Author Archive

Vivendi launches Black Hawk Down

August 25th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | No Comments »

Following a multilicense deal with PC developer Novalogic, Vivendi’s mobile pedartment announced the launch of Delta Force – Black Hawk Down: Team Sabre. The game is inspired by the 2001 blockbuster from Ridley Scott.

Excite Japan to start selling in Europe

August 24th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | 6 Comments »

Ozura Mobile just announced they have successfully concluded a deal with Excite Japan to bring their mobile games into Europe. Ozura expects this deal to value around $20 million.

"Ozura Mobile has been chosen as the preferred international mobile game distributor due to its well established presence in the global mobile gaming industry," said Ozura Mobile’s chief executive officer, Lion Peh.

Ozura expects to be able to present their games to 150 million subscribers in their network trough their own content platform called FunlogiX.

Guppy Games serves Andy Rodderick

August 23rd, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | No Comments »

Guppy Games announced they will release a tennis game around US legend Andy Rodderick. The release will first happen in the US, but during the US Open event that is broadcasted all over the world, the game will see a wider launch.

"Without the cooperation of Andy Roddick, we would have not have had this chance to create the most exciting tennis game on the market," said Alex Choe, CEO. "Andy Roddick is a powerful athlete and we are ecstatic to have him as a part of this venture."

EIEF06: Infospace wins

August 23rd, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Events & Conferences | No Comments »

As announced, the EIEF Edge Mobile Award is given away for the first time at the EIEF. Infospace was the lucky company to scoop up the EIEF Edge Mobile Award with their game entry “Dirty Sanchez: Party Games”. Competition was heavy as Infospace has beaten competitors Gameloft, Digital Chocolate and EA Mobile.

Australia: Adult games not welcome!

August 22nd, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Adult Games | 1 Comment »

Adult gamers in Australia will probably not be happy with their government anymore as yesterday, they banned adult content from mobile phones. This law was already in place for TV and Internet, but is now extended to mobile. Previously though, there was already an industry code of conduct trough which adult games where hard to find.

GCDC: Mobile games will outsell console games along 2006

August 22nd, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Events & Conferences | No Comments »

Iplay’s Stephane Labrunie made his keynote speech at GCDC yesterday, announcing that I-Play expects mobile sales to surpass the sales of console games by the end of the year. This, he explains, is possible as Mobile Gaming is a true mass market whereas the console market has a much smaller consumer base. Also the mobile games market is more divided. About half the players are female and about 60% of the mobile gamers, are aged between 18 and 34. Based on this, Labrunie sees a stable growth of the market. He recons in 2010, 1.7 billion paid downloads will take place with a value of 5.9 billion.

However just like Karl Woods yesterday, Labrunie also sees the big problems this industry is facing. He estimates only 5% of the users have downloaded a mobile game. 16% would probably download one, however they think pricing is way to high. Also technical problems cause the downloaders a lot of problems. That’s why Labrunie also put the focus of his speech on how the industry should react to them. Labrunie sees 3G as a new way of working, where connecting to the network is much more easy and the user can be pointed to a more safe download location. Also, he would like designers to focus more on the user. Simplicity, traction and innovation is his message to them for creating good gaming content.

Lunagames keeps controlling Air Traffic

August 21st, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Connected Gaming | No Comments »

Lunagames today announced the newest release in the Air Traffic Controller series called “Air Traffic Controller 2007” following the massive success of the original version back in 2003. The game will be available in Q4 (or late 2006 as they say) 2006 and will allow connectivity between web and mobile for consumers to build new levels themselves online and play them on mobile.

“We believe that the success of ATC was mainly driven by the original now referred to as ‘one-thumb’ type game-play, combined with the popular theme of large Aircrafts.” said Kitty Brown, VP at Lunagames.

The new Air Traffic Controller has not only been upgraded on the connectivity level, but also introduces new elements into the game like no fly-zones, hot air balloons, emergencies, weather and much more. The game will feature 50 levels excluding the levels build by consumers over the web.

“Lunagames is currently in the final phase of play testing in which the game-balance is perfected and the new Web to Mobile features are enhanced”. said Dennis Medema, Head of Game Design. “The ability for gamers to make their own levels through the online level editor has really shown to be a great differentiating game feature. We’ve seen that people sharing the game with friends is near three (3) times higher by enabling user generated content as apposed to our regular games tested.”

We asked Richard Hanzenberg, CEO of Lunagames about his expectations for user generated content in upcoming mobile games from Lunagames.

"Based on our initial user-tests I can say we’re really enthusiastic about what user generated content can do for games and mobile services in general. We believe it will both increase the lastability of titles and stimulate people to share the game and its content far more often with friends. Although our solution works equally well on 2.5G, we thinks that user generated content will be particularly interesting in a 3G environment." said Richard Hanzenberg, CEO of Lunagames.

Top 10 Handsets

August 21st, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Smartphones & Tablets | 1 Comment »

Oke, this is not really a post related to mobile gaming. However in relation to Slotland.com’s choice for the RAZR as best gaming phone, we thought you might be interested in Fosfor’s top 10 of the most beautiful handsets as it features a lot of exotic models that a lot of you probably haven’t seen before.

Hudson Entertainment scores Bob Marley license

August 21st, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | No Comments »

Hudson Entertainment will start passing the mobile to the left hand side as they hauled in the license for reggae legend Bob Marley. With three games already in the pipeline, we will see Bob on our mobile phones really soon.

"The staying power of Bob Marley is a true testament to his musical gifts to the world," said Hudson Entertainment president John Greiner. "Marley’s ideas and beliefs are more powerful than ever, and to be able to bring his own unique culture to a new generation of people is truly an honor. We wanted to create an interactive experience that captures the Rastafarian spirit and all the elements that Marley loved, from music, to island life, and soccer."

Karl Woods about shifting the industry focus

August 21st, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial | No Comments »

Numerous stats have been gathered about our target consumer and even more importantly, about the consumers we don’t have. It’s said on multiple articles that just 10% of the mobile handset owners download mobile games. MobileIndustry.biz announced an exclusive interview with Karl Woods from Kiloo about how the industry should react and activate the 90% of the people that don’t download yet. Personally I don’t think we will get that far as I don’t believe my grandparents will ever pick up their phone for a quick game, however the current 10% is indeed a much to small audience to work on with the increasing number of games being released every month.

"Think of it like the crack cocaine model. You offer the customer a free rock, and they get hooked. That’s what we’re going to have to do with the 90 per cent. But everyone has to do it, the whole industry has to try and crack this, or we’ll just keep fighting over that 10 per cent." Said Karl Woods.

Methods of activating the non-downloaders means introducing various tactics according to Karl, ranging from free demo’s to ad subsidised gaming. We would like to add to this saying it’s maybe interesting to look at the purchase and connectivity issues that consumers face. Perhaps ideas like the Media Tower POS solution from Holland based Commodore Gaming can provide a smooth solution here. Anyway it’s fair to say that also this is an example of a market fighting to mature.

MobileIndustry.biz will soon release the full interview with Karl.