@ CTIA: The Games We Play

The panel on mobile games at CTIA was a fairly heated affair…the panelists were Jason Ford, General Manager, Games Sprint Nextel; Michael Gallelli, Director of Product Marketing, T-Mobile USA; Ames Kirshen, Vice President, Interactive, Marvel Enterprises; Daniel Kranzler, Chairman and CEO, MForma; and Tim Walsh, President, THQ Wireless.
One of the main topics was the prevalence of branded mobile games, and what that meant for the industry. Walsh sees mobile content as a good promotional vehicle: “You can take mobile content and wrap it around the event and increase the promotion of this event. If you do it right the sum of the whole is greater than all of the parts.” Ford disagreed, saying that branded games hurt the industry as a whole. “The games sell well,” said Ford. “It’s not whether or not the games sell, is it building the industry? One of the questions is ‘are you able to meet the expectations on a limited platform like a handset?’ A brand increases those expectations…the buzz is important, and that’s not going to be ‘look what brand I have’ it’s going to be ‘look what game I have’.”
This led to a back and forth exchange…
Kranzler: This is a media platform, it’s not a gaming platform. We can market to people going into a movie…
Ford: I get worried that we’re not giving them games, we’re giving them advertisements for something else.
Kirshen: It’s a personalization experience as well as a gaming experience. It’s about more than just one game.
Gallelli: The bonus of brands is that it introduces new people to games. We don’t have nearly enough people downloading games yet.
Ford: The people are already there.
Gallelli: They’re already there, they may not leave having bought a game.
Ford: Is it good that we’re bringing people in and not meeting their expectations?
There appeared to be a difference that was best summed up by Kirshen who drew a distinction between people who produce a merchandise program as opposed to a promotional program…the two have a very different experience.
“It’s true when you have products that have characters and not just games,” said Kranzler. “If you’re into Spiderman you want everything in Spiderman. People want ringtones and wallpapers as well as a game.”
“You’re talking about cross promotion,” replied Ford. “I’m saying that when studios come in and bring their vp of promotions — that’s a bad sign.” In response to the idea that brands are needed to sell mobile games Ford asked: “How did the online portals build a $300 million business with no brands?”
The other issue that was heavily discussed was quality…or more specifically, how does the average mobile phone user know which game is good and which is … not. Ford pointed out that a great console game will sell because it’s an educated market — players know where to go to find out if a game is good or not, and that isn’t true for the mobile space. “You’ve got someone coming in making a purchase based on 4-5 words,” he said.
“It’s a crap shoot whether you click on a branded game or you click onto a no name game as to whether it’s going to be a good game or not,” said Gallelli. “As a carrier we look for games where the game play isn’t necessarily as good but it’s got a good title. The interesting thing is that our customers find the good games…they go to blogs and word of mouth and stuff.” I found this pretty interesting, he basically admitted carriers don’t really care about gameplay, and then went on to say that customers do care about gameplay and somehow find the good games. Take a hint, guys?
Another question was whether technical innovation is really the solution…
“From our perspective every time I think we’re innovative the consumer comes and slaps me in the face and says ‘stop being innovative! Just listen to me’,” said Kranzler.
“Technology is not the future,” added Ford. “It might make it marginally better…but does something like 3D cause people to start playing games on their phones?”
And finally, the carrier representatives were asked to give one piece of advice for mobile game developers:
Get into another business,” suggested Ford. “Many of the game developers have a hard time making money to the same extent as a publisher, and many of them want to become publishers and there is just so little room for that any more.” I guess the answer is don’t expect to get rich or move up the food chain…
Gallelli said they were reducing the number of people they work with, since they were looking to cut back on partner deals. “You need to work with one of our existing partners, and make sure its one of the good ones.”
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