Seems like mobile gaming market is created for indies. The games are small, achievable by small teams and the big boys still poke fun of the medium. Have you thought of developing mobile games? What is the revenue model of such games? Do users pay by credit card or does the phone provider charge them on their monthly bill? What price will users be ready to pay for a mobile game? How much % will a developer get?

Well, as it turns out, Gamasutra currently has a brief mobile game development survey in which you can request more information about mobile game development. You're also entered in a drawing for a free VIP pass to GDC. The survey is here: http://www.gamanetwork.com/survey

Mobile gaming is the way to go, especially for indies.

Wap is dead but the new phones supporting Java and Symbian apps are cool. As the phone is constantly connected to the net (GPRS) mobile games can take advantage of it.

I can't wait to get my SonyEriccson P800 :)

Brian Azzopardi

Gamasutra also posted a "Mobile Games Resource Guide" today. http://www.gamasutra.com/resource_guide/20021125/
It's more of a technical guide than a market analysis, but there are some valuable tidbits there.

Originally posted by jaggu
Seems like mobile gaming market is created for indies. The games are small, achievable by small teams and the big boys still poke fun of the medium. Have you thought of developing mobile games? What is the revenue model of such games? Do users pay by credit card or does the phone provider charge them on their monthly bill? What price will users be ready to pay for a mobile game? How much % will a developer get?

Funny that you start this thread. Just today I got a Motorola T720 (http://commerce.motorola.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=249144&prmenbr=126&phone_cgrfnbr=1&zipcode=) at work(I work at Verizon Wireless). So far it's pretty nice, it's too bad the battery life is pretty short. With our service users go into a little shopping cart area of their phone and purchase apps (ringtones, games, file swapping services, pop mail accounts, directory services, etc etc). There are usually a few options on how they wish to use it. They can get a free demo (24 hours of unlimited use, for example), or pay for a specific number of uses (or for a month at a time), or actually purchase the item to get unlimited use forever. Usually the limited versions are anywhere from $1.50 to $2.50 and the unlimited use ones range from about $3.50 up to $9. The charges show up on the customers bill and I'm not sure how much of a cut we get, I'm sure it's pretty significant.

I havn't noticed too many people calling in with complaints other than the fact that if you swap out your phone you have to repurchase everything(the hardware in our stores can't transfer BREW apps between phones). But then again, most the people using it are the hardcore gamer/geek sector and they tend to put up wih a lot of crap hehe.

If you're so inclined you might want to check out http://verizonwireless.com/brew to see what's what and then go to http://developers.verizonwireless.com/ to get more information on developing. You might also want to go to Coding Dreams' (http://codingdreams.xrs.net/) website and ask him for some advice.

A friend of mine wrote an interesting racing game in Java some time ago that worked on Siemens 45i. This was way before the phones had the camera / LCD screen combo and the problems he faced was making money of it. When I last asked, he had sold about 20 licenses at $6 apiece. I think he has ditched it. Seems to me he was too early into the market.

I am wondering how does this change the publisher-developer equation. Do the phone operators now become game publishers? Is there hope for self-publishing? I think the biggest advantage the phone operators have is they can charge the cost of the game to the phone bill and can go however low they want ($1 - $9 as Gmicek pointed out) and its pretty seamless to the customer. Publishing independently means you have to make the customer give the credit card which wont happen over WAP! and would probably forget by the time he gets home and launches his web browser :( What do you guys think?

One thing is sure. When I am on the train/tube/bus I see a lot of people fiddling with their mobile phones. Earlier they used to annoy others by trying out various ring tones but now they seem to be quietly enjoying a simple game.

When you play a game on your phone, are you playing against someone else? (Showing extreme ignorance here) I was looking at phones the other day, as mine is about to die, and what really struck me is how small the screens are. Unless you can actually play someone else over the phone, I would think mobile games on a PocketPC/Palm would be much better.

You are looking at the old phones :) Yes, their screens are only slightly bigger than a postage stamp but the new phones out from Nokia and others provide upto a resolution of 176 x 208. Still not as big as the PDA/Pocket PC but the number of ppl projected to own such a phone is set to astronomically rise while the PDA/Pocket PC market is flattening out.

Take a look at this page for different phones out from Nokia and their specs:

http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/1,35452,015,00.html

Well I wouldn't say its the indie way. Sure its easier and requires less resources, but big companies are giving birth to divisions with resources and money for these platforms. And the main problem (I think) for now is that to get profit from a cel game, you mostly need to be directly related to the manufacturer (sell on their site, ship the game with mobiles, etc).

I personally prefer my gba for games, my 7110 for calling and my PPC for work on the go :)