Online, mobile spending on games surpasses 50 percent of total spending in Europe, the US

The study analyses the findings from two gaming markets, namely the emerging market comprising Russia, Brazil and Mexico and the Western market including Spain, the US and key EU countries.

According to the 2011 National Gamers Surveys, the number of people actively playing games in the emerging markets ranges from 16 million in Mexico to 35 million in Brazil and 38 million in Russia. Equivalent to Western countries, an average of 50 percent of these consumers actually spend money on games.

In the emerging gaming markets, the internet penetration and use in Brazil and Russia is relatively low. Nevertheless, of the active internet population (namely 46 million in Brazil and Russia), at least 75 percent plays games.Currently, more time is spent on playing games than watching TV, on average 11 hours per week. Of this group, 47 percent of Brazilian and 53 percent of Russian gamers spend money. More than two-thirds have been spent on add-ons like virtual items for free-to-play online and mobile games. According to GlobalCollect, the total transactions have witnessed a 103 percent growth year-over-year in Russia and a 228 percent increase in Brazil in 2010 mainly due to the use of local payment methods, such as Boletos Bancário (Brazil) and WebMoney (Russia).

According to the findings of the study, in the Western gaming markets, of 145 million active players in the US only 63 million are active payers (43 percent). In Germany there are 36 million active players out of which 24 million actually pay for the games (66 percent). In the UK, of 31 million players, only 16 million are active payers (52 percent).

In Western markets major changes have been recorded with regard to the time spent on games in Europe, gradually catching up with the US. Spending on online, mobile and downloaded games now represents at least half of consumers’ games budget, with MMO games applying to around 10 percent of the total wallet; virtual currency has registered 80 percent of online gamers using it and 15 percent of gamers have purchased Facebook Credits.