There's a fair bit of news to come out of the Develop 08 conference on mobile games, and the talks and panels are discussed below. Some interesting notes to come out so far include that Nokia (NYSE: NOK - News) is looking into concepts where it uses the same assets for Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation online, which would be an unexpected direction for the company. Glu (NasdaqGM: GLUU - News) noted that preloading games on handsets is a big winner, with conversion rates of between eight and 30 percent from preloading demos on handsets.
Aki Jarvilehto, Global Head of Business Development and Innovation for Nokia, gave the keynote—which was largely a take on how Nokia views the mobile game industry. He talked up the new technology which Nokia will be pushing, including cross-platform capability, touch-screens, accelerometers and so on, and said the biggest potential for mainstream innovation was from GPS reports DevelopMag. Other trends he sees are a change towards "valuing better production values in games" (at last) and more opportunities for developers to self-publish their games. He also described the six segments Nokia breaks gamers into: "Core Gamer ('playing is part of my identity and I want to play and compete with others'), Web 2.0 ('I want games which let me interact and communicate with my friends and other people'), personal development ('I would play games that make me a better person'), casual gamer ('I want to be entertained while I have a break or nothing else to do'), feminine games ('I want to be entertained on my own terms) local content ('I want to play games which resonate with my cultural background and are familiar to me')."
Glu Mobile's Marketing Director - EMEA Patrick Mork ran through the results of some focus groups about who plays games and where, saying that when people were waiting for public transport was the best time to get them to play your games reports PocketGamer. He also spoke about marketing, and gives a very clear indication of what benefit developers see in licensing IP. "Mork gave some specifics on how Glu markets its mobile games. The first is licensor co-marketing - "you have to take advantage of all the resources they have at their disposal". So tagging on leaflets inside console games, running joint promotions, and bagging 'money can't buy' prizes...Next is third-party marketing, with handset makers, consumer goods firms and even fast food chains. It obviously helps if you're making, say, a game based on the new Batman movie...Third comes carrier marketing, running promos with the operators, getting demos embedded on handsets, and traditional above the line marketing." And finally, almost as a last resort, Glu does its own marketing. The message is clear—the more you can get other parties in the value chain to help market your game (usually in a way that doesn't cost them much) the more bang for your own buck. Getting deals with handset manufacturers is particularly lucrative: "Glu has found conversion rates of between eight and 30 per cent from preloading demos on handsets." Lots more after the jump…
M:Metrics's Alistair Hill gave some figures, some country-specific and some which should be known to readers of MocoNews (US has overtaken Europe in 3G penetration, more women than men play mobile games). Some of the interesting stats reported by PocketGamer: Although playing a game is the largest use of mobile media with around 30 percent of mobile users doing it in most countries, "only 7.4 per cent of European mobile game players are mobile game purchasers". That means about 2.22 percent of mobile users buy a game, so even a small increase would see a large impact on the mobile game industry. There has been a significant change in who buys mobile games: "This time last year, about 70 per cent of people who were purchasing games were under the age of 35. But there's been a 10 per cent shift since then - 60 per cent of game purchasers are now under 35." While this is because more older people are buying games, it is also because fewer younger people are. "Hill claimed that a lot of people are downloading full versions of games for free - "We're not saying that all of these are pirated, but people are getting them for free. A lot might be ad-funded." The benefit with smartphones is that you can hook them up to your PC and google "free mobile games". He also showed how people in the industry aren't taking note of the metrics: For Spanish operators, "in May of this year, 24 per cent of these premium slots were for action games, despite those making up just 4.3 of game purchases."
The panel debate started off with the usual complaints of the complexity of the mobile industry in terms of fragmentation, language and cultural barriers and so on, but there were a few interesting tidbits picked up by PocketGamer. Perhaps the most interesting comment: "Jarvilehto says Nokia is looking into concepts "where we use the same assets for Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation online". That doesn't seem to have been followed up, but Nokia taking the mobile games it develops onto console platforms would be a very interesting move. Jarvilehto also later indicated that Nokia "gets it" about the iPhone..."the N95's processor is twice as fast as the iPhone's, but that it's easier for developers to take advantage of the iPhone's. "It sets a benchmark for us - we need to be better than that," he says. "We're moving fast in that direction, as fast as we can."
Mork followed up on the theme of his own talk: "Mobile games are essentially an impulse purchase. Why shouldn't I be able to go into Covent Garden tube and buy a game from a Bluetooth kiosk for my journey home?"
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