Analysts continue to predict big things for mobile gaming. But for now, at least, would-be gamers are staying away in droves.
Consumption of mobile games in the United States has stagnated during the last six months, according to figures released last week from M:Metrics. The number of subscribers who downloaded at least one mobile game a month has consistently fluttered between 5 million and 6 million, the research firm said, with about 3 percent of all wireless users paying to play.
Meanwhile, game prices have climbed every month, averaging $5.77 per download in January. Carriers have hiked up subscription rates, as well, reaching an average price of $2.90 per game per month.
“The audience for mobile games, the active downloader base, has remained fairly constant,” said Seamus McAteer, senior analyst at M:Metrics. “Overall, the addressable market has remained relatively flat.”
Indeed, mobile gaming markets in both North America and Europe lag substantially behind Asia-Pacific markets, according to a report released last month by Parks Associates. The study found that while 28 percent of users in the East play single-player mobile games at least once a week, only 8 percent of their North American counterparts played that frequently. Thirteen percent of European subscribers reported playing on a weekly basis.
Industry insiders have long decried the abundance of mediocre game titles on the market, arguing that operators have pushed titles based on blockbuster movie and TV licenses at the expense of quality. “There are still too many people who think you can take a console game and move it to mobile” successfully, said David Gosen, acting chief executive of U.K. publisher I-play.
In their haste to find games with legs, operators are throwing nearly everything that might appeal to would-be gamers onto the deck. M:Metrics’ study found the average number of titles on carrier decks increased nearly 20 percent in the last six months, jumping from 296 games in September to a staggering 355 games in January.
The result can be an overwhelming shopping experience that resembles a virtual clearinghouse for mobile games. Would-be game buyers browsing the carrier deck are often faced with a stultifying number of offerings where searching and purchasing a game can be prohibitively difficult.
The growing influence of mass-market content providers isn’t helping matters, Gosen said. While Electronic Arts Inc.’s much-hyped acquisition of Jamdat Mobile Inc. may lend some credibility to the business of mobile gaming, the company’s plan to flood the market with games isn’t likely to spur uptake.
“EA and Jamdat plan to publish 50 titles” in the 12 months after the acquisition is completed, said Gosen. “That’s just purely wrong for the market. In our business today, less is more.”
M:Metrics’ figures seem to point to a solid core of gaming fans who don’t mind spending several dollars a month to play a single game. And McAteer said subscription models are beginning to gain traction, giving carriers the benefit of recurring revenues.
Sonic Branding Solutions Inc., a mobile publisher, claims it has gained substantial traction with subscription-focused applications. Some of the offerings include content that is refreshed every month, and Sonic hosts tournaments and awards prizes in an effort to retain subscribers. “We build communities around these applications so people feel like they’re immersed in something that’s more like the Internet,” said Chief Executive Officer David Danon, adding that “hundreds of thousands” of users are paying $5 a month for the ToneMaker DJ application. “That means people who are with us for a year pay $60. That’s more than magazines make every year (in a single subscription).”
Advances in technology are driving uptake of mobile gaming, also, as eye-catching graphics make for more compelling play and 3G networks deliver faster downloads. Users with 3G-capable phones are about three times more likely to download games than those with older handsets, according to M:Metrics’ figures.
But for wireless gaming to grow from niche market to mass market in the next few years, carriers likely will have to do the heavy lifting; they own the networks that allow them to develop a one-on-one relationship with each subscriber. “Carriers are assigning one- and two-people teams to manage a portfolio of four or five hundred applications and dozens of publisher relationships,” said McAteer. “Carriers own the responsibility of defining what mobile entertainment will be. … If they’re really going to own it, they need to be prepared to invest.”
