Tag: downloads

Fishlabs Slides to Advergaming Fame

On 24/07/2009

In 1

Fishlabs, the German high-end 3D studio have long been one of my favourite developers (see here for a previous post). And with the ascent of the iPhone also appears to come the rapid rise to fame for them. Today, they have released numbers on one of their latest advergames, which they did for Barclaycard. For those not familiar: Barclaycard runs a large advertising campaign where a guy slides on a water slide through the city buying stuff whilst passing through markets, shops, etc. It took me a while to understand it (even though I am one of their customers) but it is to promote their new RFID-enabled credit cards.

Fishlabs produced an iPhone game for this (aptly called “Waterslide Extreme”). Interestingly, other than a Barclaycard logo on the main menu screen, I could not (yet) find any mention of the brand. Anyhow, Barclaycard seems to be super-happy as Fishlabs now has reported a whopping 2m downloads in one (!) week, which have generated 16m “engagement minutes”, presumably meaning that players engaged with the brand.

The – free – game is said to top the iPhone download charts in no less than 57 countries, including all the biggies like the US (where, reportedly, 54% of iPhone and iPod Touch users reside), the UK and Germany.

I just wonder if this is such good marketing (and I am not an advocate for unwanted in-your-face advertising at all): one mention of the brand (and very subtly, too) would surely make for only the most discrete of “engagements” with the brand.

So good on Fishlabs! But advertisers might want to consider giving these things a little more thought. Imagine the potential result for the image of the Barclaycard brand if, through a somewhat more thoughtful and smarter brand treatment, all of those 2m users would actually perceive it as a fun goodie brought to them by Barclaycard. Just to think of it… 😉

Vodafone's App Store: Bigger than Apple?

By Volker

On 18/05/2009

In OEM

It was only a question of time before the first carriers would release themselves from the iPhone-imposed stare and come out all action, and the biggest of them all (by sales), Vodafone, has now raised the curtains on its very own app store. It is the biggest app store to date: Vodafone has more than 289m customers who will – eventually – all be able to access the store (which makes it a cool 8x or so larger than Apple’s). Unlike on Apple’s App Store, you also do not need a credit card (which, however, you are likely to have anyway when you can afford an iPhone) whereas Vodafone, being a carrier, will bill to their customer’s phone bills directly. Very, very cool, huh?

So imagine the power of an app that would go live on Vodafone’s carriers all at once. But before we get carried away, let’s have a look at the numbers:

Orange UK (in its recently released Digital Media Index; see here) suggested that 4.87% of its users downloaded one game in 2008 (770,000 downloads p.a./ 15.8m users) but this is without an app store but with the traditional catalogue-style offerings.

For Vodafone Group, this would equate to 38,500 downloads per day (289m x 4.87% / 365). If (or when) it includes this offering beyond its own 27 local carriers to its 40 network partners (including Verizon Wireless!), one would be looking at North of 1bn users and, hence, 100,000+ downloads per day. Now, with an app store, this should – theoretically – be further boosted, let’s say doubled, arriving at 200,000 downloads per day.

How does this compare with everyone’s darling/nemesis (delete as appropriate), the iPhone: I had previously calculated that Apple’s app store sees some 4,000 per minute or 5.7m per day… This however includes all those free downloads (about 22% of all apps are for free), so let’s say the ratio is 1 paid: for 40 free (which is on the high end of assumptions) or 1:15. This would equate to 144,000 to 380,000 paid downloads per day. So Vodafone’s 200,000 wouldn’t look completely out of order, would it?

There’s even more: Vodafone’s decision to bill to the phone bill is only one potential booster since it minimizes friction for the user (Apple: credit card/iTunes account, Blackberry: PayPal, Nokia Ovi: a mix?, etc). The other – and longer-term potentially even bigger one – is geo-awareness: since Vodafone owns the network, it knows where any of “its” users’ mobile is at any given time. Now link app usage with geographical location and you could be on to something fairly unique. There is little in the market so far but then: had Apple run its campaign of “bettering life’s little problems” in June 2008, it would have looked fairly bleak, too!

So: huge potential but where are the pitfalls?

There’s UI and handset fragmentation, if I dare say so. Even though it probably hurts by now, let me repeat: Apple has one model and one deployment method and it nailed content discovery (not perfectly but better than anyone else). Job done. Vodafone has hundreds of handsets on its “to be supported” list. Some are like the Porsche’s of their trade (“first available on s60 devices“; ooooh), others are the equivalent to a pedal-powered toy car. The costs for developers to support all these is significant, the cost of management is arguably, too.

Most importantly though, it takes the simplicity and thus ease of use out of the game. And I would posit that this is a big contributor to the (Apple) app store’s success: simplicity from entry (ingest an app into the store), management (price, etc) to consumption (download and active use). This will be a tough one for Vodafone to overcome, and it is indeed the one point where OEMs have much better opportunities to “get it right”. That the relationship between carriers and OEMs is not always without strain has only recently been proven again, sooooo: the jury is probably still out on that one.

