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EA Mobile: Mobile Games A Niche No More

EA thinks it's going to make a killing on mobile games.

Pocket Gamer is reporting that Electronic Art's European president Javier Ferreira is claiming that mobile games are quickly catching up with ringtones - and that means they're going mainstream.

According to Ferreira, there were around 100 million paid game downloads in 2007, which puts them just barely behind ringtones in terms of sales.

"For me, that takes this industry beyond the idea of a niche, small industry, and really takes it forward into a mass market proposition," he said, speaking at an EA Mobile roundtable today in London.

As the pub points out, Ferreira didn't share what percentage of those 100 million downloads came from EA titles. But the company seems especially bullish on connected mobile games. 

Such games, which will enable players to compete against each other, will play a bigger role in EA Mobile's portfolio during the next year, following the recent release of Boom Blox, which allowed players to create their own levels and upload them to a community portal, while downloading other people's.

"More and more of our games will start incorporating connected experiences," Ferreira tells the pub. "It will enhance the social aspect of mobile gaming."

Maybe so. Handheld games have long been popular, and connected experience will only enhance their excitement. But it all depends on the interface. Phone keypads don't exactly make the most intuitive interfaces, especially compared to dedicated devices.

Is it clear that casual gamers will want to connect with other players for games they play while standing in the grocery store line or waiting to pick up the kids?

It remains to be seen. But EA is betting it'll all pay off - and play off - big.

Read all about it, here.

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'Battlestar Galactica' Gets New Mobile Game

Kill Cylons - "skinjobs" and otherwise - with a new Glu Mobile game based on "Battlestar Galactica."

The show's winding down - or at least I hope they find Earth soon, 'cause I'm losing interest - but the mobile offerings are ramping up.

Reuters is reporting that Universal Pictures has teamed up with Glu Mobile to create a new space-based shoot-em-up game, in which players can pilot three types of customizable Viper or Raptor ships while defending the human refugee fleet against relentless Cylon attacks. There are 24 playable missions, plus training missions.

The last mobile game for th show was created four years ago, during the show's debut season.

Just as long as there's now "five Cylons live in secret, one will be revealed" business - as if fans of the show really care - we're fine.

Read all about it, here.

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Paramount Launches Mobile Game for 'SHOOTER'

Paramount's "Shooter" is getting a first-person shooter game.

"Shooter: The Official Mobile Game" comes from Paramount and Hong Kong-based Artificial Life, and allows players to "become Gunnery Sergeant Bob Lee Swagger while taking on covert sniper missions along with heavy combat challenges that the player must successfully complete in a journey to uncover the truth."

The movie's been out for a while, but a long lapse between release date and mobile games hasn't stopped successful roll outs before.

In BRANDING UNBOUND the book, I look at how a growing number of Hollywood movies are getting the mobile gaming treatment. And in an article for The Mobile Marketing Association, I look at how these "advergames" can not only boost a film's incremental income, but also help fuel fandamonium.

Read more about the "Shooter" game, here.

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Video: Nokia N-Gage's 'Get Out & Play' Spot Sells New Wave of Mobile Gaming

With a campaign theme like this I was expecting maybe a little more - these actually remind me of those Expedia commercials out right now, where suitcases travel in a straight line through cityscapes. But entertaining nonetheless. Part of the "Get Out & Play" initiative for the N-Gage mobile gaming handset.

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BBC: Serious Interest In Mobile Games Is Growing

The second cousin to the console game may be about to come into its own.

The BBC is reporting that a new combination of technology, services and investment is fueling speculation that mobile games are about to go mainstream.

"This is still an infant industry, but it is growing quickly and expanding fast," Rob Tercek, chairman of GDC Mobile, tells the pub. "We are looking at an industry that is a $5bn industry overall, not bad for one that didn't exist 10 years ago."

So what, exactly, do industry insiders think will up the mobile ante? Try:

Touch technology: "Touch screen is going to bring a revolution in the fact we are removing the interface," says Michel Guillemot, head of Gameloft. "Our creators are very enthusiastic about touch; you can play games with your hands, your finger or your pencil. It is going to bring a completely new experience."

3D Graphics: "But we're enabling 3D content to run on mobile phones, comparable to a Dreamcast or PlayStation 2 in terms of performance," says David Harold, of Imagination Technologies.

Motion Control: For things like car racing games where the car is controlled by lifting or dipping the phone - turning your phone into a Wii-mote control.

Place shifting: "We can mix reality with virtuality and make games where you participate time and place independent or rather time and place dependent - where you are, what you do, who are your relationships," Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's executive vice president of markets, tells the pub.

Which all sounds good, but still, you have to wonder whether people will really stand around boxing or waving into the air as they walk down the street? Perhaps all these things will take off, but we'll find consumers really just want to play on their big screen with family and friends.

Time will tell. But if mobile game boosters are right, there may be some serious money in mobile game that just won't translate to console games. How's that for a new twist?

To find out more, click here.

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M:Metrics: Fortunes 'Mixed' For Mobile Games

The good news: More people are playing mobile games.

The bad news: The percentage of players downloading new mobile games isn't going up.

According to research firm M:Metrics, nearly three fourths of the 98.4 million people in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States that played a mobile game in December played a game that was found natively on the device, demonstrating, in M:Metrics' view, an untapped potential for downloaded content.

