Exit Games and Vivendi Games Mobile have announced an agreement to collaborate on next-generation mobile games. Exit Games’ Neutron technology platform will be used to deliver next-generation mobile gaming features including in-game voice, application wake-up, and advanced presence to Vivendi Games Mobile’s multiplayer portfolio.
Vivendi Games Mobile will initially leverage the Neutron technology in the latest version of Navy Battle, incorporating IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) capabilities to drive enhanced user options, such as VoIP, and other integrated data and voice features, allowing players to engage each other in turn-based naval combat.
Community features for Navy Battle, powered by Neutron, will include: in-game voice – allowing players to chat with opponents while playing against each other; application wake-up – automatically ‘wakes-up’ the mobile phone if someone on the user’s ‘friends’ list challenges them to a game; and advanced presence – a virtual ‘buddy’ list allowing players to see what their friends are playing and enabling them to send friends an invite to play.
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This surprised me quite a bit,mobile games have now overtaken ring-tones as a revenue generator in the UK .
“UK customers spent a total of £83 million (US$165 million) on mobile games in the first quarter of this year, compared with £76 million on ringtones, and just £23 million on the much-hyped mobile music sector.”
I wonder if this has anything to do with recent decisions by T-Mobile and 3 to offer ‘all-you-can-eat’ subscription charges for data downloads. One of the key barriers in the past has been uncertainty over download processes and charges.
Of course, another thing that’s stopped people downloading mobile games is that they’re generally perceived to be a bit rubbish. Once most people have snapped up Tetris and Pac-Man they come to a grinding halt, assaulted by far too many poor movie tie-ins and dull quiz games.
I genuinely believe things are changing though. This year has seen a huge number of extremely good titles. I’d recommend Digital Chocolate’s fraught puzzler Pyramid Bloxx and its fun social sim, Office Wars, a cute little mini-game-based title, filled with comic touches. Gameloft has loads of fantastic titles including platformers Pirates of the Seven Seas and Shrek the Third, both offering lovely scenic detail and compelling puzzles. There are some great driving games, too, including Driver: LA Undercover, which makes a decent stab at the gangsta adventure, and Fast and Furious: Fugitive, filled with, ironically, Driver-esque chases and challenges.
I’ve also heard that the God of War title is stunning. Oh and Worms 2007 is absolutely essential.
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Capcom CEO Tsujimoto Kenzo has told that he expects online and mobile games to “[contribute] to the company’s expected sales tripling by 2010 and to increase five- to six-fold by 2012″. “Outlining the strategy for global expansion more clearly, Tsujimoto said: “First we have to cross our boundaries regarding mobile and PC games. After that, we will switch over to a full-blown expansion.”…In line with this strategy Capcom acquired the Canadian company Cosmic Infinity, a move which a catapulted Capcom’s mobile games division from the 60th rank in that field to the tenth biggest mobile games developer worldwide.
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A Kiwi company making big inroads in the mobile games content industry has been given a boost by a top European developer.
Games company Tracebit will make its impressive Java games portfolio available through open market website voeveo.com.
With titles like Scott Dixon Racing, Williams F1, The Village and Aquastrike distributed to over 50 countries, the Kiwi company will surely reap the benefits.
Consumer access to mobile games content has been boosted by European games specialist Tracebit making its products available on the New Zealand-based open market website, voeveo.com.
Simon Adahl, voeveo’s marketing officer says selling GSM-supported handset games on the no-barriers site, along with direct downloading for mobile phone users will lead to significant sales opportunities.
“The voeveo community-driven trading model has exciting potential, given its buyers have unrestricted access to all types of content, plus they actively control their own transactions,” he says.
“We want to reach global wireless consumers more efficiently and at the same time receive useful feedback on our game products.”
Customers can download music, video and gaming content regardless of location, phone type or service contract.
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This surprised me quite a bit, mobile games have now overtaken ring-tones as a revenue generator in the UK
“UK customers spent a total of £83 million (US$165 million) on mobile games in the first quarter of this year, compared with £76 million on ringtones, and just £23 million on the much-hyped mobile music sector.”
I wonder if this has anything to do with recent decisions by T-Mobile and 3 to offer ‘all-you-can-eat’ subscription charges for data downloads. One of the key barriers in the past has been uncertainty over download processes and charges.
Of course, another thing that’s stopped people downloading mobile games is that they’re generally perceived to be a bit rubbish. Once most people have snapped up Tetris and Pac-Man they come to a grinding halt, assaulted by far too many poor movie tie-ins and dull quiz games.
I genuinely believe things are changing though. This year has seen a huge number of extremely good titles. I’d recommend Digital Chocolate’s fraught puzzler Pyramid Bloxx and its fun social sim, Office Wars, a cute little mini-game-based title, filled with comic touches. Gameloft has loads of fantastic titles including platformers Pirates of the Seven Seas and Shrek the Third, both offering lovely scenic detail and compelling puzzles. There are some great driving games, too, including Driver: LA Undercover, which makes a decent stab at the gangsta adventure, and Fast and Furious: Fugitive, filled with, ironically, Driver-esque chases and challenges.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Players will come head to head to play Gameloft’s Asphalt 3 Street Rules between July 5th and 8th at the Parc des Expositions, Porte de Versailles in Paris. The competition is part of the Electronic Sports World Cup 2007. It’s Orange Trophy’s second year of existence.