Having said this, Vodafone is better positioned than most carriers though because of its sheer size and footprint. Smaller carriers might struggle to offer developers similar incentives to support their respective offering because they don’t scale as well.

For Vodafone, I am concerned that the multi-level complexities they have to deal with (number of handsets x number of operating companies x number of languages x all additional info [geographical and otherwise]) might pose a strain on its ability to roll out quickly and decisively. It might not be as huge and life-changing as Apple’s app store but it would certainly lift the “mainstream” of app downloads to whole new level. I am an optimist, so, come on, Voda!

iPhone all-time top 20 apps, countdown to 1bn downloads

By Volker

On 13/04/2009

In Apple, OEM

I’ve been raving about it many a time and I still won’t stop but then: Apple does neither. When, waaaay back in January, I looked last, the App Store had raced through 500 million downloads and I calculated this to equate 4,000 per minute. Well, that’s history: We’re now through a 948 million total (count taken on 13 April, 11.23pm UK time from Apple’s site [check the little clock]) and look at 6,000 downloads per minute (or 100 every second of every minute of every hour of every day!) or so some learned friends have summed it up to.

Apple also revealed a list of the top 20 all-time top downloads, both paid and free, which (courtesy of MoCoNews) is this:

So here’s the good stuff for my gaming friends: 14 out of the top 20 paid apps are games! Yes, baby! 6 out of the top 20 free ones are, too. Way to go! I haven’t looked at the pricing for the above paid apps but MoCoNews did: ¢99 is the prevailing price-point at the moment but $4.99 seems to be the price point of choice for “premium” games.

iPhone Dominates the Mobile Web (as yet)

By Volker

On 03/03/2009

The iPhone has a meagre 1.2% share of the overall phone market. However, it has true worker bees as users. No, honestly, these guys are sooo much busier than everybody else: they produce a whopping 2/3 of the world’s mobile web traffic, or so says a report. Yes, that’s right. Number 2? Shared between open-source-newbie Symbian and – remarkably – Android with 6.15% each, which is, erm, less than 10% of what the iPhone accounts for (and in spite there being a gazillion more Symbian-powered phones out there than iPhones). Next one in the queue then is Blackberry with 2.24%.

Interestingly, the researchers find that the runners-up are quickly gaining market share, which begs the question (again) if the iPhone was only a big marketing coup: did people only need the Jobs magic in order to be shown what they could actually do with their phones (and, yes, did operators need Mr Jobs vision to realize that fair use might exceed, like, 137 kb per month)?

The answer? No! 4,000 downloads per minute are more than a marketing fluke! That web traffic is not a mirage! What the iPhone did do is trigger a stampede towards better usability, better discovery, a better environment, more ease. It is no surprise that the Google-dominated Android phone is catching up so fast (in spite being the youngest platform): Google itself has a knack for simplicity and ease of use. And from the platforms that have been around for a little longer, Blackberry (traditionally equipped with flat-rate data plans and affluent users to go with it) and Symbian (highest install-base on smartphones) are best suited from the pack to catch up quickest. The only question is the one for Windows Mobile (ooh, and Mr & Mrs Gates children are not allowed iPhones…).

The most encouraging bit of that report is therefore not another staggering stat on the iPhone but that the others are catching up. A race to the top then (even if some say that, content-wise, it currently is a race to the bottom; I’m sure that that will sort itself out fairly quickly but of this another time…).

iTunes the largest music retailer

By Volker

On 07/04/2008

In Apple, OEM

Not really mobile but at least digital and interesting in any event: a news release has it that Apple‘s iTunes had overtaken mighty Wal-Mart as the US’ largest retailer of music. Best Buy was ranked third and Amazon.com and Target tied for the fourth spot in January and February, it is reported.

iTunes apparently sold more than 4 billion tracks since its launch in 2003. The survey counted every 12 digital downloads as one CD but excluded mobile music sales. Apple claims more than 50 million customers. This is a rather impressive development: They sold around 25m tracks in 2003, surpassed the 1bn mark only 3 years later and hit 3bn in July2007.

It is NOT (only) the kids playing mobile games

By Volker

On 25/04/2007

In Games

Here‘s some always again interesting finds on mobile game demographics re-confirmed :

29% of all 25-34 year-old US-Americans downloaded mobile games in 2006, and 27% of the 18-24 year-olds but only 15% of 13-17 year-olds. The older folks also play more: 50% of the two older age groups vs 41% of the teens play mobile games on a daily basis.

The picture is naturally somewhat distorted as proportionately more adults own mobile phones than teens (although the latter catch up quickly).

However, considering that, in the UK, the average credit kids have on their pre-paid phones (which most of them have) is a meagre £5, which leaves little to no wiggling space when compared to game prices of £3-5 per pop: they simply don’t have the dough to buy more.

Another re-confirmed suspicion highlights the distribution challenge: 29 million US-Americans play mobile games, only 7 million download them, and that means 22 million play whatever is on their handset – whether it is a good or a bad one. 22 million gamers that do not access all the great games that are out there show that there is a severe disconnect regarding a) discovery and b) marketing and distribution in general. Whilst these will not be the only factors, they are significant.