Mobile gaming sessions rise to 3 minutes 37 seconds

Mobile marketing firm NativeX reports that consumers' mobile habits are changing.

Users are now engaged with games for significantly longer periods of time.

Based on the bite-sized nature of mobile gameplay, however, the number of minutes spent per session is still small compared to traditional console gaming.

That aside, NativeX notes that the number of users who play for 10 minutes or longer has doubled in the past 9 months.

Maturation of mobile

In terms of the base numbers, NativeX reports that in the first quarter of 2013, gamers spent an average of 3 minutes and 37 seconds per session, which is up from sessions of 1 minute and 27 seconds in Q3 of 2012.

The reason for the increased play sessions is, according to NativeX, the maturation of the mobile gaming market, the development of better freemium models, and an increase in the number of mobile publishers.

Speaking on the matter, NativeX's co-founder Robert Weber believe that, "More people are playing games for longer periods of time on smartphones than ever before... as a result, the average user engagement of mobile gamers has spiked within the last year."