Ever since Nokia preloaded the game "Snake" inside a mobile handset back in 1998, mobile carriers and game publishers have expected the mobile gaming market to explode. The inherent attraction of killing 5 or 10 minutes playing a game on a mobile phone seemed obvious. And research studies indicate that consumers enjoy games on their phones and play often.

"The rub comes when mobile carriers and mobile game publishers start charging consumers for a mobile game," says John du Pre Gauntt, senior analyst at eMarketer and author of the new report, Mobile Games: Consumers Don't Pay to Play. "Compared with other mobile categories, such as messaging and music, the paid download market for mobile games lags far behind."

Consumers enjoy mobile games—as long as they are free.

eMarketer projects that mobile games will generate $7 billion in revenues worldwide in 2012, up from $1.9 billion in 2007.



At the same time, the population of mobile gamers who pay directly for mobile games will grow from 155 million people worldwide to 500 million. But for such a popular pastime, why isn't mobile gaming growing faster?

"Mobile carriers—especially those in the US—are blamed for offering games to consumers in closed, walled-garden environments that stifle choice by repeatedly presenting the same genres and titles," says Mr. Gauntt.

This problem is often compounded by high network charges for downloading a mobile game over the air. In fact, it is not unusual for network access charges to exceed the cost of the game itself.

"The US will never become a gigantic mobile game market on par with India and China (with their huge populations) or Japan (with its fanatical gaming user base), but the US mobile gaming market does exist in the world's largest interactive advertising economy," says Mr. Gauntt. "That, combined with advanced handsets and an increase in unlimited mobile data plans, could cause marketers to look at US mobile gaming in a new light."