MGF 2009: Only a few app stores will survive, says Jamba

Jamba may launch its own mobile app store, judging by comments made today at the Mobile Games Forum by its director of content Thomas Richter

“A couple of app stores will survive until next year and in the long term,” he said, during a panel session on D2C mobile games retailing. The quick follow-up question was whether this meant Jamba would not launch its own on-device app store.

“I didn't say that!” he replied. “Based on our experience, we have an idea of what needs to be done, and how to make it different.”

Before that, the debate kicked off with a discussion of whether off-portal games sales are growing faster than those on operator decks. Richter said there was a bigger issue to consider than arguing about market share, though.

“As an industry, we didn't succeed in bringing a lot of new people into playing on the mobile last year,” he said. “Neither D2C nor the operators, maybe iPhone a little bit. We need to bring more people into the market.”

“There is more growth in the off-portal than in the operator sector,” said Anil Malhotra, senior VP of alliances and marketing at Bango, talking about mobile content in general. It's not quite so for games though: “A lot of the games developers and publishers are looking for the most effective route to market, and currently for games that seems to be broad channels like operator portals.”

He said EA Mobile is one example of a publisher that can get enough visibility on-deck to mean it doesn't have to plough time or effort into a significant off-deck strategy.

“The distinct division between what constitutes on-portal games distribution and off-portal games distribution is beginning to blur,” he said, highlighting O2's launch of Player X's 100% Mobile portal.

“If you click a game, you'll often find you're taken to an off-portal site - the download and even the payment is done through off-portal mechanics. Perhaps this hybrid will be the best of both worlds in the coming year.”

Glu Mobile's MD of publishing, EMEA, backed up this view. “We have our own WAP-based channels, but our route to market from those is not to create a Glu Mobile deck, but it's to work with operators, and act as a specialist in the games area on that deck, as opposed to developing a Glu standalone channel,” he said.

So, onto the mania for app stores and on-device portals (frequently both together): “I can't decide if it's this year's big fad,” said Malhotra.

“But for the developer and publisher it's another distribution channel. Lots of people are going to get behind it this year. My guess is we'll see a surge in these things, but the people who are better equipped to to these kinds of things are people like Jamba [rather than handset manufacturers] because they understand content merchandising.”

Richter agreed (unsurprisingly). “What we need to watch this year is probably there will be catalogues out there, which means an icon pre-installed on your phone that offers a nicer browser experience than WAP.

"But there will be fragmentation in discovery as a result. Each of these will have a different browsing experience, a different order flow, and a different degree of transparency. And you'll confuse the hell out of the user.”

He suggested that handset manufacturers should be partnering with firms who have expertise in content management and retail, if they want their on-device portals and application stores to be truly effective.

Viral distribution was also raised as an important area for the industry, although Richter says this isn't bringing new players into the mobile games market. “I use send-to-friend features to recommend games to people who I know already play mobile games,” he said.

Orange's games boss Neil Holroyd chipped in from the audience during the debate, asking if the D2C market is focusing on demos, rentals and other ways of sampling mobile games (with the implication that they aren't).

Richter said Jamba has been making extensive use of try-and-buy. “People are testing extensively, and they are to a majority deciding for the €4.50 or €5 buyout, or they are choosing deliberately to go into subscription. But very few are deciding in Europe to go for rental - completely different to what we see in south east Asia.”

He said Jamba is cutting down on the number of options offered on try-before-you-buy models. “Very simple try-before-you-buy models work well,” he said. “Otherwise, you just confuse people.”

Holroyd disagreed, saying that rental is actually proving very popular in Europe, citing 100% Mobile as an example. However, the notion that operators are being forward-thinking when it comes to pricing models for mobile games was rebutted by Keeling.

“With operators, the trend we've seen over the last 18 months is price erosion,” he said. “They see price as an immediate way to discount as rapidly as possbile. I'm not sure they use pricing in the most sophisticated way possible. It's been price erosion, rather than using pricing as a way of growing the market.”