Cell Phone Games - Market or Mirage?

Rimbo writes "One popular view of the cellphone gaming industry is that it's the place where they exile people who couldn't cut it in the console and PC game industry. The other popular point of view is that with the huge volume of handsets everywhere, it's a market primed to explode. Today's Hit from the Wireless Pipe takes a look at some little-noticed details of the buyout that suggest that this is not the sign of the market maturing that many want it to be." Relatedly, that buyout was finally approved by the Jamdat Shareholders this past weekend.

Comments

Let's relive the 80's

[88NoSoup4U88]

From a gamedesigner's view I think the mobile platform makes it possible to relive the 80's: A game can once again be made by one person, or very small teams.
With this, and the shorter development time, it makes it less risky to try out experimental concepts, and the limitations of the platform itself can also lead to some very original games: I've seen some great one/two button games out there, that are easy to be played on a mobile.

Re:Let's relive the 80's

[DZign]

The number of people who are smart enough to download a game from a website and install it (through a specially bought bluetooth adaptor or cable to their pc) is very small.

The market of 'dumb' people who are just consumers and will pay to download a game is much, much bigger. Most of these games (together with ringtones, wallpapers, ..) are marketed through ads in magazines.

Cell phone games are definitely a business. I know someone who has a company doing it, he employs a few developers and it seems they're doing well (at least I think so, he just 'upgraded' his office and has a nice bmw x5..)

The only time I play cell phone games...

[RingDev]

is on the crapper.

-Rick

Opinion

[AKAImBatman]

One popular view of the cellphone gaming industry is that it's the place where they exile people who couldn't cut it in the console and PC game industry.

Ouch, that's harsh. Did anyone ever consider that the skills necessary for phone programming are just different than the skills required for PC and console game programming? I mean, the latter categories have gobs of memory and CPU to play with. The former has to fit as much as possible in anywhere from 4 to 64 kilobytes. The gaming market hasn't seen requirements that harsh since Atari was king. (Even the NES regularly went beyond those limits.)

The other popular point of view is that with the huge volume of handsets everywhere, it's a market primed to explode.

Uhh, no. That view doesn't fly either.

Let me explain the market:

- Millions (billions?) of people have handsets.
- A large percentage of those have "downtime" that they want to fill with something interesting. (e.g. The bus, train, long car trips, etc.)
- To fill that downtime, a percentage of those people turn to quick games that they can play for a few minutes.

And that, my friends, is the market in a nutshell. The part that handheld game makers seem to keep missing is that players don't want immersive, long lasting gaming. They want to pull out Pacman, Solitare, Space Invaders, or some other quick game to pass the time. The moment that niche of time is completed, the game gets turned off. Thus the following information has been percolating to the market:

- "Classic" games sell best.
- Price points must be low because players don't want to spend much money to fill a little time.
- Consumers don't buy new handsets just for the games. They buy games for the handsets.

Or in other words, phone gaming is the ultimate in "Casual" gaming. (Please read up on what casual gaming is before you reply that you're a casual gamer. Thank you.) Anyone who bets their company on the idea that phone players want more than a casual gaming experience is bound to lose. Period, end of story.

Code signing?

[tepples]

A game can once again be made by one person

How is this feasible for hobbyists if the major carriers require that one have a code signing license from a CA trusted by the carrier in order to test a program, and such licenses cost at least $500 per year?

Re:Code signing?

[jonwil]

My Motorola e378i phone has no such requirements.
I can make whatever java applets I like and download them to the phone (although being an i-mode phone, I have to write the applets with the DoJa SDK and put them on a web page somewhere instead of writing them with the normal SDK and uploading them with MIDWay)

Even if you live in america, you can still get a phone (either one that doesnt require signing or one that can be modified to not require signing). Some carriers (generally GSM carriers) dont require signing. Plus, you can always buy an unlocked non-carrier GSM phone and a GSM sim cart from the carrier of your choice and use that. Or you can buy a phone (from a carrier or otherwise) and modify or replace the software (either hacking it to remove the signature check or replacing the whole phone software with something that doesnt check signatures). Motorolas are particularly good when it comes to modifications (I should know, I own one :)