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Hovr launches ad-funded mobile games service

Get games for free, in return for seeing adverts

Hovr launches ad-funded mobile games service
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| Hovr

Hovr has officially launched an advertising-funded mobile games service, following a two-month beta test that saw more than 200,000 free game downloads.

The service already has more than 100 games on offer, and reckons that advertising will help more people to start downloading games to their phones, rather than just playing what's preloaded when they buy them.

"Most people who play games are just playing free demos or the games that are preloaded on their phone," says Hovr president Vipul Sawhney. "And when you ask them what's holding them back from buying new games, one of the biggest reasons is price. Games are out of reach for a large majority of mobile subscribers."

Hovr's solution is advertising-funded games, using its technology to insert ads in the dead space within games, such as loading screens.

The company has signed deals with over 15 developers and publishers, including Kiloo, Ozura and Robotube Games. However, the big names – like EA Mobile, Gameloft and Glu – are conspicuous by their absence.

"We're definitely interested in speaking to the larger players like those companies," says Sawhney. "The situation is that it's still early days for these advertising-supported games, so we're starting off with some of the smaller publishers."

Hovr hasn't announced yet who'll be advertising within the games on its service, although Sawhney says you can assume it'll be media-savvy companies who are keen to reach 12-29 year-olds, plus companies selling other forms of mobile content, such as ringtones and wallpapers.

Sawhney is also keen to stress that its service isn't just about adverts. Hovr also includes social networking profiles, where you set up a profile on the Hovr site, invite your friends to join, and can upload high scores – and be sent an alert when a friend beats your score.

That said, this does filter into the advertising side too. "With all these capabilities, we have a much more targeted impression of who you are, and when you play," reckons Sawhney.

"We can use this to target you in the manner that's most relevant to you. We don't share your personal data with advertisers, but for example an advertiser like a beer company might come to us and say they want to target people who are 21 years or older, and who can buy beer in the US."

One obvious reason why some of the big publishers haven't dived into the ad-funded model may be their fears that giving games away for free with ads will stop people from buying full-price games. It's certainly something we've heard them say at industry conferences. How does Sawhney respond?

"We don't see that at all," he retorts. "People will realise it's not the case. We'll actually be helping the premium downloads, because we'll be getting people who are unaware of mobile gaming to try it on a free level first, but then they'll go on and buy premium games if they have a good experience."

Hovr went officially live today: check the website here. And stand by for a feature later this week, where we'll be testing a selection of the games, to see how they compare to the ones you can pay for elsewhere. (Click 'Track It!' to be reminded via email).

Stuart Dredge
Stuart Dredge
Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)