Will the credit crunch hurt ad-funded mobile gaming?

When it comes to the current global economic crisis, the likely impact for the mobile games industry isn't high on many people's priorities. Not when there's life-savings to be buried in the garden...

But it's still a live issue for many parts of the industry, whether VC-funded mobile game publishers considering their next move, handset makers wondering if sales are stalling, or ad-funded games firms reliant on, well, advertising.

The latter may come under more scrutiny in the near future. Analysts have been revising their forecasts for online advertising growth, with ZenithOptimedia saying it now expects global internet ad spend to grow by 23 per cent between 2007 and 2010, rather than the 26.7 per cent it previously predicted.

Zenith thinks the overall US advertising market (not just online) will only grow 1.6 per cent this year, and less than one per cent in 2009. PaidContent has a good article talking about how other analysts have been revising their forecasts too.

So, what's the outlook for ad-funded mobile gaming - an area still in its relative infancy for advertisers? If online advertising budgets are hit by the economic climate, experimental new mobile campaigns may be an early casualty.

Conversely, of course, the analyst forecasts are only predicting less growth, not an actual fall in advertising spends. There's also an argument to be made that more targeted mobile advertising may come into its own.

Still, with several companies basing their business models on increased mobile advertising spends - not to mention the games publishers hoping to derive more revenues from ads as they're squeezed out of operator decks -wider economic conditions could have an impact on this industry.