Getting Old

Who are mobile games aimed at? If you look at the top mobile games you will see the old favourites, Tetris, Bejewelled and Monopoly and a smattering of retro arcade games. So it's obvious, mobile games are played by the old people like me who still fundamentally believe Pac Man was the best game ever created and a nice game of Monopoly is about as much excitement as we can take.

Now as I drive to work I pass a local school, every kid has a mobile phone and is either texting or playing. We've done focus tests with 8-14 year olds and believe me they not only love mobile games but most of them play the games without a second thought. If you step back this makes sense, a mobile phone is given to kids by their anxious parents to keep track of their movements and £5 is pocket money games rather than saving up £40 for a new console game.

So why don't we see more mobile games aimed at kids, Madagascar was the number one summer block buster on console but was no where on mobile. It was developed and launched by a small Israeli publisher and made no impact. The problem is the distribution channels, the operators, which have an obligation to ensure the wrong type of content doesn’t end up in the hands of minors.

So, left with a predominantly older audience to target, it would follow that games on mobile would be mature in nature. Games like GTA would seem ideal but again we hit the problem of the gatekeeper to the consumer. These guys don't want anything that is violent or in any way 18+, for the same reason as before – to prevent ‘adult’ content ending up in the wrong hands.

This focus on the safe middle ground may not be the only reason that the market is dominated with games that the videogames industry forgot ten years ago, but it has a big impact on what games are available.

The mobile is a mass market device and therefore the content offering should also become mass market, encompassing everything from the family entertainment and arcade classics at one end to 3D role playing games at the other, with everything in between. The publisher channels we are now starting to see on Telefonica, Telia, etc. is a happy compromise between heavy gate-keeping of the traditional operator portal arrangement and publishing chaos. However, operators will need to begin addressing the issue of mobile game certification sooner or later, before consumers begin finding their own channels to getting hold of the content they want.