M:Metrics reports that 38.5 million, or 8.8 percent of, mobile subscribers played a game they had downloaded and stored on their phone. That number has been relatively flat from the year before, when 35.3 million, or 8.7 percent, played a downloaded game.

Some stats:

Monthly Mobile Game Consumption (as Percent of Mobile Subscribers):
December 2007

 

"One of the greatest challenges facing publishers by the growing adoption of smartphones is the wide availability of free or pirated content for these devices," said Seamus McAteer, chief product architect and senior analyst, M:Metrics.

What would that be the case?

"While these devices lend themselves to mobile media consumption, the openness of smart platforms opens up the Internet and frees consumers from the operator deck," observed McAteer. "To succeed in such a market game publishers will have to foster new models that may include subscriptions to online gaming communities, ad-funded or subsidized gaming, and physical distribution."

In BRANDING UNBOUND the book, I talk to McAteer about the longer term potential for premium content. He's a bullish, but pragmatic sort (and pretty funny, too). But I'm skeptical this new report is revealing potential as much as lack of interest or awareness.

When it comes to games and other content, there's clearly a lot of growth potential - just, perhaps not as much for game (and video) as some would want to believe.

Look at other stats from the new report:

Mobile Subscriber Monthly Consumption of Content and Applications
M:Metrics Benchmark Survey (Percent of Mobile Subscribers): December 2007

Note the high percentage of people who have sent or received video, and compare that to those who have watched video.

There's awareness - it takes a lot more to create and send a video than watching video - but little interest.

What if people know they can download mobile games, but just haven't seen anything interesting, or are unaware that there are sources other than carrier decks.

That's sort of what McAteer's saying, of course.

But playing a game on a tiny handset screen isn't much more fun than watching TV/video on one.

Time will tell if mobile consumers are game for games, or whether the play's not the thing many hope it is.

Read more about the report, here.

And read more about BRANDING UNBOUND the book, here.

                         

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'Bourne' Again: Vivendi Games Announces 2008 Mobile Lineup

Not surprisingly, 2007's hottest movies are about to become 2008's biggest mobile games.

Vivendi Games Mobile announced its first-half 2008 lineup of mobile games today, and it's looking like a conspiracy - "The Bourne Conspiracy," that is, a mobile game based on last year's Matt Damon actioner. Other titles include:

• "Prison Break," based on the Fox TV show

• "SWAT Elite Troops," sequel to the 2006 Spike TV Videogames Awards Mobile Game of the Year

• "Wordox: Word Snatcher," Vivendi Games Mobile's first network-connected multiplayer game, Wordox: Word Snatcher is based on the popular Wordox online game which reached a peak of 2.5 million players in 2002

More timely, the company will launch a mobile game based on "The Spiderwick Chronicles," based on the line of children's books, and the movie that opens next month.

It's not uncommon for console and mobile games based on popular movie shows to come out a good six months to a year after the fact - partly because of the sheer amount of work in creating a game, and partly because it takes time to figure out which properties are proven hits. After all, why make a game off a show that turns out to be a stinker?

And this is hardly the most time-delayed batch of pop-culture mobile game tie-ins. "Dukes of Hazard," "Charlie's Angels" and  "Miami Vice" hit handsets, what, decades after their prime time.

Jason Bourne can take his time. Cool is cool - no matter the time delay.

Find out more, here.

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Cartoon Network To Launch Mobile Games Based on Adult Swim

Turner's Cartoon Network has been making a lot of mobile news of late. Now it wants to have more fun.

The cable network has signed a deal with Hong Kong-based Artificial Life to create game applications for mobile platforms based on popular games published by Adult Swim, Cartoon Network's late night programming block.

In BRANDING UNBOUND the book, I look at how Cartoon Network has been especially aggressive in capitalizing on the mobile channel with properties like "Drawn Together."

Now with new mobile games, Adult Swim is going to get more interactive than ever.

Read more here.

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'Grey's Anatomy' Mobile Game Brings ER Anywhere

McDreamy's gone mobile.

File this under the unlikely mobile game department, but Gameloft has launched a new "Grey's Anatomy" mobile game based on the hit TV soap. Apparently, you play as Meredith Grey as she handles her duties in Seattle Grace Hospital.

Gameloft may not be nuts. Women over 30 make up the the fastest growing segment of mobile gamers, and "Grey's," which I have to admit I've never actually watched, is a hit with the demo.

It seems counterintuitive nonetheless.

Read more here.

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eMarketer: Mobile Gaming Growing Faster Than Console & Handheld Games

Call them pocket pastimes. Games to go. Or even just fun on the run.

By whatever name, mobile games are catching on fast - and appear to be outpacing other dominant gaming platforms.

“Global revenues from mobile gaming are pegged at $3.6 billion this year,” cites eMarketer, quoting David Rouse, analyst at Understanding & Solutions. "We predict this figure to rise to $6 billion by 2011."

That means the mobile video games market is growing faster than the markets for consoles and handheld video games, according to Understanding & Solutions. Apparently, only online games are growing at a faster clip.

Pay-per-download is still the primary model, but ad-funded and subscription-based models are growing, too.

For a look at those models - particularly how targeted, ad-supported models that span massively multi-player mobile gaming networks may soon redefine the way marketers reach gamers, pick up a copy of BRANDING UNBOUND the book today.

Read the eMarketer piece here.

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