I predict mobile gaming will be one year older…
Good blog buddy Arjan Olsder over at the Mobile Games Blog has just posted 2007 predictions from 32 (!!) mobile industry execs. While there are a lot of things you might expect to hear from such a cacophony of industry suits (3D, 3G, multiplayer going to be “Big Things”, LBS not so much, more smartphones, more ad-sponsored content, more “casual games”), there is some unique goodness to be pulled out.
Most interesting is practically everyone’s admittance that the market will shrink both in numbers of games and number of game companies, so get ready for a merger or bankruptcy, I guess (this is made even more interesting by the fact that all the companies who responded could be considered “smaller fish”, with none of the big names weighing in. I guess they’re not that worried).
My favorite answer came from Brian Rodway at Affinity Studios, who hopes to see Apple open up their license to print money/iTunes D2C store for mobile games. Not only does this make sense (they already have games on the iPod and they are launching a phone of their own next year), everyone would also benefit. Except the carriers. Oh well.
We’ve posted some of the best answers after the jump, but the rest can be found here.
“2007 will be the year that will see 3D games on mobile and Connected gaming break through to the mobile mass market. I can see another round of industry consolidation and key partnerships as publishers realise that there are only a handful of really good development studios out there. I predict 2 major mobile publisher acquisitions by the major traditional console players with no real presence in this market. 3 UK’s lowering of it’s walled garden internet will see a golden market opportunity for mobile content portals offering current and yet to be exploited always-on mobile services. Ultimately, 2007 will be the year of less is more in mobile. There will be less volume (and sales) of poor games on decks and portals and more focus on quality made-for-mobile games where the sales volumes are going to be.”
Mark Ettle - MD at Cobra Mobile
“2007 will be the year VC’s start to find out if their investments have been worthwhile as several pure-play publishers perform their exit strategy. We’ll also see the demise of some development studios as publishers focus on fewer, higher quality titles. One thing is for certain - we’ll be seeing many more devices with new features that will continue to push development costs ever higher.”
Nigel Little - MD at Distinctive Developments
“I will be 47.
Elite will be 24.
Al-Qaida will attack the mobile internet, and chaos will ensue. If you type “Paperboy” into Google — misspelling the name of the popular 80s arcade game — the search engine will respond, “Did you mean: Al Jazeera?”
You’re kids will ask: if you can tune a piano why can’t you tuna-fish?
Our new mobile game ‘Atlantis Quest’ will prove to be “a cure for addiction to Bejewelled 2″.
Mobile Entertainment magazine will publish this list.”
Steve Wilcox - Managing Director at Elite
“Consumers are getting smarter. Why buy a ringtone if you can record in from a MP3 on your computer? Why buy wallpapers if the super mega pixel camera allows you to take a great picture for free? For games it’s more difficult, but smart consumers will find their ways into ad funded game portals. Sure there are consumers that hate the adverts, but most will regard it as a perfect alternative for saving $3.00. This will drive down the revenue developers get per download, but skyrocket the download volumes. As far as timelines for this big shift in ad-subsidised content goes, this will take less than a year in my opinion, considering that two our of three of the main content groups, namely ringtones and wallpapers have already gone down the nearly free route. With games it’ll require only a few consumer brands to step into an ad-funded model and that will be the start of the big shift.”
Karl Woods - EVP, Sales & Marketing at Kiloo
“2007 will probably show the difference between the big companies with bundles of cash to spread around, and the smaller developers jumping into adver-gaming and taking the most out of a growing mobile-game awareness on portals and websites. This could very well mean problems for those in between who want to be big and bad, but have no funding to back it up. Sadly the branded games will still try to mimick their console counterparts, and fail terribly. And I still predict 2007=google+advergaming”
Pascal Bestebroer - CEO at OrangePixel
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