Apparently, people are interested in playing games on their cell phones--but they're not interested in paying for them. According to a Forbes article, 27% of consumers with cell phones use them to play games, and 60% of younger cell phone users use them for gaming. The games they're playing, however, tend to be the free ones bundled with the phone, which really shouldn't come as much of a surprise. When you're only playing a game for 11 minutes--which the article cites as the average cell phone gaming session--"Snake" tends to be a more compelling experience than a cell phone adaptation of "Bewitched". Whereas the average cell phone game costs $5.31, most consumers are only willing to pay between $2.25 and $2.75, which doesn't bode well for mobile game-only publishers and traditional publishers trying to break into the mobile market.

"They're having a digital snack," says NPD analyst Clint Wheelock. "When they've got ten minutes to kill they're pulling out the phone and playing a game." Despite the efforts of phone companies, handset makers and game developers want to exploit the horsepower of new mobile handsets and make better games available, consumers don't seem to be interested in much more than a simple, momentary diversion, he says. "There's been a feeling that it's going to evolve from casual games, but I'm not sure that's what people are expecting from their cell phones."