The Limits of Mobile Phone Gaming
There’s been a pretty good follow-up to my post criticizing quality of some mobile phone games I’d bought. Some of the comments came from mobile phone developers, generally agreeing that current quality is poor, but pointing out that the phone I’m using is mediocre, and that given time for Moore’s Law to kick in, quality will improve.
I generally agree with that, but still see mobile phone gaming as being pretty limited for the foreseeable future.
Sure, processors will get faster and screens sharper, which will at least mean the games will show prettier pictures and animations. But that’s only part of the problem.
I see several remaining issues where the primary purpose of a cell phone (for the user – making calls, for the carriers and publishers – making money), conflicts with the goal of making good games.
Physical
1) Small screens. Physically small screens are not much fun for games, even if the resolution gets better than it is now. This is not only true for cell phones – the GBA lite (the little keychain-sized GameBoy) is a failure, I think, largely because those of us over the age of 9 have thumbs too large and eyes too old to work a device so small.
2) Poor buttons/controls. To play any but the most limited games, you really need some kind of D-Pad, that’s raised up at least 1 and preferably 2-3 millimeters from the underlying surface, plus 1-4 secondary buttons, also raised and easy to locate with your thumbs. But this conflicts in a major way with the numeric keypad layout, and also with the best-case form factor for a cell-phone (flat, tightly spaced buttons, allowing for a thin, small phone).
Yes, there may very well be “gamer’s phones” (like the current Nokia N-Gage), willing to sacrifice cell-phone mobility and utility for a better gaming experience. But these will likely remain niche products. The other 98% of the audience, who want a good small cell phone, and if it plays good games, maybe they’ll try them too. But these consumers won’t buy an inferior phone just for those gaming capabilities, and as a result, their gaming experience will be poor.
Business Model
There are too many people taking a bite of the revenue stream, resulting in too little money actually reaching the developers making the games. (Warning, I’m no expert on mobile gaming standard royalty rates, so somebody can comment and fill in my fuzzy/erroneous details)
Start with the low price for cell phone games – $5.99 seems to be standard. That’s the smallest standard price, by far, in any area of gaming. There’s not much money for anybody in the value chain unless the volumes are huge, and because of the poor game quality, that seems ulikely.
Now you’ve got the carriers taking their bite at the apple. Because the carriers have nearly complete control over what games the user can see, they have complete negotiating power with the publishers, and presumably take the lion’s share of the revenue. I’m gonna guess that a standard deal is something like 60/40 (carriers get the 60).
Of that remaining 40% (i.e. ~$2.40), publishers need to pay a developer and a licensor. Cell phone games are small, well suited for entrepreneurial small teams to make, but again, with a limited number of major publishers, I suspect the developers get hosed and only get a fraction of the money.
But the publishers are not the only ones taking a cut of that $2.40 before the develop sees it. The market for mobile games is VERY heavily driven by games coming in from other sources – either PC casual games, console games, or movie licenses and such. Here’s a top 10 list from this past November (source):
1 TETRIS ® – JAMDAT
2 EA SPORTS TM TIGER WOODS PGA TOUR ® GOLF 2005 – IPLAY
3 DOOM RPG – JAMDAT
4 PACMAN – NAMCO
5 BLOCK BREAKER DELUXE – GAMELOFT
6 3D POOL – IPLAY
7 MONOPOLY – IFONE
8 EA SPORTS TM FIFA FOOTBALL 2005 MIE – IPLAY
9 THE WEAKEST LINK – IPLAY
10 MIDNIGHT BOWLING – GAMELOFT
Seven of the ten appear to be licensed. The licensor will certainly want a significant cut, too.
So, you’ve got 3 parties (publisher, developer, licensor), slicing and dicing $2.40 per game. There’s just not much money in the pot, and therefore not much to develop ambitious, high quality games.
And a lot of that money has to be spent on porting and testing across the myriad handsets.
So, yes, the cell phones may improve in technical capability (as consoles did from PS1 to PS2 to PS3). But I wonder if developers will have the budget to exploit that power.
Limited Incentive For Quality
The current business model does not provide much positive feedback for high quality games.
In console gaming, the developer must create a high quality game to generate buzz and favorable reviews – the primary drivers of sales in that segment.
In casual downloadable PC games, the developer must create a high quality game to ensure a good conversion rate – the primary driver of sales in that segment.
But in mobile gaming, I doubt many users read reviews, and most games right now must be purchased outright (i.e. no ‘try and buy’), so overall, there’s not nearly as much incentive to create a good game. Rather, the emphasis is on a recognizable license of some sort.
So a developer/publisher is not strongly rewarded for any particular game being good, thus encouraging quickie ports and such, that aren’t much fun for the user, thus ‘burning’ the user on the experience and discouraging them from trying further mobile games.
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OK, that’s an overly long essay already. I had some further points about the concept of digital convergence being a bit of a fallacy (disproven by the iPod and the strength of dedicated game consoles versus do-everything PCs), but I’ll save those for another post.
I welcome comments from everyone, especially those in the mobile games industry. I am admittedly not well versed in the technology or business models at play, so please correct my analysis above where I’m way off-track.
July 5th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
The physical limitations mean the games will be different, but not necessarily worse. A good cell phone game will not be like a good console game. Kinda like the Wii – you can’t do straight ports to it. I don’t really think the physical size of the screen is that much of an issue, but I could be wrong.
