'There is a child in every one' said an advertising that hit the small and
silver screens a decade back. From teenagers to senior citizens, the kid in each
one of us is the driving force behind gaming phones and mobile gaming. Mobile
phone users have tasted the entertainment aspects of mobile phones with music
phones, mobile Internet, and mobile TV available in the market, but not gaming
phones. Mobile gaming applications are not limited to mobile phones, but are
available on PDAs, handheld computers, and smartphones. Uptill now, Nokia was
the pioneer of mobile gaming, but now other vendors are following suit to cash
in on the gaming opportunity.
Playground in Your Palm
Initially, Nokia's N-Gage, a mobile gaming application, did not set fire
among the gaming community. Undaunted by its debacles, Nokia has come back with
the application. Nokia's N-Gage mobile application is inbuilt in its latest
series of handsets. If the application is not there already, N-Gage can be
downloaded from the mobile operator's radio network, using infrared connection,
or bluetooth embedded in handsets. A series of new phones with graphics
capabilities that can take advantage of the new N-Gage platform have also been
announced. In fact, Nokia had pre-installed the Snakes game in its handsets way
back in 1998. Sony Ericsson has also announced gaming phones. Nintendo DS has
tasted good success in the UK, particularly during last Christmas.
Handsets have technologies and game software embedded in the device for
simple games, but for networked games, different technologies, including SMS,
MMS, or GPRS location identification are used. Location-based games, multiplayer
mobile games, and mobile community games are some avatars of mobile games.
Business Potential
Market figures prove the popularity of mobile games-mobile games worth $3 bn
have been sold in 2007, with a projected annual growth of 40%. According to a
report by Informa Telecoms and Media, revenue generated by mobile games
worldwide in 2005 was estimated to be $2,600 mn. This was at a time when the
mobile gaming concept had not perculated much to mobile phone users worldwide.
Once the gaming concept catches the masses like wildfire, it will become an
added business opportunity for stakeholders.
Already, telecom software has driven the Indian telecom equipment business to
touch Rs 95,407 crore in FY 2007-08. It clocked a revenue of Rs 23,018 crore,
registering a 29% growth from the previous fiscal. Growth of gaming software
will also become a big opportunity for the telecom software sector, which inturn
means more opportunities for IT companies in India. A plethora of platforms and
mobile technologies like Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Symbian OS, Adobe's Flash Lite,
DoCoMo's DoJa, Sun's J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition), Qualcomm's BREW, WIPI or
Infusio's ExEn are applied to create different mobile games. These companies
have already set a carrier path for developing games in India.
7Seas Technologies develops games for PCs, mobiles, the Internet, and
console. 7Seas is targeting to launch its first 3D mobile game this year. It has
plans to launch Indian style casual online games every quarter. Another
Mumbai-based company, Kreeda Games, has launched its first game called Dance
Mela in October last year. So, if you are a fan of a football or hockey player,
you can ghostplay your star to stardom.
Needless to say, benefitting from the mobile gaming boom are service
providers, handset manufacturers, and gaming software creators.
Kannan K
kannan@cybermedia.co.in
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