M:Metrics says games mobile sales are flat
A big opportunity to sell games to mobile phone users is being lost, says mobile data gatherer - M:metrics. In a year, the total number of subscribers playing a game has only risen from 8.8 per cent (38.5 million) from 8.7 per cent (35.3 million).
Worse news for games publishers is the fact that, only about a quarter of those that play games on their mobile phones, are playing a game that has been downloaded rather than coming pre-installed on the handset.
Smartphones users are, however, over twice as likely to download a game than owners of regular handsets, the company observes. Equally worrying is the number of people downloading a game to their handset which actually fell in December 2007 compared to the same month in 2006.
According to the firm, only 14.4 million, or 3.3 per cent of mobile subscribers in the United States and Western Europe downloaded a game last December, versus 14.6 million (3.6 per cent) in December 2006.
By way of explanation, Seamus McAteer, a senior analyst with M:metrics, commented, "One of the greatest challenges facing publishers by the growing adoption of smartphones is the wide availability of free or pirated content for these devices."
McAteer's advice to mobile games publishers is that, "To succeed in such a market, game publishers will have to foster new models that may include subscriptions to online gaming communities, ad-funded or subsidised gaming, and physical distribution."
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