Sprint Launches Realtime Fantasy NBA Game, More Carriers To Follow

Mobile game company Airplay has launched its second game, called NBA AirPlay Live. The game will be available to Sprint Nextel users for a monthly subscription fee of $3.99, and gradually roll out to users on the Verizon Wireless and Cingular in the coming weeks. The idea in NBA Airplay Live is for gamers to choose their fantasy teams from the players of both teams in a match, and change those players as the game progresses. Those players then go through the general fantasy sports process (except automated and in real time) and the results are pitted against all the other people playing the game. There are also trivia questions and opinion polls to answer. Sprint also has NFL Airplay Live, in which gamers try to predict the strategies of the teams. Airplay CEO Morgan Guenther told WSJ that “about four more games” are in the pipeline for release this fall.
The idea behind Airplay games is a pretty good one — take the normal conversations fans have when they watch a match with their friends, quantify it (so there’s an independent arbiter of who’s right) and extend it to everyone else playing the game. It contains all the things that are generally considered necessary for mobile gaming to be successful: It’s mobile (you can play it at the match or in the pub), it’s social (if you don’t want to play against everybody you can set up one-on-one matches, or just with your friends) and it doesn’t need heavy graphics (that all comes from the TV you’re watching). At the moment the only problem is hitting critical mass…if you’re the only one of your friends with a Sprint phone it won’t be as fun. However, the big fans will play anyway, and they’ll begin to draw in other people, and it should take off from there.

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