The graph and tables are for total revenue across the industry and they even separate ad revenue into a different category. What this shows is that freemium is more expensive than paid at this point.
I think it’s simply a matter of volume. Everyone has a phone, not everyone has a console or gaming pc
There is some merit to that but we aren’t just counting players. People seem to be ultimately paying more. If mobile gaming was more available but also more affordable the revenue might not surpass console and PC games.
Which is no surprise, since most freemium games are structured to get players spending, dangling extra lives and new characters in front of them, often escalating to the point where even people grinding hours every day struggle to advance without paying. It’s not uncommon to see people in mobile gaming communities saying how they spent thousands of dollars on a game and regretting it, something that is not even a possibility for console games without microtransactions.
