by Arvind Bala, Enola Labs

If you open up the highest grossing tab of any mobile app marketplace you’ll notice an overwhelming amount of games. In fact, the top 10 highest grossing apps on the Google Play Store are all games. In the top 15, Pandora and Intuit’s Turbotax (tax season) manage to squeeze their way on the list at 14 and 15 respectively. If we continue on the top grossing list, the next non-game app, OkCupid, is ranked 79th followed by Tinder, another dating app, at 94th. As of February 2015, Clash of Clans, the highest grossing app on both the AppStore and Google Play, brings in $1.6 million…per day.

So, who is it that spends all of this money on mobile games? When you first think of this question it is quite easy to succumb to the gaming stereotype and assume that it’s young males. Who else would waste all that money on mobile games? While it turns out that a majority of Clash of Clans users are male (77%), that doesn’t necessarily hold true for all mobile games. Candy Crush, the third highest grossing app, is close to 60% female. We see a similar case in Bejeweled Blitz whose users are 78% female. There’s no doubt that both Bejewled Blitz and Candy Crush are almost exactly the same game. However, what really separates it from Clash of Clans, and other male-dominated games, is what the user is trying to get out of his or her gaming experience.

There are 3 general categories of gamers: casual, core, and hardcore. Casual gamers tend to play games whenever the time presents itself- bus stops, lunch breaks, waiting in line etc. Core gamers play on a regular basis and usually enjoy gaming during their free/leisure time. Hardcore gamers tend to be very competitive, consistently active in the gaming community and spend a significantly larger amount of time gaming than both casual and core gamers.

Both Candy Crush and Bejeweled classify as “casual” games. Neither of them really take a significant time commitment to play nor are they competitive. Clash of Clans lands in the “core” gaming category as it takes a slightly longer time commitment and has more function, depth of gameplay, and ability to interact with other players. From the trend, it turns out that in the world of mobile games, women generally gravitate towards casual gaming while males heavily populate the mid-core mobile games. Unfortunately the complex, intricate and time consuming nature of hardcore games somewhat rules out the mobile platforms. As a result, hardcore games tend to be more appropriate for Console or PC.

Gender aside, an important characteristic of users to consider is age. Contrary to popular belief, mobile gaming, and the gaming industry in general, are not dominated by youth. Close to 78% of Candy Crush users and 76% percent of Clash of Clans players are over the age of 21. While it may seem strange at first, the age distribution makes a significant amount of sense considering that the average gamer is 31 years old. In addition, mobile games cater to an even older market because, like mentioned before, a majority of them are either casual or core-type games. This means that professionals can indulge in gaming during breaks in the work day, travelling, or commuting rather than treating the game as an immersive experience that hardcore games typically provide.

While demographics are important to consider, it ultimately takes a back seat to the psychology of app-based monetization. Most of these games are specifically designed to subliminally coerce users into spending money via a plethora of different psychological strategies. Game developers create the facade of a skill-based game, when in reality it’s more of a “freemium” game or, in other words, a game that indirectly requires you to pay money to advance or fully enjoy the game.

It is that fundamental convenience that drives the in-app purchases that contribute to Clash of Clan’s and Candy Crush’s astronomical revenues. Rather than play a little more to reach the goal, a quick payment can reduce the amount of time needed for construction or building your digital army. In this way, Supercell, the game studio behind Clash of Clans, encourages continuous spending. The game utilizes incremental difficulty, so the farther you get in the game, spending money seems more and more enticing. The real hook is that periodic in-app purchases seem immaterial at the time of purchase, but it’s pretty similar to going out for lunch every day of the week and then seeing the hit to your bank account at the end.

It’s no surprise that Supercell reported more than $800 million in revenue for 2013, a nearly 700% increase on the year before. And reports from 2014 place the company’s revenues near $1.7 billion. King, the developer of Candy Crush, doesn’t fall far behind reporting a revenue of $606 million as of 2014 which is almost 3 times their 2013 report.