It's no surprise then that different companies come up with very different totals.
Gartner reckoned the 2010 global market was worth $5.6 billion, rising to $11.4 billion in 2012, which seems rather high.
Another way of looking at the problem resulted in the annual value of the top 10 mobile games companies being estimated at around $700 million.
Biggest of the big
Business information company eMarketer has broken down the subject even further, focusing just on the world's largest mobile market - America.
It reckons mobile gaming in 2010 will be worth $849 million, or 55 percent of the overall market for mobile games, video and music.
This is predicted to rise to $1.5 billion by 2014, or 43 percent of the total market, with music, surprisingly, expected to be the largest proportional growth sector.
The figures are part of eMarketer's report entitled Mobile Content: Games, Music and Video Take to the Cloud, which is available priced 744.
