A majority of those who play free mobile games turned out to be indifferent to in-app adds in the form of banners or videos, considering the benefits earned in exchange of watching them, according to an industry report.

Around 73 percent of gamers are happy with the ad-funded model of mobile app games, according to the “Mobile Games Research 2017” report from London-based market research firm 2VC, commissioned by the Facebook Audience Network.

The report was based on more than 6,000 online interviews with gamers from major gaming markets worldwide including the UK, US, Germany, Japan and South Korea, according to 2VC. 

“This goes beyond being an acceptable surprise, it’s actually the expectation of gamers that if they haven’t paid for an app then it is likely to have advertising in it,” 2VC said.

“The reality is our audiences are more sophisticated than that: they understand and accept that a transaction is taking place. Furthermore, when presented with a choice between paying for a game or seeing advertising, gamers have voted with their thumbs -- and their wallets.”

The findings come as Korean game companies are increasingly being pushed to review different monetization strategies for the games they develop.

In Korea, most mobile games, with the exception of board game genres, typically do not feature ads. Rather, they have adopted the freemium model, in which people play the game for free but must pay to purchase in-app items.

However, this freemium model has continuously drawn criticism for making it difficult, if not impossible, for players to make meaningful advancements within the game without spending high amounts of money.

South Korea is No. 6 worldwide in terms of game revenues with 25.6 million gamers set to spend $4.2 billion in 2017, according to consumer market research company Newzoo.

“Game developers feel that any monetization strategy needs to have multiple approaches in order to maximize revenue and ensure they are not dependent on one form of revenue-generation,” 2VC said.

“If the industry can implement advertising well and educate advertisers on the audience they can get access to, there is a bright future ahead.”

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)