On Technology and the Future: Education, IoT, AI, Mobility, Games

Tag: Mobitween

Mobile Browser-Based Flash Games?

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On 29/09/2009

In 1

Today, I read a press release from UK firm MoMac who announced the launch of a browser-based games platform, which uses Flash Lite. I had been looking at the use of Flash Lite for mobile gaming quite a while ago (2 years back in fact; see here and here). The front-runners on this (not browser-based but downloadable) was Mobitween, a French company that was bought by Zed last year. Back in 2008, the estimated install base of Flash Lite on mobile phones was already approaching half a billion, so just ever so slightly more than there are e.g. iPhones. In principle, all good.

But where did it go from there? uGenGames, the company’s original user-generated games site, seems to be stuck where it was back then. There is still the showcase of mobiGamz, a Flash-Lite-based gaming portal on Verizon Wireless. But otherwise? Nothing much…

So MoMac will do it in the browser then. I don’t think it makes that much of a difference but, given my early enthusiasm, wondered where the pitfalls (of which there apparently are some; otherwise it would have taken off more forcefully) might be. So where then?

I have argued in the interim the advantages of applications vs mobile web, and this still stands: apps often will give better usability and navigation tailored to the input constraints of (small) handsets when compared to browser-based solutions.

Discoverability might be another – albeit perhaps short-term – constraint: people are not (yet!?) used to looking for games (or other “applications”) on the web. That is arguably one reason of the huge success of the app store: it does what it says on the tin and it is very easy to discover.

Billing would be the third big differentiator: Apple managed what probably only a brand of Apple’s power can command, namely that people happily and without second thoughts sign up with credit cards and all via iTunes. To replicate this somewhere on the open seas of the wide web is almost certainly wishful thinking at best. The only other companies who have as easy a billing interface are the carriers who will almost always be more control-minded than independent service providers might wish for. MoMac claims that

the first casual games portal to go live on major MNO’s in October

and that might change things in this department a little. However, it will arguably take a few of those major MNOs in order to make it worthwhile for developers to address the platform.

A fourth point – and this is following from the above – is content. MoMac seems a little light on this side. It claims the availability of 30 games through its partner Booster Media and, with no disrespect (!), they do not seem to have the most compelling stuff available. This of course is nothing that comes with the concept but perhaps with the (current) offering, the announcement of which I believe might actually have come a little early because of this.

Anyway: the principle is (still) great, and I really wish them all the very best. Keep me up to date, guys; I’d love to publish a retraction of my take here…

Zed Stretches its Muscles

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On 03/06/2009

In 1

Spanish mobile content giants Zed is ramping it up in recent weeks. First, it bought UK aggregator / distributor Player X (who just snapped up another chunk of Orange UK’s business), now it is said to have taken a majority stake in a Russian aggregator, namely Temafon (here’s also a link to the Russian article). Temfon is apparently the MCP (Master Content Provider) to the no. 2 operator in Russia, Beeline (or VimpelCom by corporate name).

This would add to their Russian activities that they had inherited via their acquisition of Monstermob, which had a subsidiary in Russia, too, namely Infon, which is said to be the leading aggregator in Russia. Now, the Russian market is a bit intransparent from the outside: a lot of the revenues are being made via data charge sharing rather than download fees. Data charges tend to be rather high, which is why operators appear to let aggregators take the lead in provisioning content. The operators get their share via the data charges anyway… With Infon and now (apparently) a majority stake in Temfon, Zed is positioning itself well, it seems, right at the sweet spot of the Russian market: not by trying to sell expensive (licensed) games via portals but by shipping its predominantly generic, home-made content through the aggregation models prevalent there. Smart!

So where does the whole spending spree that saw Monstermob (and, as part thereof, 9Squared in the US, Infon in Russia and a few more here and there), mobile Flash specialists Mobitween, Player X (with Spanish developer Gaelco in it) and now Temfon in Russia lead Zed?

Monstermob bolstered its D2C business (which was part of a larger consolidation in the space in which Buongiorno also participated). Mobitween helped them in their production efforts and spearheading Flash (which powers e.g. the Mobigamz portal on Verizon Wireless, Player X made sense for their operator relationships (O2 and Orange UK, etc.) and Temfon cements their position in what is likely to become a very large market. The closeness to Beeline will be most welcome, too.

And this, I would posit, currently drives the market of the big aggregators: get close to the operators. All of the larger players, Fox Mobile/Jamba, Buongiorno, Arvato Mobile and now Zed are concentrating a lot on the creation of MCP relationships with the carriers. It makes a whole lot of sense to them of course: the D2C market is cut-throat and low-margin because of the marketing spend required to attract attention from fairly brand-agnostic users. The models introduced to fight attrition, namely the infamous subscriptions, have not helped the name of D2C offerings either. However, since all the aggregators possess powerful content delivery and management platforms as part of their (original) core business, the incremental cost for them to run operator “decks” is lower than for pureplay platform companies who cannot cross-collateralize their platform costs by D2C business. Therefore, the big aggregators should be able to make a profit out of lower margins than others.

