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Glu Mobile CEO Greg Ballard has said that the Mobile games business is looking good, and backed it up with some stats, during his keynote at the Games and Mobile Forum recently.
Glu Mobile holds a 14% market share of the mobile games business, ranking second overall, he said, adding that the company ports 10 games to 10 different handset across the world every minute. “We sell games somewhere in the world every second,” he said.
One of the stats he pulled put was that Mobile games only only penetrated about 5% of all devices, with the most recent data pointing to 7-8%. Still, that would suggest there is massive room for growth – he pointed at Nokia’s re-entry in to gaming with N-Gage, as a sign of that.
Ballard also mentioned about Glu’s relationship with Hollywood (I’m sure you’ve seen lots of those movie license games – chances are Glu has behind one of them) – he said that licensing is workable, despite an increase in the monies that must be paid upfront. Big titles carry a $3 million guarantee on average now, he said.
He was also asked whether he say ad-funded/supported games driving Mobile games – his answer: “way premature”! (This is interesting, in contrast to 123play’s approach)
“There’s not a broken model that we’re trying to fix,” he said. “Once you start giving things away for free the people perceive they’re worth nothing. And they’re not worth nothing, they’re worth a lot.” He concluded by pointing out that the video games industry has been talking about ad-supported models for a decade and still, nothing’s come about.
So, what do we think? My perspective is that Mobile games are one proven area of Content that does generate good revenues – both from my own direct experience working at Operators, and also from data I’ve seen. It seems reasonable that as devices becomes more capable, we’ll see better games, that more people will buy. I do think Ads will end up in the mix though, they are too good a revenue stream to ignore….
[Via: RCR Wireless News]
About The Author
Ben Robinson
Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.
