Margins Check: MTV, Madden, Lonelygirl15 and more

Editor’s Note: Welcome to On the Margins, a feature for RCR Wireless News’ new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. Every week, the RCR Wireless News staff considers events in the wider business world and how they could affect the wireless industry.
–MTV Networks is reportedly planning to invest more than $500 million in video game development over the next two years in an attempt to capitalize on the rapidly growing market. While most of the investment is expected to involve console and online gaming, some is expected to trickle into the wireless space as well. The move should add more support to the mobile gaming market, which, while growing, is still trying to find the right combination of games, pricing models and content support to push broader adoption.
–The hype surrounding the annual launch of the “Madden NFL” franchise hit last week as the 2008 version of the console and PC game was unveiled. The game, which sells for between $30 and $60 depending on gaming platform, is regularly the top selling game each year; manufacturer Electronics Arts Inc. sold 7.4 million copies of the game in North America last year. While the game has taken over the console world, its lack of adoption in the mobile space shows that there is still some disconnect between the two worlds. Thus, companies looking to mobile might need to be more selective when trying to move between the wired and wireless gaming space.
–The apparent popularity of Lonelygirl15, which attracted between 150,000 and 300,000 viewers per “episode,” proved that Web surfers are interested in watching scripted shows parading as user-generated content. While Lonelygirl15 has run her course, the series’ creators are hatching plans to launch new versions of the show. The short nature of the Lonelygirl15 clips seem a perfect fit for the mobile space, and it may be only a matter of time before the series or one of its iterations moves to wireless.
–Parks Associates released a report noting that video gaming is a more popular pastime on the Internet than watching short videos or visiting social-networking sites. The survey noted that 34% of adult Internet users played online games on a weekly basis, compared with 29% who watch short online videos and 19% who visit social networking sites. The report also found that the year-over-year growth rate for frequent online gamers was 79% compared with 46% for social networking sites, though less than the 123% growth for online video sites. While the hype surrounding social networking has supplanted wireless gaming in the mobile world, the study shows there are still legs for the gaming market.