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GDC Mobile 2003: Challenges Mean Opportunities
By Olga Zundel
Gamasutra
March 7, 2003

URL: http://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2003/features/20030307/zundel_01.htm

"I believe that in a couple years, the mobile games business will be bigger than PC and console gaming combined."
Ilkka Raiskinen, SVP Entertainment, Nokia

Few sectors in today's economy are as laden with potential as the mobile gaming sector. As games grow exponentially as a medium and mobile phones continue to proliferate the consumer landscape worldwide (at a rate of 15 percent total market penetration in China, now the top worldwide mobile phone market, with 7.0 million wireless gamers worldwide in 2002 and growing rapidly), people from all facets of the games industry agree that the revenue potential in wireless gaming is one that cannot be ignored.

Developers, operators, and handset makers from all around the world converged on the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose for the first-ever GDC Mobile summit, which took place March 4 and 5, 2003, as part of the annual Game Developers Conference. For the first time ever, the big players (for example, handset manufacturer Nokia, wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo, and operators Sprint and AT&T) came together under one roof to discuss the business opportunities and challenges the medium is facing. While everyone agrees the medium's time has come, the challenge in paving the way for the future is mostly that clear roadmaps do not yet exist for forging profitable business relationships. There needs to be a symbiotic partnership between developers, publishers, distributors, and operators, and the number of stops along the production pipeline imply incredible complexity. The following themes stood out and were echoed by various speakers as key points that need to be addressed before further progress can be made in really pushing the medium forward to the next level.

The profile of the average wireless gamer is changing. Several speakers, including both keynote presenters Ilkka Raiskinen of Nokia and NTT DoCoMo managing director Takeshi Natsuno noted that the mobile gamer demographic as well as the way that they play games is changing rapidly. As gadgets become fancier (with new products such as the N-Gage that Nokia is releasing in Q4 of 2003), connectivity becomes more rapid, and mobile phones continue to proliferate the mass market, Raiskinen believes that gaming will evolve from a more personal enterprise to a social activity, and the profile of the "typical" wireless gamer will change from that of a solitary commuter to someone who games with friends after hours, in a social setting. With that demographic in mind, developers and publishers will need to develop appropriate marketing strategies to address the changing niche market.
Profit sharing models need to be created that minimize risk. All profit-sharing scenarios need to consider the interests of developers, carriers, and operators alike. Developers put human and financial capital behind the development of a new title and need to strike a royalty arrangement with publishers, who put their own capital behind marketing games and need a good return on investment. In the absence of concrete projections of how many people will buy new mobile games and considering the changing demographic, it will be very challenging to take those risks. Adding to the challenge, a completely different set of business negotiations need to occur between the carriers and operators. Such companies as AT&T and Sprint will have to address their own ROI questions when it comes to working with publishers, clarifying the marketing relationships (What handset will AT&T market along with its new wireless pricing plan) and pricing structure (Will subscribers pay per download or per month)?
Content is King. One of the reasons that wireless gaming is both so exciting and frustrating an enterprise is at the same time as the business processes have not yet been streamlined, the languages and technologies have evolved sufficiently to accommodate sophisticated mobile gameplay. As Mitch Lasky said in the March 4 panel discussion "The Truth Behind Mobile Game Publishing", "Only when you have the concept ready can you have a discussion about efficient platforms." Almost across the board, speakers representing developers and handset manufacturers agreed that such highly developed languages as Bluetooth, EDGE, and CDMA, and platforms like Java, Series 60, and Symbian could make just about any imaginable form of gameplay possibly, even MMO gaming on wireless phones. Regardless of what standpoint you're coming from in the production pipeline, it is clear that the technologies await good games, not visa versa.

The overriding question of GDC Mobile was "When is this going to happen, and how are we going to make it happen?" Though no clear-cut answer exists at this moment, the enthusiasm, curiosity, and genuine willingness to listen to one another's concerns make the future very bright for everyone trying to make games for the wireless sector. With cooperation, anything and everything will be possible.