring those revenues up to a projected total of $3.04 billion from U.S. downloads and in-app purchases alone.

The firm behind this projection is eMarketer, which found that while mobile games will lead the way, there will also be a notable revenue generated from ebooks, video, and music, which will be increasing at a rate of 4.4 percent, 13.8 percent, and 5.4 percent, respectively.

The report provided a considerable amount of insight in this market and suggested two primary reasons that mobile game apps are stepping up ahead of other forms of revenue. The first was from subscription services (for example, Spotify), that is slashing into individual media purchases, as well as the increase of “freemium” games (for instance, Clash of Clans, from Supercell), which can be played for free but where in-app upgrades can be purchased.

Purchases made within mobile games – such as virtual coins – are predicted to make up almost 60 percent of revenue growth.

These in app purchases, will make up 60 percent of mobile game revenue growth, and is predicted to bring in $1.82 billion, this year. As a whole, the download revenue for these smartphone and tablet apps is predicted to increase by 10.3 percent in order to come to $9.82 billion by the close of this year, said the research. Of that, games are predicted to make in a rising share of those earnings.

Last year, they comprised 29.3 percent of the earnings, but that should come up to 30.9 percent, this year. Two years ago, mobile games brought in 26.4 percent of the app download revenues. On the other hand, ebook downloads are going to bring in the most amount of money, at $4.25 billion in the United States. Video will earn $850 million and $550 million will be earned by music downloads.