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By Tyson Greer, Chief Executive Officer
Ambient Insight is pleased to announce a new line of product market research focused on the US Mobile Game market. The first report is "The US Market for Handheld and Mobile Game-based Learning Products: 2007-2012 Forecast and Analysis."
There is a surge in demand for these mobile edugames. The new demand is in response to new types of products that appeal to a much wider audience. Several of the best known game development companies such as Glu Mobile, EA Mobile, UbiSoft, Gameloft, and Sega are putting new Mobile Game-based Learning products into the pipeline.
The new research isolates the gaming products being developed for four types of devices: dedicated gaming devices (such as the Nintendo DS or the Sony PSP), personal media players (PMPs), personal digital assistants (PDAs), and cell and smartphones.
Ambient Insight's research on the mobile game market is unique in that breaks out revenues by eight buyer types: consumer, corporations, federal government, state and local government, PreK-12 academic, higher education, non-profits, and healthcare.
"The US market has undergone a remarkable transformation in the last 12 months. Less than two years ago the demand for mobile educational games was highly localized to an early childhood education niche in the consumer and PreK-3 buyer segments," comments Sam S. Adkins, Chief Research Officer for Ambient Insight. "The market has changed and by 2012 corporations will be outspending K12 buyers and will be the second largest buyers behind consumers.
The supply-side analysis in the first report breaks out revenues by three products types: content, services, and tools. The content analysis includes a detailed break out for five types of edugames: knowledge-based, skill-based, brain trainers and cognitive remediation, role-playing and simulation, and language learning.
According to Tyson Greer, Ambient Insight's CEO, "The best selling mobile edugames have a firm foundation in cognitive science, social psychology, and educational neuroscience. Many game developers are co-designing games in collaboration with leading experts in these fields. There is no precedent in the gaming industry for this type of collaboration. The vibrant sales of the products indicate that it is a successful business model."
Ambient Insight defines Mobile Learning in general as knowledge transfer events, content, tools, and applications built using Mobile Information Architecture and accessed on handheld computing devices. Mobile Game-based Learning is a hybrid product that combines Mobile Learning and traditional Game-based Learning (aka edugames). As Adkins writes in the new report, "The intent of Mobile Game-based Learning designers is to provide a user with a gaming experience that produces a change in a mental state or behavior (learning) that can be recalled or repeated later (memory)."
"There is gold-rush mentality in the mobile edugame market. Suppliers that intend to tap the new revenues need to become acquainted with Mobile Information Architecture, game design, and new research coming out of the educational neuroscience field," adds Adkins.
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