Data & Research

Analysis of iPad games reveals average app will be port of an iPhone puzzler from US indie studio

Supersized data crunching

Analysis of iPad games reveals average app will be port of an iPhone puzzler from US indie studio
The Pocket Gamer big list of iPad games just gets bigger and bigger, but what's the point of a list without any analysis?

So here's some basic number crunching on the data.

In total, the list consists of 97 games that have been announced or that Pocket Gamer knows are coming to iPad, either at launch, or within a couple of weeks. Obviously, this number will grow massively over the coming days, so treat this as my initial pass.

Making sense of pie charts

In terms of genre breakdown, there's perhaps little surprise that puzzle games are most popular. For one thing, they are simple to make, and for another, they don't require fast moving graphics; important considering most developers won't have access to iPad hardware prior to launch.

However action and sports are the next most popular categories, although announced games are more along the lines of bowling, fishing and pool than football. Card and boards are another significant genre, and one I'd expect to increase the closer we get to launch.



When it comes to the breakdown of where announced iPad games are originating from, the vast majority are being ported from existing iPhone games. That's a sensible economic move, but 16 percent are new games, while 10 percent come from console licences; something that's likely to grow if iPad is a success.



The largest number of announcements about iPad games have come from indie studios.

Publishers come next, but plenty of them are yet to reveal their full iPad lines-up so I'd expect this percentage to grow.

Classified as mid-tier developers, these are larger development studios (technically still indie in terms of ownership), but I've broken them out to give more detail. There are some design companies getting involved in iPad development too.



Finally, I've looked at the geographic breakdown of where iPad games are being developed. Of course, the US is the biggest single block, with UK, Canada and France taking a similar share as their App Store take of the global games market.

Other European countries are well presented, as is Oceania, while Korea's strength in mobile development is highlighted.



Of course, these breakdowns are likely to shift as more games are announced, so I'll likely revisit this analysis before iPad's launch.

Perhaps we'll even get an idea of other interesting categories such as whether developers are releasing separate iPad apps or supporting Universal Applications with a single binary for all iDevices.

And there's also issue of pricing to consider...

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.