Study: Average customer spends $14 in freemium games on iOS and Android

This is pretty crazy news from mobile analytics firm Flurry: The average customer in a freemium game on iOS and Android spends $14 in any given transaction, according to their latest data. The same study already revealed that in-app purchases have overtaken standard purchases when it comes to mobile apps, but this set of data shows that when customers do bite the bullet on in-app purchases, they're taking much bigger bites than a lot of people might expect. 13% of those who spend money on freemium games are spending over $20, which means that these players are extremely committed to the games they're actually shelling out money for. And when the standard purchase price of a console videogame at a retail store is around $60, it's not hard to see why very committed players are willing to spend $20, $40, or even a full $60 via an in-app purchase on a game they love and got for completely free.

Those high numbers make the average that high value of $14. Keep in mind, however, that this is the average for in-app purchases only -- including players who don't spend any money in these apps would bring the average way down, as this is still only a small percentage of players spending money to begin with.

In fact, Flurry found that half of all freemium revenue is actually generated by this 13% who spend high amounts of money on these games. That means that freemium developers are getting a large part of their revenue from a relatively few big spenders, customers who really love the games and are willing (or able -- it's unknown how many of these players are spending their parents' or someone else's money here) to shell out a lot of cash on the title. This is really interesting information, and it shows that freemium gaming, while still popular, is still dependent on just a few customers with lots of money to spend.