Mobile Gaming in India - snapshot and predictions
Found an extremely interesting summary of a recent conference on mobile gaming held in India. As a background, India hasn't really had much of a gaming culture... there are still only about 100,000 consoles in India. However with the fast growing popularity of cellphones over the past few years (over 60 million handsets as of date in the country), mobile games have emerged as a significant phenomenon - both culturally, and as a space where LOTS of money can be made, for both the domestic market, as well as an oursourcing hub for the international market.
Found an extremely interesting summary of a recent conference on mobile gaming held in India. As a background, India hasn't really had much of a gaming culture... there are still only about 100,000 consoles in India. However with the fast growing popularity of cellphones over the past few years (over 60 million handsets as of date in the country), mobile games have emerged as a significant phenomenon - both culturally, and as a space where LOTS of money can be made, for both the domestic market, as well as an oursourcing hub for the international market. Here are some relevant observations culled from the conference summary, that can be reflected upon in the US market:
1. Mobile games will be the number one revenue earner in India, surpassing even ringtones.
2. M3G or mobile broadband will be a major boost to mobile gaming. But it will be content that will drive adoption of this new platform, not the other way around.
3. Gaming audiences are different from ringtone audiences. Gaming audiences are mainly between 15-26, and come from all over, even small town and villages.
4. As the market space increases, traditional media houses, which so far, have entered into other spaces like broadband, TV, etc, may also enter the mobile gaming space. This will make the situation interesting for the small gaming operations set up so far.
5. Merely having a mobile phone does not mean that people will want to play a game on it. Price is really a sensittive issue. The entry point should be low. Very low.
6. Flexible pricing will work better than fixed pricing. Thus the Yahoo model - of first play it for free, then for 50 cents... then for a dollar, etc.
7. Popular cultural phenomena like cricket, or Bollywood will always translate well to games. But niche and specific ideas like Mobile Yoga, or Cooking, may also find interested users.
7. Publishers, handset manufacturers and operators need to address the current challenges and grow the market together.
Read all the 13 despatches from the above conference on Content Sutra
Read related Infusio Asia VP Chris Boden's interview on IndianTelevision.com