Games for mobile phones

For 5 dollars apiece, companies offering mobile services have moved to the entertainment of consumers. Cell dealers have already begun entering the market with the first offers of such services. Now the installation of one mobile game on a cell phone will cost the owner of $ 5. Thus, for installing a mobile toy on his phone, the client is forced to overpay 3-5 times compared to the subscriber who downloaded the game from a paid Internet site.

Fair price

The first to decide to offer customers mobile entertainment was a chain of mobile electronics stores "Mobile Tips". Having received a license of an American -developer for REAXION mobile telephony for 12 games (arcades; board games - sapper, mahjong, checkers; puzzles - chubby cube), the company entered the mobile market with a new service - installing games on cell phones of customers right behind the counter. True, this pleasure is not cheap - the installation of one licensed game from Reaxion will cost $ 5. Thus, for installing a mobile toy on his phone, a client of “mobile tips” is forced to overpay 3-5 times compared to a subscriber who downloaded a similar game from a paid Internet site.

Igor Menshikov, the head of the information technology department of the 'Mobile Councils', explains the high price of this service simply: “Our competitors are in no hurry to enter the market with such offers. And in the absence of competition, we are free to set any reasonable price. If the consumer is ready to pay $ 5 for this service, then the price seems to him fair. ”

Without enthusiasm

Indeed, the main competitors: 'Euroset', 'Svyaznoy', as well as 'Anarion' and Dixis - do not plan to introduce such services. Analysts are also very skeptical of this undertaking. In particular, the expert “Nikil” Vladimir Bogdanov believes that this service will not become mass. “Why pay $ 5, if the“ download ”even from a paid Internet site of one game will cost no more than $ 0.5,” he notes. His colleague Anton Pogrebinsky from ACM-Consulting does not consider the experiment of “mobile advice” a significant event. According to him, the weakness of mobile entertainment is the trouble of all players in the market. 'This market has grown by 2-3%over the year, amounting to 5%. There are expectations that next year it will grow by another 4%, but compared to Europe and Japan, which shows an increase of 25% and 60%, respectively, it looks pale, ”says Torogabinsky.

It is much more profitable to help get acquainted

“Services for downloading pictures and mobile phones for mobile phones is much more popular than game,” said Mikhail Khanov, director of the game development and promotion service and promotion of mobile television studies. According to the company, only 25% of the total number of SMS messages of subscribers was on mobile online games, the rest-for entertainment services. 'In voice services, we focus on reference and information services, and in the SMS segment - on chats and acquaintances, ”he notes.

The representative of Vimpelcom agrees with him. 'The format of mobile chats, forums, dating flourishes, but the games go much harder, ”says Minaev. Only the adviser to the CEO of Sonic Duo 'Roman Prakolov enthusiastically looks at the game mobile future, talking about 12 % of the income received by the Moscow Megafon network at the expense of SMS-IGR.

The struggle for content

Developers of mobile applications and content providers providing mobile entertainment services are more careful in grades. According to Dmitry Sergeyev, managing director of Shamrock Games, the game segment of the Russian mobile market does not exceed 1.5 million dollars a month.

In the company "Nikita '(the creator of the games' Labyrinth of Fortune' and 'Age of merchants') also notes that the boom in this market should not be expected in the next 2 years. 'Such products are designed for mass demand, and with the current policy of mobile operators, it is difficult to achieve this in relation to content providers. Now the cell operator takes up to 30 % of the income from each request, whether it is a logo or a melody. We are forced to increase the prices of our services, which for some services reach $ 5, ”explained the newspaper in Nikita.

'Why should we provide traffic in our networks at cost?' - objects Artem Minaev from Vimpelcom. Mikhail Khanov from MTS adheres to a detailed point of view: 'All content providers, and more than 40 companies are already in Moscow, for some reason they want cellular operators, counting on preferential content. They must attract customers themselves. '

09/29/2003 / Pavel Moroz