DUBLIN, Ireland—Cellular operators need to market mobile entertainment applications more aggressively if many more games applications developers are not to go out of business. This is the view of international telecommunications consultancy BWCS, which claims developers will be forced under unless operators are more proactive.
“A number of major developers we have spoken with have complained of a lack of promotion of mobile gaming services by network and portal operators,” warned BWCS consultant Arthur Drewitt. “If service providers fail to wake up to the potential of wireless gaming, some of these new services could go virtually unnoticed by subscribers. Smaller applications developers would no doubt be forced out of business if their products fail to catch on with the public.”
“While there is no doubt that a vast opportunity exists for mobile entertainment services, a number of other barriers still remain,” he added.
“For example, problems with billing and payment systems, slow network speeds, security issues and the limitations of existing handsets must all be overcome in order for the market to be able to move forward.”
If operators get their marketing right, BWCS reckons that by 2007 there will be more than 200 million mobile subscribers regularly playing games on their handsets, generating annual revenues of some US$7.76 billion. BWCS predicted that, besides gaming and multimedia messaging, downloads of music and video clips will be the most popular applications.
