BoardGameGeek undertakes State of the Industry report for iOS board, card and dice game categories

The humble board game is seeing something of a reinvention with the prolifigation of touchscreen technology.

Perhaps it's just easier to turn on our iPads than to risk a scrabble tile fight.

Either way, with the board, card and dice game categories growing larger and larger, Bradley Cummings, chief iOS blogger over at boardgamegeek.com has compiled a report, including feedback from 40 iOS developers working in the genre, to dig out some of the facts surrounding the genre.

Revenue distribution

Cummings points out that the App Store is famously top heavy in terms of revenue distribution.

"The App Store is famous for its revenue distribution being weighted to one side. A small handful of apps make the majority of the revenue," he writes.

"According to a report from Owen Goss of Streaming Colour 20 percent of iOS game developers make 97 percent of the revenue, while the bottom 80 percent make only 3 percent of the revenue."

When surveying the board game category, however, Cummings found that although the movement was small, there are signs of a widening area of entry for developers pushing board games into the App Store.

"When the two curves are compared side by side some positive change is shown," Cummings explains.

"In Quarter 3, 2011 one can see that the curve is less sharp than Quarter 2. This indicates a broader distribution of revenue and an increase in the number of apps in the top revenue categories."

Lack of multiplayer

The report also came up with interesting findings comparing what features developers put into their board game apps with what features consumers feel are most necessary.

While a pause function was universally regarded as a necessity, almost 75 percent of users want to see campaign modes in their board game apps, with only 50 percent of games providing them.

Another surprising finding was that, while board games are generally multiplayer affairs in the real world, around 50 percent of board game apps available had no multiplayer functionality.

The report in full - including detail such as average team size and pricing distribution - can be read for free in PDF form here, and a Best Practices report - a response to the finding of this study - can be purchased here priced for $99.