Muse.On-The.Net

The internet makes many things easier than ever before, including piracy of goods. The topic has been discussed widely when it comes to music or film, but what of mobile phone games?

In an infant industry where, by some estimates, less than 5% of mobile phone users have even attempted to download a game for their cellular handset, is piracy a big deal? Consider that many people cannot figure out how to download games legitimately - would these people steal games? Well, perhaps they would, if it was easier to do than purchasing games.

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Wildly successful as a business tool, the BlackBerry created a new category of mobile device. With the additional of the Pearl model, Research in Motion (RIM), creator of the BlackBerry, is now aiming at regular consumers. Is the BlackBerry tasty enough for casual users?

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In the early days of computer games developers created games paid for from their own pockets. Similarly, the rewards were all theirs. However, as the costs of development grew - as did the size of the potential audience - it became increasingly expensive and risky to create and to market new games. In stepped the publisher. As the games increased yet again in complexity and markets became global, the relationship heavily favoured the publisher. Most developers work becomes, in effect, work-for-hire, and only the exceptionally gifted make real profits.

Shift forward to today and to mobile phone games and the same scenario is progressing, such that 80% of the games sold on carrier decks are controlled by a small number of mobile phone publishers. Is this inevitable?

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Web 2.0 is everywhere. Everyone’s heard about it even if they don’t know what it means. Coined by Tim O’Reilly, it signifies the second coming of web services and the realization of the promises of the Dot Com Bubble. He writes:

The bursting of the dot-com bubble in the fall of 2001 marked a turning point for the web. Many people concluded that the web was overhyped, when in fact bubbles and consequent shakeouts appear to be a common feature of all technological revolutions. Shakeouts typically mark the point at which an ascendant technology is ready to take its place at center stage. The pretenders are given the bum’s rush, the real success stories show their strength, and there begins to be an understanding of what separates one from the other.

Are we ready for a Mobile 2.0?

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Take a look at any carrier game deck these days and you’ll find endless movie-based titles, console-game re-skins, decade-old arcade classics, and marque branded (e.g., Tony Hawk) titles. The NPD Group just released a report of the top-selling mobile games in the US in the second half of 2006 and, while only 7 of these were licensed, the remaining 3 were Pacman, Ms. Pacman, and Frogger - classics ported to mobile and offered by their original producers. In effect, the entire top ten cannot be considered original content in the context of mobile phone games. Is creativity dead?

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The topic can be contentious. Is advertising in games inevitable, abominable, disastrous, or some combination of all three?

The premise, that product can be distributed for free when supported by advertising, is nothing new. Newspapers, radio & television have been sold that way for decades, and advertising props up the biggest internet company of all time - Google. Advertising as a revenue medium is currently in vogue, and several companies are focused on using this model for mobile phone games, including Kalador, with its FreePlay technology, as available on the MobileRated free mobile games storefront. Other examples include GameJump and Hovr.

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