Video Games on Mobile Phones - Challenges & outlook

Since early this decade, when video games first appeared on mobile handsets, we have successively witnessed a rise in the number of developers, the creation of mobile game subsidiaries by traditional video game publishers and intensified investment by telecoms operators in a wide variety of business activities (publishing, aggregation, distribution, platforms, licensing, etc.). 2001 saw the arrival of downloadable games and November 2003 marked a radical change with commercialisation of the n-Gage, a connected console with game cartridges.

• The value chain has organised itself into a predominantly narrow structure, with smaller enterprises making way for companies with the financial capacity to shoulder development in this sector.
• Consumers have learned to extend their use of handsets beyond simple telephony. Technological advances have furnished mobile phones with new functionalities previously only available on dedicated devices.
• Mobile operators have managed to preserve the integrity of their business models in spite of a lack of transparency in their offers.

For the time being, operators are still the sole point of contact for gamers, via their billing services, but opportunities for mobile Internet business models are now very real.

Growth of this sector is conditioned by tight technical constraints concerning latency, speed and handset capacity in terms of storage, computation and display.

IDATE presents an analysis of the mobile gaming market' s organisation: state of existing offers, player positioning and changes in the value chain (publishers, developers, distributors and mobile operators), editorial strategies, and business and pricing models. The report explores the expected technological and economic challenges, along with the market' s development prospects up to 2010.

• What are the key factors for development of the mobile gaming sector?
• What are the predominant editorial strategies and types of content available?
• Does the technological advancement of mobile networks foresee a mass market?
• What are the challenges for publishers, developers and distributors of mobile video games?
• Telecoms operators versus distribution portals or aggregators: what services for gamers?
• What are the decisive factors in a mobile gamer' s ecosystem? What profiles are identified?

• Developers, publishers and distributors of video games
  • Assess the mobile gaming market' s potential
  • Understand the value chain' s organisation and relevant business models
• Mobile operators
  • Analyse competing offers
  • Assess commercial development prospects
• Equipment manufacturers (consumer handsets)
  • Understand changes in the mobile gaming market
  • Estimate the market' s long-term potential
• Investors/analysts
  • Examine the competitive landscape and regional differences
  • Anticipate new trends in the video gaming ecosystem