Mobile Gaming Audience is Younger, Has Strong Female Presence

In the charts provided, Flurry shows how the age and gender demographics are divvied up between the various platforms. On mobile phones, the average gamer age is 28, compared with 34 on consoles. Mobile gamers are also more heavily female (53%) than traditional gamers (only 40% female).

More importantly (well, to game publishers at least), is the fact that there's a greater density in the 18-49 demographic on mobile than on traditional platforms. That means more disposable income. Says  Flurry: "iOS and Android devices are attracting users during their earning years versus, in particular their teenage years, where they likely cannot afford more expensive mobile devices."

Remarkably, the audience for mobile gaming is also very, very large - larger, in fact, than the worldwide install base of console game leaders (Wii, Xbox, PlayStation) combined. That traditional console audience is estimated at 180 million. Mobile gaming is even larger than portable gaming (Nintendo DS and Sony PSP), estimated at 200 million. And it's larger than primetime TV watching, too, as has been reported previously - as any given primetime TV show can top just 20 million viewers.

So how large is it? Flurry says it alone detects 250 million unique devices with over 750,000 coming online daily. It has seen over 300 million user sessions across all its games and apps, 37% of which are from games alone. But Flurry is only seeing a portion of the overall market - it only sees those devices where apps using Flurry's services are running. But it extrapolated from a sample of its users (around 60,000+ users) who self-reported age, gender and location to take a look at audience demographics in more detail - specifically, U.S. mobile gamer demographics.

You can see those findings in the charts below.

via readwriteweb.com

I would have to add to this with the majority of the kids' I see playing on the phones, they are using their "mom's" phone and requesting games to be purchased and downloaded.  This could add to the data for the female range of gamers between older age categories.  Having said this, the moms are also playing some of the games which are discovered by their kids.     

I would like to see the breakout of the type of games which the demographics are playing. 

Apple Ban on IPhone Donation Apps Anger Nonprofits

The nonprofit world is stewing over the ban Apple has put on making donations on the iPhone via charity apps.

No one, including Apple, has data on how many nonprofits have created apps for the iPhone. Organizations like the Monterey Bay Aquarium and American Cancer Society have them, but none can be used to make gifts. Prospective donors instead are directed out of a nonprofit’s app and to its Web site, which the organizations say makes the process of contributing more cumbersome.

“When you’re popped out of an app, you then have to go through a whole bunch of clicks to make a donation,” said Beth Kanter, co-author of “The Networked Nonprofit” and chief executive of Zoetica, a consulting firm. “It’s cumbersome and it doesn’t have to be.”

In protest, Ms. Kanter said she planned to replace her iPhone with a phone that used Google’s Android operating system, announcing her decision on Twitter, where she has more than 366,000 followers.

She also has started an online petition invoking the Grinch and seeking to draw the issue to the attention of Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive. As of Wednesday afternoon, it had attracted more than 1,600 signatures.

An Apple spokeswoman, Trudy Muller, declined to explain the rationale for banning charitable solicitations via apps, saying only, “We are proud to have many applications on our App Store which accept charitable donations via their Web sites.”

Ms. Kanter and others acknowledge that allowing donations through apps might present challenges. “One of Apple’s major objections has been that if donations were to go through its payment mechanism, it would have to be in the business of managing and distributing funds and verifying charities as well,” said Jake Shapiro, executive director of Public Radio Exchange, or PRX, an online nonprofit marketplace for licensing and distributing public radio programming.

PRX has developed iPhone apps for many public radio stations and programs, like WBUR and “This American Life,” and Mr. Shapiro said apps had the potential to become a “core revenue source” for those organizations.

He said he and a group of other executives from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting met with Eddy Cue, the Apple executive in charge of iTunes, the umbrella under which the App Store operates, three years ago. “We heard there were really serious internal discussions about this at Apple after that, but we haven’t gotten any traction,” Mr. Shapiro said.

Earlier this year, in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti, Apple itself solicited donations for the American Red Cross through iTunes, establishing what some regarded as a precedent for iPhone-assisted donations. That increased speculation that the real issue was money.

Apple takes a 30 percent slice of purchases made from the App Store, an amount that would be frowned upon if it were to be taken out of a charitable donation.

In August, eBay’s PayPal unit introduced a donation feature that enabled charitable gifts through its app for the iPhone, teaming up with MissionFish, which helps nonprofits raise money on eBay. MissionFish handled all the administrative chores required to ensure donations received proper documentation and went to the right, properly vetted nonprofits.

Just two months later, Apple demanded that PayPal eliminate the donation system from its app.

Clam Lorenz, vice president of operations at MissionFish, said roughly $10,000 had been raised in that time in the United States, Canada and Britain, in donations averaging $10. “We proved it’s a solution that offers the user choice and flexibility and provides a dramatic cost benefit for nonprofits compared to what’s available in text-based giving,” Mr. Lorenz said.

Anuj Nayar, a spokesman for PayPal, said it was on the brink of introducing a similar feature — for its Android app.

via nytimes.com