Jason Ford can walk through any mall in the United States without eliciting a second glance. But in the tiny universe that is wireless gaming, he may as well be Brad Pitt.
As the general manager of games for Sprint PCS, Ford’s attention is highly coveted by publishers and developers hoping to get their wares onto the carrier’s deck of content offerings. Occasionally the game makers cross the line from persistent vendors to unrelenting stalkers.
“It can get a little bit scary at times,” Ford said of his would-be business partners. “People are very aggressive sometimes; it mostly comes from people who don’t have a relationship (with a carrier), and they’re trying to get their foot in the door.”
Perhaps the most egregious example occurred a couple of years ago in a men’s room at the annual CTIA conference. Instead of staring at the wall, Ford suddenly found himself looking at a prototype of a mobile game that had been thrust in front of him.
“I was minding my own business, and all of a sudden there’s a hand with a phone in my face,” he explained. “My response was, `Can you give me a minute? Whatever you have-it could be Nintendo-but this is not how I want to do business.”‘
Ford opted not to grant deck placement for that particular title.
Given such tenacious attention-grabbing tactics, it’s little wonder Ford relishes his anonymity-when he can keep it. He admits that he doesn’t usually take phone calls from unidentified callers and flashes his nametag at conferences only as often as is required. When his cover is blown, though-when he speaks on a panel, for instance-Ford quickly can become the most-wanted person in the room.
“That’s when the guys who want to see you see you,” said Ford, “and they track you down. You try to be as cordial as you can … but sometimes it’s hard.”
It wasn’t so long ago when Ford was the one doing the chasing, however. In the earliest days of mobile gaming, he was one of a handful of carrier staffers on their knees pleading with established publishers of console and PC titles to create games for mobile phones. While THQ Inc. and pure-play developers such as Jamdat Mobile Inc. and Mforma Group Inc. were among the visionaries that saw the viability of wireless gaming, many more established publishers were slow to grasp the potential of the new platform.
“I remember sitting in the office at E.A., and I remember them basically laughing at us,” Ford recalled with a hint of vindication. Upon seeing one of Sprint’s early gaming efforts, one executive seemed more amused than intrigued. “The quote that sticks in my mind (from an E.A. official) is, `This looks more like a really good art project you’re doing here,”‘ said Ford.
Like nearly everyone else in video games, E.A. has since joined the wireless party. In March, the world’s largest independent game publisher unveiled an entire unit dedicated to the mobile platform, saying it will release as many as 20 titles for phones in the next year.
E.A.’s announcement was further evidence that the wild frontier that was mobile gaming is quickly evolving into a solid, stable industry. Consolidation steadily is swallowing up smaller players, and the only new entrants are giants lumbering onto the playground from traditional video-game publishing and other media industries. No longer can small developers hope to snare deck placement directly with a Tier 1 carrier. Instead, game makers either must build a portfolio of games with smaller carriers or align themselves with well-established publishers that have solid relationships with big operators.
“There’s a mentality in this business that somebody really small can come in” and audition for a carrier, said Ford. “That door was shut long ago. … I think it’s a challenge for people to break in now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t earn your way in.”
What Ford lacks in traditional video-game experience-unlike many in the industry, he doesn’t come from the PC or console space-he makes up for in passion. Ford, who holds both a bachelor’s degree in film and an MBA from Baker University, came onboard with Sprint’s wireless data business in 1999. After helping establish the carrier’s ringtone and screen-saver businesses, he jumped at the chance to create the carrier’s gaming division.
“I’ve always had a passion for gaming, but I’ve always buffered myself from playing too much,” said Ford, conceding he “wasted a semester in college” on video games. “I enjoy seeing the sun and having a family.”
Indeed, the 33-year-old has much to keep up with at home, where he has four children between the ages of 2 and 13 to act as in-house consultants. Like gaming chiefs at other carriers, Ford could use the help: The games department at Sprint consists of Ford and one other full-time employee-making it at least twice as large as most other operators’ gaming divisions.
With such limited resources, Ford has assembled a group of a dozen or so Sprint employees who meet every few weeks to test new games. Titles that are approved get “shelf space” on Sprint’s gaming deck, which generally offers about 200 games.
But while the staffers can help filter out some lesser games, the entire wireless gaming industry is suffering from a lack of attention from carriers, said Ford, who’s openly criticized the number of inferior games on the market. Instead of focusing on voice-centric themes like buckets of minutes and family plans, operators should begin to differentiate themselves based on their content offerings.
“Whether it’s advertising, whether it’s marketing, one of the big challenges in this industry is that if we want these places to grow, we’ve got to staff them properly,” said Ford. “I don’t think people understand that this is an entirely new environment. We have to talk about all the content” available to wireless users.
While it may not market itself as such, there’s ample evidence Sprint is becoming the carrier of choice for mobile gamers. A recent report by wireless usage measurement firm M:Metrics found that an 18-year-old man who downloads games is more than twice as likely to be a customer of Sprint than any other carrier.
Some of the credit for creating such a foothold should go to Sprint’s Game Lobby, a mobile community that offers gamers a place to chat, recommend games and post high scores. The forum has given rise to what Ford calls the “card core” player-casual wireless gamers who play as obsessively as hardcore console players.
“It just kind of shows how freaky people are,” said Ford, noting that some users have played games like The Price is Right more than 10,000 times. “It’s almost a little bit sad to see these people in the upper echelon” of usage.
Given such uptake, it’s easy to forget that wireless gaming is still very much a niche market relative to the total number of wireless users. To expand the reach of mobile games, many developers are looking to incorporate high-tech applications like global satellite positioning, massive multiplayer capabilities and real-time, community-based features.
But when it comes to gaming, the most important feature a mobile phone can offer isn’t high network speeds or a three-dimensional screen, said Ford. It’s the fact that nearly everyone carries one 24 hours a day.
“I think the biggest thing is that it’s hardly ever outside your arm’s reach,” Ford said. “I used to have mine by me on my bed before I had this job. There’s no way I’m doing that now.”
