Comments on: How I Stopped Developing Mobile Entertainment and Found True Happiness

By: RubberSquid

RubberSquid — Tue, 15 May 2007 18:12:12 +0000

Morten,
Your post resonates with us too.
We recognised the need to stay off portal when negotiating a contract with one of the UK big 5 – a contract we never executed – if we had, we would not only have lost control of our brand but would have had to indemnify the licensee against just about everything you can think of. The alternative is a long hard slog, but worth it if you can survive.

By: Morten Hjerde

Morten Hjerde — Mon, 14 May 2007 18:11:55 +0000

It seems like mobile games does not have a “long tail”. Not yet anyway. Mobile games are very much “the short head”.
It may be due to the short “technical” lifespan. After 3 months you need to support another 10-20 handsets, and as we all know, you need to test on most of them and a couple may need yet another SKU.
The other reason, at least here in my neck of the woods, is that the operators mainly sell over the mobile portals (wap/xhtml). Due to screen size, the portal will display maybe 3 games, and those 3 games are the ones that will sell. We know that gamers are very different, but I have not seen any portals that try to adjust their offers to customer preferences. I like logic and puzzle-type games, but even after buying almost every puzzle game on the portal, they don’t seem to get the message Maybe the portals could take a lesson from Amazon.
I really hope that some time in the future independent portals are able to overcome the technical complexities of delivering and charging mobile content internationally.

By: Mayank

Mayank — Tue, 08 May 2007 10:10:22 +0000

Morten, Good write-up.
I am also a mobile developer (http://www.bluxone.com). It really sucks how this industry is in such a strangle-hold of operators, portals, etc.. As of today, it just looks so impossible for a software creator to reach his customers without these people eating away his money/brand etc.
It seems like a good move to concentrate on enterprise mobile software than on the hobbyist market.
Good luck.

By: Rocco

Rocco — Mon, 07 May 2007 18:29:06 +0000

thanks morten for sharing your insights! i’m glad to be in a similar position like you are now (we’re in fact creating a social network-esque service) and i hope your expectations will come true and it will drive mobile data use.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Mon, 07 May 2007 17:52:15 +0000

Interesting read.

By: Oaf

Oaf — Mon, 07 May 2007 13:16:52 +0000

There may be a good future in mobile applications and games, but not for the people making them.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 07 May 2007 06:54:05 +0000

I have been developing mobile games and i strogly feel taht The mobile game market is completely overrun by movie properties. In fact, the most popular games are almost always related to a product endorsement. But see there are new reslers like http://www.youpark.com are coming in depicting there still a good future in mobile applcations and games.