According to recent reports, wireless gaming is spreading nearly as fast as computer viruses pretending to be pictures of tennis stars. By 2005, more than 200 million wireless phone users in the United States and Europe, 80 percent of all wireless customers, will play online games using a wireless device, according to research company Datamonitor.
Domestically, Sprint PCS has led the charge in wireless gaming having signed up nine content providers to supply 30 different games on it wireless Web offering. These wireless gaming initiatives are aimed squarely at capturing the youth market which, according to the Yankee Group, is expected to see regular use of wireless phones increase from 20 percent today to 68 percent by 2005.
“The youth market is the untapped market for wireless use,” said Dan Wilinsky, spokesman for Sprint PCS.
Other carriers have also introduced wireless gaming including Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless Services Inc.
Buzztime Inc., a supplier of a trivia game for Sprint PCS’ Wireless Web, announced that 49 days after Sprint PCS launched its game, 120,000 subscribers had played in excess of 180,000 quiz shows while averaging more than 5 minutes per visit to its channel.
Another wireless gaming provider, Jamdat Mobile Inc., recently reported its Gladiator game has seen more than 340,000 unique users, playing more than 720,000 games and accruing approximately 3.2 million airtime minutes.
For wireless operators, these numbers are hard to ignore. Not only are subscribers spending airtime playing games, the variety of games are attracting younger users who currently make up only a small portion of wireless phone users.
Sprint PCS’ current wireless game offerings include AlienFish Exchange, Blackjack, Bombs, Chopstix, Code Breaker, Concentration, Crash, Get-a-Clue!, DataClash, Dr. Popko, Gladiator, Honeymoon, Investment Challenge, Knockout, MasterKey, Merchant Princes, Pigskin, Poker, RJ Trivia, Safari, Slots, Tic-Tac-Toe, Video Pole, Word Rope, Worm and more.
Unfortunately, the wireless gaming market has some growing pains to deal with before reaching its much-hyped potential.
Currently, wireless gaming is restricted to simple graphics or trivia style games. Data connection rates are not fast enough to allow for much more, and screens on wireless devices are currently not able to present a multimedia experience.
“Over time, the games will get more complex,” Peter Cuneo, Marvel Entertainment’s chief executive officer told CNET.com. “Right now, there are limitations. Graphically, you’re dealing with one-dimensional gray tones. They’ve already introduced color in Japan, and they’re getting much better graphics. We’ll see 2D in the near future.”
Another hurdle are the expectations consumers have for electronic games.
“The biggest knock against wireless gaming is that it is not more of a [personal computer] or Game Boy experience,” Wilinsky said. “Customers have expectations. Right now we are at the Atari Pong stage of development.”
Those expectations are especially true within the youth market Sprint PCS is trying to tap. Most teenagers are used to fully developed gaming platforms providing surround sound quality and high-paced graphics.
Even smaller game platforms, including Nintendo’s Game Boy, provide a gaming experience wireless devices can only dream of. Nintendo recently said it has shipped more than 120 million of the handheld game platforms worldwide, and is ready to launch an advanced model this summer.
While game providers would like to offer more sophisticated gaming options, Ty Lam, president of Buzztime, explained carriers are making it hard to justify the expense.
“I don’t think a lot of companies will throw too much money at gaming until they can find a way to make money,” Lam said. “The best thing operators can do is to provide a revenue sharing model with content providers so they want to provide better content.”
Lam said its current agreement with Sprint PCS has been very successful in that it showed the company could produce a wireless game, but Buzztime has no plans to develop additional games until it could be compensated.
“It’s a land grab,” said Lam. “Carriers are just trying to get as much content as possible onto their services to sell to their customers. Right now the carriers know that customers are not signing up for their service just so they can play games. If we said we were going to pull our game from their service, I don’t think they would care.”
Lam said carriers were stifling the development of interactive gaming content, but for the right business reasons.
“Their business is selling subscribers and selling minutes,” Lam said. “It is still [research and development] for them.”
International carriers are working around the R&D problem by teaming up with established gaming providers. Sony Corp. has partnered with NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone Group plc to provide PlayStation games for their wireless services, while NTT’s rival KDDI Corp. signed a similar deal with Nintendo Co. Ltd.
Those carriers also have established plans to introduce faster data rates onto their networks to facilitate the advanced games their new partners can provide.
“With faster data rates, the sky’s the limit for wireless gaming,” said Wilinsky.
