Minor blatant self-promotion

[Raph]

I tend to think mobile is screwed already as a market. The only games that do well are major brands. The "shelf space" consists of a few words sorted by popularity--all you get to sell your game to the user is the game's name. The small players get nowhere. The carriers have a strangehold and refuse to carry titles they don't think will make it to the top.

You'd think that electronic distribution would mean long tail effects, but instead, mobile's limited display capability is causing a worse shelving issue than bricks and mortar retail have. :(

[HaemishM]

The best way to market/sell mobile games, especially through mobile phones, is by getting in good with the service provider, not trying to squeeze into the already squeezed retail market. If you aren't Sony or Nintendo and are trying to sell a mobile game on the retail shelves, your business plan is fucked and fundamentally retarded.

Of course, this also means the carriers need to be shown the stickiness factor that games can bring, as well as those sweet, sweet access/download fees.

[Pococurante]

Still beside the point.  Targeting minigames to the commuter crowd is still a finite market with little brand loyalty and huge barriers to entry.  Ringtones make more immensely more sense then games development.

By the time one gets to a decent form factor as game platform you're targeting a different demographic.

[HaemishM]

Ringtones is a huge market. I disagree that games are a finite market.

How many people do not currently have cellphones, for which having a mobile game might be an extra incentive to get one (or to pick a particular mobile operator when you do)? How many kids are going to be getting a mobile phone (whether contract or pre-paid) as they reach school age? How many games would an average cell phone user buy over the course of a year, especially if they are low-cost and downloadable?

For as cheaply as the games can be produced, they are amazingly profitable.

[Pococurante]

Sure but this is the same mirage that fueled the dot bomb "micro-charge" transactions model.  Sure the potential market is huge but does that mean the product will actually sell.  Ringtones make a lot of sense - it's a way for people to indulge vanity very cheaply in a form factor that is appropriate.  Games as a supportable business model don't.  Most people would rather just pull out a PSP or a gameboy in the lunchroom than thumb a cellphone in the subway.

[HaemishM]

No, "Most People" wouldn't. Because most people are not gamers, and just want to fiddle with something on their cellphone, especially if you are talking about kids. Sure, the form factors suck, but again, the margins per unit are pretty attractive.

[Typhon]

seems to me this curve targets "teh shiney" game development, where a lesser/greater amount of the fun is wrapped up in the user getting a hang of a new type of game type.  I'll take the marketers would for it that  this is where the money is.

I can't help but think of an old-assed game called "empire".  Simple game, pretty simple rules, like a pre-cursor to Civ.  I played the shit out of that game.  Lately there has been a big slump in good games that I feel like playing, and I was thinking that it would be nice if I could load that game up and play.  Not changed much, maybe a little better AI.

Like developers were doing with chess for awhile.  Or like folks were doing with FPS games for awhile.  A multiplayer master of magic with better balance, just tweaks, not a complete re-write.

Isn't there room for development that focuses on progressing gameplay or AI?  Can't there be a business model that calls for modest amounts of modifications to be made to existing niche games that are offered as part of a service package?  Sign up for the service and get to play (solo or against other folks) any one of the games in the service.  As part of the subscription each of the games would periodically have some trial update offered, if folks liked it, it would become a permanant offering, if not the designers would go back to the drawing board.  Why do the good old games just fade away, or worse, get MOO 3'd?

I guess humans enjoy chasing the next fad too much for this type of service to make money, but I can't help but think that it would be cool to play a simplified version of gal civ, or empire, or some twitch-based game with not-so red-hot graphics, but AI that put up a good fight... or a persistant RTS world where it got progressively harder to win.

Maybe developers wouldn't want to work on that cause it's not sexy.  I guess I don't know what I'm talking about, but I sure would like to play empire again, or mulitplayer MoM.

[squirrel]

I tend to think mobile is screwed already as a market. The only games that do well are major brands. The "shelf space" consists of a few words sorted by popularity--all you get to sell your game to the user is the game's name. The small players get nowhere. The carriers have a strangehold and refuse to carry titles they don't think will make it to the top.

You'd think that electronic distribution would mean long tail effects, but instead, mobile's limited display capability is causing a worse shelving issue than bricks and mortar retail have. :(

Give me the ability to log in to WoW on my wi-fi'd PSP even just for trade skills, chat and AH working and i'll pay you double. (The odds of this happening with WoW are the same as me sleeping with Angelina Jolie but you understand.)

Mobile is only screwed if you define it as cellular. Which i agree is the vast market right now. But with a wifi city (mine is pretty good) or a leased GPRS connection mobile gets a lot broader than i think you mean here, and is not at all screwed imho. Of course you could argue that wifi doesn't qualify as mobile, i could just use a laptop, but the device is key - i won't pull a laptop out in a bank line up or on a train, i will use my PSP. Back a few years ago (well 2 yrs) i was getting GPRS --> laptop connections over bluetooth that were useable for web surfing - i can't imagine someone won't solve this for handheld gaming devices. Hell sony might just become a carrier - rumour has it apples considering it's own cell network for the apple/motorola iPhone.

[Pococurante]

Mobile is only screwed if you define it as cellular.

/agree

[Raph]

I'll agree with that too. But "mobile gaming" IS generally defined as cellular. Your PSP is usually termed "handheld gaming." :)

[Jobu]

Give me the ability to log in to WoW on my wi-fi'd PSP even just for trade skills, chat and AH working and i'll pay you double. (The odds of this happening with WoW are the same as me sleeping with Angelina Jolie but you understand.)

There were traces of this style of interaction in SOE's cancelled title, Sovereign. I don't know if they ever got them up and running in even a testable "alpha" state since that project was rebooted so often. The point is, there are people out there who are thinking of this stuff, and odds are one day it'll work out. I agree, I think it'd be pretty swell.

[Pococurante]

I'll agree with that too. But "mobile gaming" IS generally defined as cellular. Your PSP is usually termed "handheld gaming." :)

/agree ;)

"I'm right, he's right? We can't both be right?!"
"You're right..."