Two of the most important areas for reaching mass market acceptance for moble gaming will be brand management and pricing. Enda Carey, marketing director, iFone, gives his prescription for the way forward for the mobile gaming industry,
It is widely accepted that mobile gaming has the potential for exponential growth over the next few years. It is already one of the most important sources of data revenues and this trend is set to continue. Nonetheless, the mobile gaming industry is in danger of stagnating. While the buzz about the latest mobile games releases is still there, the number of consumers actually downloading games to play on their phones is still quite low — it is estimated that in 2005 only seven per cent of consumers with game-enabled phones have downloaded a game to play while 42% have played the pre-loaded games that come with the phone.
Why is this happening? Mobile games are the phenomenon of the moment. Supposedly everyone is playing games on their mobile devices, yet the industry is failing to reach mass market acceptance. What needs to be done to ensure that the mobile gaming industry becomes the cash cow that it should be? The approach should be multi-faceted — both publishers and operators have a responsibility to ensure the product is perfectly pitched for their individual customers. As both operators and publishers are starting to play it safe with well-recognised brands in mobile gaming, brand management has to come to the fore as the most important aspect of creating long-term success for the industry. There are four key aspects of brand management which need to be adhered to in order to ensure long-term successs for individual titles and the industry as a whole. Let’s not underestimate the scale of the task required by the industry. There is much work ahead.
Quality
A small word, but a huge task. Ensuring high standards and good quality throughout needs to paramount, not only to keep existing users content, but also to attract new users into the market. In the short term, quallity will mean keeping users hooked by using innovative new features in the context of mobile gaming, rather than innovative new products as such. Until the industry becomes happier to take a few more risks, this will remain the case.
Promotion
t is important that brands are promoted and promoted well to consumers. Challenges remain however. Whilst different operators have diferent release dates and release policies, it remains difficult to co-ordinate pan-European campaigns. It can even be difficult to co-ordinate national campaigns on this basis.
Education
Do consumers know how to download a game? When an industry is in its early stages, the major players in the industry, which includes operators and publishers have a responsibility to educate the buying public as to how it all works. This does not all have to be mass-scale marketing (though of course that would help), but creativity is needed to keep pushing the ‘how-to’ of downloading a game until it becomes a mass-market phenomenon where few people can complain that they have no idea how it works. For instance, operators and publishers could look to trial versions of a game, demonstrating how it works, but constantly keeping an eye on the quality, ensuring that the consumer will come back for more.
Pricing
There is room too, to look at the impact that pricing has on consumers. Could the industry get a little more creative in its pricing models for consumers? Is there potential for a mid-range market? Is there potential for a budget range? Or how about a subscription model? What would be the impact of a prepaid gaming download card?
One strong example of this could be episodic gaming — consumers will buy a number of levels at a time. An excellent potential example of this is Lemmings — a game that would be perfect to buy five levels at a time for a couple of pounds. The operator could then just carry on supplying level bundles until the users decide to stop. The point here is that the price point is low enough for an impulse buy, the brand is premium and has already been proved popular with the consumer, while the operators have a path forward for continued upward selling.
But of course, all of this ties into the big picture of brand management, managing brands in the right way to ensure longevity of titles.
Brand Management
With so many big brand games being released, operators need to feel comfortable that the publishers are the brand ambassadors and the experts, not just for a single game, but for the whole IP. Mobile operators simply do not have the time or energy to deal with one set of people for the game and another set entirely for the look and feel of the brand, brand history, brand guidelines etc.
The major mobile games publishers are becoming the brand managers of the mobile entertainment medium. And now that operators are choosing the games publishers they want to deal with long-term, sacrificing brand quality for quantity is a dangerous game to play. Consumers can, and will, switch off from mobile gaming if they feel that they are just being fed what they would consider to be rubbish. The only winners in this market will be those that can provide the expertise of bringing serious brands to market, brands that will appeal to consumers.
This trend will only grow stronger over time. Now that more and more IP holders are moving towards mobile entertainment and as more and more serious brands from movies or hit TV shows come to the small screen, the value of IP holders’ brands will start to dominate. If we consider brand to be important right now, before too long it will become everything.
From this position of brand ambassadors or brand managers, major publishers now have firm responsibilities to the operators, the IP licensors and the consumers. To the operators, mobile games publishers need to be the trusted experts and need to live and breathe the brand. To the IP licensors, the publisher needs to be bold yet realistic in its recommendations as to how they move their brand forward on the small screen. The publisher also has a responsibility to the IP holder to create the best possible outlet or outlets for their IP.
And to the consumers? The publisher has a duty to provide the best possible gaming experience, one that will mirror the experience the consumer has previously had with this brand, whether it’s a Hollywood blockbuster film or one of the casual gaming brands of yesteryear.
At the point of taking on a brand, a large number of questions need to be answered: which territories would the brand appeal to? What local translations are required? Which demographics would it appeal to? Young? Old? Casual gamer? Serious gamer? How long could the brand stay fresh and exciting to operators and the consumer?
In particular, when a brand comes via another console, it is vital to retain the look and feel of the brand whilst needing to manipulate the form factor heavily. To a degree, on other consoles, publishers can afford to get it a little wrong. On the mobile phone screen there is no such luxury. Take Monopoly for instance, a game that is known to millions of people across the planet. To give the same look and feel of the original game to an audience of millions is no small thing, especially when you consider that every one of the millions that already know Monopoly could be a potential critic of the mobile version. To then extend the brand beyond its original boundaries through new iterations of the same brand and still gain consumer support is something beyond.
Extending the lifetime of a brand past a single implementation represents a major win for the operator and the consumer. The operator wins by being able to extend the revenue opportunity by giving its consumer something new yet familiar. The consumer gets extra value too. When a brand is well-loved by a consumer, further versions or new takes on the brand represent a bonus and not a cost.
The games publishers themselves need to keep their eye on the long-term payback. A long term investment in a major brand is just that, long-term. The payback may not come in the first outing of the brand on the small screen.
But presuming a brand plan based on solid experience is in place, the publisher can be confident when the payback will be reached and exceeded to the benefit of operators, consumers, IP holders and the publisher themselves.