And Zed has – again – asserted its muscle and plays in the middle of it!

Zed do go a bit further though (in Russia and elsewhere) in that services extend significantly beyond simple content aggregation. Zed is introducing mobile services that are more comprehensive, from user-based SMS services to multi-platform entertainment formats (e.g. the “Instantly Rich” TVformat). But this probably deserves another post focussed on convergence… 😉

Mobitween bought by Zed

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On 09/09/2008

In Deals

Every reader of this blog will have realized for some time that I am a fan of mobile Flash and the good folks at Mobitween (just see here and here), the mobile Flash pioneers from Paris. And, boy, would I have wanted to work with them some more but, alas, it seems this will remain wishful thinking as they have been the first prey of D2C giant’s Zed M&A fund: yes, they have been acquired.

The deal – unfortunately for me, I guess – makes a lot of sense to Zed, who have been raising their revenue numbers to heights so dizzying they would nearly make the initial investments comprehensible… (if only the initial investors had seen anything of that success; but well…): Zed famously claims to make up to 85% of their revenue with
 predominantly in-house produced generic content, and when it comes to speed and efficiency, mobile flash in general and the guys at Mobitween in particular have no match.
So, well done them, and let’s hope Flash will continue to roll as it started to promise, so that we can all marvel at dramatically reduced time to market and, consequently, hopefully a vastly improved content offering all around (oh, and buy Zed shares if you can).

News Flash (Lite)

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On 18/01/2008

A while ago, I blogged about a cool new site French company Mobitween had launched, namely on user-generated games. Now, the good folks are a bridgehead in mobile Flash (they had their fingers in the code more or less from day 1). So, where is Flash Lite today?

Here’s the install base numbers as recently released:

From just over 14% to 23% in a year (yes, I know, this is based on a flat 2 bn handsets out there)… In any event, that is rather respectable, don’t you think?

Flash has the great advantage that its graphics are vector-based and therefore scalable. This means that most of the porting nightmare that contributes to 30-50% of the cost of mobile games, etc would fall away. Nice thought… It would make the whole commercial model of mobile games dramatically rosier. And it appears to be gaining traction: e.g. does Adobe make Flash Lite available on Verizon phones (and I’ve been told – confidentially – of one publisher having recorded more than 2m Flash game downloads on there already).

Flash is particularly good for casual games, which is, as everyone close(-ish) to mobile games knows, all the hype for the (small) mobile screen, and rightly so, as it is normally easier to adapt a casual game to the screen limitations (not even starting to talk about processing power) that are inherent to mobile phones. A natural fit, huh? Just look what Mobitween and their users have come up with! And I don’t even get started on Atom/Shockwave (read an interview here) and all the others out there…

Is it then that we only need to wait until Flash Lite (finally) reaches the mass market? On the web, Flash hurt Sun‘s Java badly. Will the same happen on mobile? Or will Sun be smarter this time, and make sure that its currently dominant position will be reinforced by making it easier for developers to publish on their platform? The jury is out…

Games 2.0: UGG (or user-generated games)

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On 04/09/2007

In Games, Social

The wonderful guys from French Flash specialists Mobitween launched a user-generated-games portal called ugenGames. Here’s the PR blurb: “The site invites players, developers and designers to create, upload, customise and share web and mobile Flash-based games. It also offers the chance to personalise and share games with others players by embedding them into social websites such as Facebook and MySpace or blogs like Blogger and WordPress.”

Mobitween’s CEO, Philippe Chassany, reckons that this approach “bridges the gap between web and mobile game developers and players allowing them to create, customise, embed and share an endless library of games”.

The concept is intriguing: basic casual game engines that can – because all done in Flash – be easily customized even by amateurs. Moreover: as the creator can adapt screen sizes, you can also choose to have it output in Flash Lite flavour – suitable for higher-end mobile phones! It is a rather sweet accompaniment to the 2.0 revolution.

However, will Flash Lite become J2ME’s nemesis and revolutionize mobile gaming? Probably not just yet but the potential would certainly appear to be there: with over 200m enabled devices it is no match to the other technologies around but it is reaching a size where development for it might make a lot of sense: it is faster and cheaper than J2ME or BREW (last but not least because the porting nightmare falls away due to the vector-graphics approach used by Flash). Given that the limitations of input via mobile handsets limit the complexity of game play anyhow, the inherent limitations of Flash might not actually be too much of an impediment. Interesting…

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