Western mobile gaming will grow to $30B, predicts Ngmoco founder Neil Young

Mobile gaming is on pace to generate $36.9 billion worldwide this year, but one of the people responsible for kicking off this industry in the first place thinks the West could reach and surpass that number by itself soon.

Consumers will start spending an average of five-to-eight times more on mobile gaming in the West, according to N3twork and Ngmoco founder Neil Young said during a fireside chat Tuesday at the GamesBeat Summit in Sausalito, California. This could push spending on iPhone and Android apps in the United States to $30 billion. To reach that massive figure, Young — who found early success with the iPhone game Rolando in 2008 — says that developers will have to create games that maximize how long people stick with a game and how much they spend each days.