Facebook says that social hooks make gamers more engaged.
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Facebook: 43% of mobile gamers are parents

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Gaming has become a $99 billion market, with mobile games accounting for $36 billion of that in 2016, according to market researcher Newzoo. And Facebook says its own statistics show that games have spread out more than ever before.

Facebook’s data from 12 countries shows that 43 percent of mobile gamers are parents, and those parents mostly play during the prime-time TV hours of 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Among mobile game parents who spend money, 90 percent play mobile games as a family activity. Eighty-nine percent play mobile games with kids as an educational activity, and 83 percent buy mobile game apps for their kids. Thanks to its social reach, Facebook has a big share of all kinds of game ad revenue, giving it a window into data on gamer activity.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.