A new report from M:Metrics forecasts mixed fortunes for the future of the mobile games industry. Although the market researcher found that more people than ever before are playing mobile games, the percentage of those downloading new games is the same as it was a year ago.

Instead of taking a chance and buying a downloadable game, nearly three-quarters of the 98.4 million mobile gamers in the countries included in the report played a game they found on-deck. Roughly 38.5 million, or 8.8% of mobile subscribers, played a game they had downloaded and stored on their phone. That's up a bit from 35.3 million a year earlier, but percentage-wise, it's flat at 8.7% of the mobile population, the report says.

Detailed charts that break down the numbers by country and game-play method are available on the M:Metrics site.