Overcoming The Demons Of Mobile

Mitch LaskyMitch Lasky, senior VP of mobile at EA and former CEO of Jamdat, has told the GDC conference his ideas of why mobile games are stagnating. “There are too many bad games. The fact is, most games suck. It’s the greatest danger to the future of this business. There’s a real danger of an Atari 2600 episode here, given the oversupply of poor quality content, followed by consumers abandoning the platform.” I’ve been hearing that increasingly, lately. He said carriers were offering too many games, up to 400, while the top 20 mobile games generated 93% of revenues. He said they should be offering less, and carriers agree, but that is only a good idea if the carriers open their networks to third party content. Otherwise mobile games will be reduced to the lowest common denominator — great if all you play is Tetris but bad if you like variety.
Other reasons for the stagnation include:
— A lack of decent mulitplayer games. “A casual mobile version of World of Warcraft will blow the lid off this industry, not a hardcore RPG, but something that has that social feel.”
— Unpredictable business models. “Carriers will not grow this business by squeezing publishers. This is not the ringtone business,” he said. “We actually make stuff.”
— An unpleasent shopping experience on mobile phones.
“He warned that mid-size competitors could struggle in the next few years. “It’s too late for mid-sized publishers who are barely profitable and don’t own hits.” However, he said that there is an enormous opprotunity for “small, tightly-focused development teams with original product.”

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