Mobile game publishers have gained steady-if uninspiring-traction churning out titles based on blockbuster movies and classic board games. But what the industry really needs, some believe, is some fresh ideas. And they’re unlikely to come from some of the more familiar names in the space.
A quick check of the decks of tier-one carriers reveals a host of familiar titles: I-play has found success with its “Fast and Furious” franchise. Glu Mobile Inc. offers a mobile take on the classic Monopoly brand. Namco Networks continues to lure 30- and 40-somethings with shrunken versions of arcade classics like Pac-Man, and EA Mobile continues to dominate the space thanks largely to its popular Tetris license.
Such titles can be attractive to first-time gamers, of course, who may be more likely to plunk down a few dollars for a recognizable title than to roll the dice on, for instance, Mr. Goodliving’s Turbo Camels. But while those intellectual property licenses may have helped the top publishers gain market share, they may not be helping the industry as a whole.
Balancing act
“Innovation’s been scarce,” former mobile gaming executive Robert Tercek said at GDC Mobile in San Francisco earlier this year. “Most (publishers) have been focusing on safe bets, basically anything they can count on to move merchandise and secure deck space.”
Indeed, investing in high-profile licenses is still an effective strategy for publishers looking to place their titles on the shelves of carriers’ virtual retail stores. But developers are slowly gaining the attention of gaming geeks and industry insiders with casual games that minimize the constraints of the mobile phone and play to the platform’s strengths. I-play’s Skipping Stone, which was developed by Korea’s Gamevil, was named Best Made-for-Mobile Game by the GSM Association, and Telcogames Ltd. last year received similar recognition from the Forum Nokia PRO Awards for SiL, an astonishingly simple game that requires players to “fit” a 3-D object into a space by rotating it.
Both Skipping Stone and SiL are innovative, made-for-mobile titles that offer “one thumb play” and objectives that are easy for gamers to understand. And both demonstrate what publishers can accomplish when they invest more on development than a costly license.
“The top tier of game publishers like EA, Gameloft, Glu and I-play are doing a great job of bringing quality games to mobile,” according to Andrew Stein, director of mobile business development for PopCap Games, an online gaming company moving aggressively into mobile. “However, in most cases, these games are derivatives of major console or PC titles, or are based on licensed entertainment brands, especially movies and TV shows. The costs of these licenses and the built-in customer expectations around gameplay make true innovation quite challenging for these games and publishers.”
Leave it to the small guys
So it’s the smaller publishers, Stein believes, that are more likely to develop innovative titles that could drive the market-if the games actually get to market. Tier-one operators are continually whittling the number of offerings on their decks in an effort to avoid clutter, and are opting to deal with fewer publishers. Lesser-known players are being forced to push the envelope as they develop mobile games or risk being shut out altogether.
“Smaller companies tend to bring new IP to market-or at least IP that is much less encumbered by expensive licenses and restrictive game dynamics. Smaller companies are also more likely to try new things because they have to-they need to differentiate to compete,” Stein said. “The challenge is getting games noticed by carriers and merchandised on the carrier decks. Carriers are starting to cut down the number of games that they stock and reduce the number of companies that they deal with. This is why so many companies are depending on licenses to break through the sea of titles available-but this is what makes them more risky.”
Something different
Innovation could come in many forms, of course. Some developers are offering location-based games that use GPS to track players’ movements, while others are incorporating cameras. Digital Chocolate Inc. is slowly gaining traction-and deck space-by integrating messaging and other features in an effort to create virtual communities of players. Some game-makers are looking to incorporate social networking platforms such as MySpace and FaceBook, blurring the line between communication and competition as applications expand from the desktop to the mobile. Conversely, titles like Skipping Stone and SiL attracted attention by providing remarkably simple, stand-alone gameplay.
Numbers look promising
Meanwhile, mobile gaming revenues continue to climb steadily, if slowly. U.S. gamers spent more than $750 million on wireless games in 2006, according to Telephia, and iSuppli predicts the global market will surpass $6 billion by 2010. If the industry is going to experience the breakneck growth analysts once expected, though, it’s likely that lesser-known developers will be leading the way-even if they have to partner with their bigger competitors to do it.
“Smaller companies that aren’t relying on big brands have to differentiate their games with new and compelling types of gameplay,” Stein said. “This is not to say that large, well-established companies will make bad games. In fact, the quality bar continues to get higher and higher, primarily because the major players are investing more and more into making better games with higher quality graphics and sound. In many cases, the innovative games from the new or small publishers will get picked up by a major player to bring to market because those major players have the clout to get the game into the carriers.”