There’s a decent amount of money in this market, but it obviously doesn’t compare to even a DS project in terms of advances. And it is definitely a “licensing ghetto,” original titles don’t have too much of a chance right now. That’s because there’s very little way to discover titles without buying them. Gamespot and IGN do reviews, and the larger companies are starting to advertise, but usually deck placement is as far as it goes.
3D games on BREW are pushing up the base price ($9.99 I believe), and they’ll need to because it’s going to cost a lot more to develop these games. You wouldn’t believe features (and resultant increases in asset generation required) of upcoming handsets if I told you.
So why am I, a former PC and console developer (who was good at it), in this market? Well, I still feel it has a lot of potential. There are more phones out there than all consoles and handhelds combined. With features like GPS and guaranteed connectivity, there’s a potential for new types of games that aren’t possible at home or even on a DS or PSP. And now that EA is on board, they’re going to push the market to better meet its potential. I think cell phone games can and will be as compelling as console games. They’ll just be different.
I hope.
July 5th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Phil, I pretty much agree with most of your points.
But my favorite game I played last month was Doom RPG on my Motorola e815. Go figure…
But yes, the biz of it sux. Download biz is much more open, cleaner, and more interesting.
July 6th, 2006 at 2:43 am
Hi Phil,
To be honest I don’t believe that more powerful phones are going to improve the situation. The more possible it becomes to directly port inferior versions of console or PC titles, the more it will happen. The problem is, screens are not going to get a whole lot bigger, and controls are not going to get a whole lot more suited to games. Again, the focus here should not be ‘how do I get this PC game to work well on a cellphone’ but rather ‘what new gameplay idea can I come up with that makes use of what a cellphone is’.
Too many people seem to think that more complex is better, but that is not necessarily true. The context in which people play mobile games is not necessarily suited to 3D shooters and driving sims, good old fashioned puzzlers are a far better fit, and as luck would have it these are better suited to the limitations of the phone as well.
On the marketing issue, sadly as you said the carriers/portals have the most control over this, and they are stuck in the trap of using existing big budget marketing (ie blockbuster movies or console games) to push products. Promoting unique, unlicenced games would simply cost them more money, which they are not about to do. Until there is a decent solution for downloadable demos that allow in-demo unlocking of full retail versions, I don’t see this situation changing much.
July 10th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Matt –
I agree about folks needing to make titles that are designed from the start for mobile, and not just bringing over titles from other platforms.
However, I strongly disagree about a try before you buy model on mobile. With such a short attention span on the mobile consumer, you’re going to find a great majority of people that will download a demo will play it for 5-10 minutes, at which point the demo expires, and then they’ve gotten their quicky gaming fix and put the phone back in their pocket. The next time they want to play something, they go out and download another demo and repeat the process. My guess is that we’ll see something like the 3% conversion on the web, but we definitely won’t see a 33x multiplier in downloads to even it out.
I think we need user reviews/ratings, screenshots, and other assorted information built in to the browsing process so consumers can make a more qualified buying decision and have the ability to make some form of a value judgement about the title they’re thinking about purchasing.
Until that happens, the only information they have available is a Top 10 list (which they perceive as user rating), 16 character title name, and a short text description. Under those conditions, it’s no surprise that the carriers only go after recognizable titles … big brands and platform conversions.
There’s a great deal of improvements that can be made before we start getting into try before you buy.
July 13th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Yet another mobile developer chiming in ….
There is movement towards other models. Right now carriers take big cuts and getting on the carrier “deck” is crucial to making sales. However, for a lot of markets (non-BREW) it is very easy for people to download games directly to their phone and there are separate distribution models popping up. Presumably in parallel with increased phone performance we will see increased attention to interfaces, screen size and increased interest in a deeper market as users become more sophisticated. That would hopefully mean buying games directly from your web browser instead of the carrier deck as well as solid reviews of mobile games. It may mean some “try before you buy”.
Right now our games are all pay-to-play (with prizes) which is an interesting model for mobile. It’s a model that fundamentally fails if you can’t keep the user’s attention and so licenses can only get us so far.
We’ll see where it goes. I don’t think the market is that great right now (for indies) but there is room there and it will change over time.
September 14th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
Mobile games should be designed with the handset in mind, not retrofitted from consoles. Most of the complaints against mobile phone games relate directly to this. Unfortunately, the stakes are very high, and the carriers are both very selective and relatively unsophisticated in their understanding of games and gamers. Therefore, in their desire to play it safe, they have tended to include brand names over playability. As a developer, the key to game sales is twofold: use a licensed brand and port widely. Game quality remains less important, although this is arguably changing.
Breaking the carrier stranglehold may or may not help. Developers still need to reach an audience, and the carriers provide the best vehicle for that. D2C is immature but beginning to break out. Unfortunately, billing usually still involves the carriers, so you don’t increase your slice of revenue but now have to pay marketing costs to get your games noticed.
At MobileRated.com, we are using a different model, and offer games for free. This stimulates market growth if the games are good enough to entertain. Offering free trials and demos, or games with embedded advertising provide potential revenue streams. Ratings and reviews help our customers determine which content is relevant to them and which should be ignored.
In the end, I hope that quality games will rise through the froth of a very crowded mobile games marketplace. A major shakeup is yet to come, and many mobile developers won’t be here two years from now.