mobile gaming

Cause for optimism in UK mobile content market

Ian Channing — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:15:56 -0400

Spending on mobile entertainment in the UK during the first quarter of 2009 was flat and the overall market performance was down on 2008. However, despite these negative indicators there are reasons to be cheerful, according to a report from GfK Retail and Technology.

Trends are shifting towards video and music subscriptions, casual gaming is proving popular and flat rate mobile Internet usage continues to expand. Subscription-based purchases of video and music by mobile owners, as opposed to pay per download, are increasing and now represent 40 per cent of all mobile entertainment sales. Underpinning the games market are casual trivia and word games which account for 27 per cent of sales. Retailing has become increasingly sophisticated with live portal management ensuring that the right games get in the right place at the right time.

The report concludes that, with touchscreen and 3G phones continuing to enjoy strong sales, the outlook for the UK mobile entertainment sector remains encouraging.

For more on this story:
- go to Cellular News

Free mobile gaming comes to the UK

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:59:00 -0500

T-Mobile has become the first UK mobile operator to use advertising to fund a free games offer to its customers. One new game per week will be available to users who join T-Mobile's Game Club. The first free game available to consumers is Poker Million II, which is funded by advertisers including Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, from Paramount Pictures. Digistores, the digital ad-funded entertainment experts, will host and manage the content and games scheduled to appear in the coming weeks include IQ Booster, Pro-Bowling, Pool Star and Einstein's Brain Game. Digistores' service will only offer customers games that are compatible with their particular handsets and the system can automatically detect the games that will work on individual devices.

For more:
- go to 3g.co.uk

Related article:
Mixed outlook for mobile games sector

Mixed outlook for mobile games sector

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:58:04 -0500

The arrival of the iPhone was widely welcomed by mobile games vendors but unfortunately the new phone failed to stimulate growth in paid-for mobile game sales of which have ‘flatlined' in North America and Western Europe. A new report from Juniper Research says that, although the mobile games market will grow in retail value to more than US$10 billion in 2013, its potential is being inhibited. This dampening of demand is being caused by a combination of the limited revenue share being offered by operators to publishers--causing some to leave the mobile games industry--and poor games marketing.

For more on this story go to Mobile Europe and Telecomredux

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Rumour mill: Nokia's Comes with Music, Films and Games

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:22:19 -0500

Unlimited music downloads have scored a considerable hit since their launch earlier this year. Wanting to build on this success, Nokia is thought to be putting together an unlimited download package of movies and N-Gage titles that could be launched during the first half of 2009.

Whilst unlimited downloads of games might not set Nokia's world alight--given the tough year the mobile games industry has experienced--when the same concept is applied to movies consumer interest could be sparked. One potential video provider, Disney, has commented that their content would be perfect for a bundled subscription offer.

Prior to any of this happening, it would appear Nokia will need to improve the quality of its Comes with Music handsets, in particular the 5610 XpressMusic cellphone which has temporarily been withdrawn from sale by T-Mobile. The operator said that some of the phones had a defective component that may cause the LED display to malfunction. Nokia has yet to publicly confirm there is a problem.

For more on this story go to:
stuff.tv and Register Hardware

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Mobile gaming market heads south

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:54:18 -0400

For those who thought last year was a tough market for mobile games, this year's figures could be even worse, believes Jaakko Kaidesoja, Nokia's head of its gaming operations.

After years of double-digit growth, 2007, and now 2008, have both registered a decline in the overall mobile gaming market, with Western Europe and North America recording the sharpest downturn. To make matters worse, 2009 is likely to follow this trend given the growing pressure on consumer expenditure.

Kaidesoja attempted to put a positive spin on this dire situation by claiming that some parts of the market like pre-loaded games, emerging markets, N-Gage and iPhone, were viable. He urged operators that pre-installing the gaming software in phones before they are sold and having a local billing system in place, beyond credit card payments, were the keys to reach wider take-up of the service

Nokia has recently been criticised for holding back the progress of mobile gaming with Electronic Arts claiming it made twice the revenue from selling an iPhone game in Italy than it would from selling an N-Gage game at the same price.

EA, one of the largest developers of games, has also made disparaging comments on the difficulties of having a game certified by Nokia. This issue seems to be caused by Nokia's many and varied mobile platforms and the compatibility of gaming code across these operating systems.

For more on this story:
go to: The Inquirer

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