Following pre-event qualifying, 56 players will take part in the tournament. The winner will earn the title of World Champion and trouser 1000 euros.
Asphalt 3 Street Rules has been especially developed by Gameloft for the Trophy. It’s been adapted on nearly 60 handsets and optimised to a tenth of a second, ensuring all participants have an equal chance at making the best score and qualifying.
Gameloft is to run the Orange Trophy international mobile games competition next month.
Players will come head to head to play Gameloft’s Asphalt 3 Street Rules between July 5th and 8th at the Parc des Expositions, Porte de Versailles in Paris. The competition is part of the Electronic Sports World Cup 2007. It’s Orange Trophy’s second year of existence.
Following pre-event qualifying, 56 players will take part in the tournament. The winner will earn the title of World Champion and trouser 1000 euros.
Asphalt 3 Street Rules has been especially developed by Gameloft for the Trophy. It’s been adapted on nearly 60 handsets and optimised to a tenth of a second, ensuring all participants have an equal chance at making the best score and qualifying.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Global Industry Analysts has predicted that the global mobile gaming market will cross $20 billion by 2010, which would represent a compound annual growth rate of 58 percent over the decade. This is a pretty bullish prediction: Earlier this month Gartner predicted that the global mobile games market would hit $9.6 billion by 2011, and yesterday iSuppli predicted the total mobile content market would hit $44 billion by 2011.
GIA thinks that java-based games, 3D games and Bluetooth games are gaining audience, and that new delivery models will improve access to users. “Globally, Europe is the largest wireless gaming market and is estimated to account for about 43 percent share of the global market by the year 2007. Rest of World comprising Canada, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Latin American regions is projected to be the fastest growing wireless gaming market, with a compounded annual rate of about 77 percent during the ten-year analysis period.” GIA also said that downloadable games are gaining in popularity (as compared to say, subscription games) and will hit $10.7 billion by 2009 at a CAGR of 150 percent. The messaging-based game market is predicted to bring in $2.1 billion by 2008.
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Online games concern Oberon Media plans to acquire I-play, specialist in casual mobile games. In conjunction, Oberon Media has also announced an additional round of funding from existing and new investors including Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners, Lehman Brothers and others. The combined company will hold an intellectual property portfolio with over 1,000 games. Together, Oberon and I-play have global distribution partnerships with over 350 partners and over 1,000 revenue engines through carrier networks and online partners. Oberon expects to continue operations in both companies’ existing locations worldwide and maintain the I-play name and brand. Financial terms of the agreement were undisclosed, and the acquisition is expected to close at end-June.
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Artificial Life has announced to have inked a deal for developing and co-distributing mobile games based on Star TV IP.
The deal is primarily about Star TV’s V Channel which is the most successful music channel in Taiwan. Artificial Life will release mobile games based on “Blackie’s Teenage Club” and “Lollipop” shows which have gained a huge fan base in and around Taiwan. Both Star TV and Artificial Life will take care of the distribution of the mobile games.
“STAR is the most prominent TV network in Asia reaching more than 300 million viewers in 53 countries. We are delighted to cooperate with them to develop mobile games for the Asian markets,” said Eberhard Schoneburg, CEO of Artificial Life, Inc.
Ross Crowley, Executive Vice President, Content, STAR, said, “We are delighted to work with Artificial Life to launch Blackie’s Teenage Club- and Lollipop-themed mobile games for the massive youth mobile market in Asia. Going forward, STAR will continue to explore opportunities to develop mobile products based on our vast portfolio of compelling content.”
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After a few years of trying to establish themselves in the mobile games market, it seems Konami has now chosen to take an alternative route via mobile games publisher Glu.
With the deal, Glu establishes an exclusive distribution deal for Konami’s mobile games in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. This way, Konami lines up between SEGA Mobile, Activision, Codemasters Mobile and other big PC/Console gaming brands.
Konami itself is originally based in Japan and has been publishing games for over 30 years with big franchises like Metal Gear Solid and Pro Evolution Soccer. Konami will still manage the production and porting of their mobile games catalogue in-house. Konami will launch the first titles in the second half of this year.
“Glu’s reputation and track record of creating hits on mobile made them the partner of choice for bringing our key titles to mobile gamers in these key regions,” said Kunio Neo, president of Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH.
Recently, Glu has been polishing up their catalogue and landed distribution deals with a lot of big name pc/console publishers like SEGA and Codemasters. If we take Glu’s own games in mind as well, in theory they should have no problem to out-grow their biggest rival Gameloft. They didn’t manage to do it to date though. Another problem that Glu might face is cannibalizing the downloads in their catalogue. With many operators switching to select only one game per genre, Glu will have to make the choice to send in a title like Sensible Soccer or Pro Evolution Soccer. Of course, Glu will take the one they expect the most revenue on, but for the publishers in their network it could mean reduction of revenue.
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Exit Games and Vivendi Games Mobile Collaborate on Mobile Games
