Further iPad game analysis: Rise of the US indies as well as action and card/board games

Just over a week ago, I did some basic analysis on the 97 announced iPad games I was tracking in terms of their genre, where they originated from as game concepts, the status of the companies developing them, and the geographic location of those companies.

Now my master list of iPad games is 182 titles strong, so I've decided to revisit that research to see how those 85 new games affect my initial conclusions.

First up is the genre breakdown of iPad games.

As before the most popular genre is puzzle, with almost the same breakdown; now 25 percent compared to 26 percent previously.

The proportion of action titles is up from 12 to 17 percent, while games based on card and board games have leapt into third place, making up 13 percent of the total, compared to 7 percent previously.

Sports, strategy and shooters have declined. I've also broken out some more detail so you can see the range of game type available.

What's clear however is that the more simple genres of games currently predominate.

When it comes to where announced iPad games have conceptually originated from, despite the addition of 85 titles, the breakdown is almost exactly the same as we saw prior. The majority of iPad games are enhanced versions of existing iPhone games.

In terms of the type of companies making iPad games, the proportion of indie studios has risen from 44 percent to 53 percent; a significant jump even if we'd expect indies to be more open in talking about their plans than the big publishers.

Mid-tier developers - those established companies with more than half-a-dozen staff - remain at the same level.

Finally, if we look at the geographic breakdown of where iPad games are being developed, the United States has increased its dominance - up from 48 percent to 53 percent.

The UK and Canada are slightly up, and remain in second and third places respectively.

Finland and New Zealand also increase their standings, with Germany and Sweden dropping back into the Other block.

All-in-all then, it appears the original analysis was fairly accurate.

Despite almost doubling the sample group, the average iPad game remains a port of an iPhone puzzler from US indie studio.