March 23, 2005

Global Cell Phone Games

Cell phone games are a fascinating, but frustrating, market. There are a multitude of incompatible handsets to support, limited memory and screen size, differing hardware capabilities and interfaces. There are massive restrictions on distribution and limited marketing channels. Gamasutra's GDC 2005 Report: Global Mobile Games (registration required) ends with this conclusion:

In this way, the circle ended where it began: only the most casual of games will sell widely enough to make money; only the lowest common denominator of games, technologically, will sell widely enough to get money (and perhaps even get carried, under the current system). Until the baseline of hardware is more advanced, few games will really take advantage of the platform; yet users see little reason to upgrade to more advanced hardware, since in the end it's just a telephone. Until something comes out of left field and changes the market, progress will be slow.

On the other hand, this is a market where individual games are inexpensive to make, and where there are many millions of potential users. The cell phone game market resembles the market for downloadable games. There is a lot of room for advances in marketing both types of games. It will be interesting to see who finds the ways to do "break out" marketing and generate demand for their cell phone games.

Posted by georgegmacdonald at March 23, 2005 04:56 PM