Smart phone and Internet-enables phones from Nokia, Apple and Samsung (LG) are becoming ubiquitous with their users routinely accessing data, applications, e-mail and schedules over the Internet. Apple has sold about 10 million iPhones, Nokia’s global presence and distribution gives it the potential to reach 10X as many users as Apple. Mobile games represent up to 50 percent of all downloads, while just 18 months ago, the share of mobile games was 35 percent of all downloaded content. Smart phones offer a very attractive opportunity for game developers and the apparent business requirements seem to be fairly straightforward:
- Consumers need a easy way to find and download games.
- Consumers should be able to download and play, try and buy, interesting games for any of their smart phones.
- The games should be simple to learn and fun to play.
- It would be nice if users could share their enjoyment of playing a mobile game as they would on Facebook or another social network
Today there is no easy way to find and download games. Nokia has launched the N-gage gaming service for Nokia N-gage phone users, however, its adoption has been poor to date. Apple’s iTunes store is a great example of a successful business model.
Games are a key driver for telecom carriers for increasing data and service revenues from users. As mobile voice revenue is decreasing, mobile operators are continuing to search for mobile data applications to increase revenue. While game developers can establish distribution relationships with them, the revenue split is usually very steep.
The game should be portable across all phone hardware (Nokia, Apple, Samsung, Moto), mobile OS (Symbian, Apple, Windows Mobile) and phone application frameworks, to ensure the best return on investment for the game developer. Flash Lite and J2ME are attractive technologies that offer portability for building the games
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Technorati Tags: mobile gaming, smart phone, Nokia, N-gage, Apple, iPhone, Samsung, LG, Facebook, J2ME, Flash, Flash Lite, Windows Mobile
