Opinion: Getting mobile games for free is a hard offer to refuse

On leaving the underground station near Pocket Gamer's West London headquarters, you run a gauntlet of three local newspaper distributors.

One is the old familiar Evening Standard vendor, albeit it with a look of unease in his eyes these days. While he hawks his newspapers with the word 'Standard' mangled into incomprehensibility by decades of overuse, the fresh-faced distributors of the London Lite and The London Paper barge amongst each other, imploringly thrusting free papers at passers-by like horribly confused beggars. It costs nothing to take their wares, but that doesn't mean everyone does.

Welcome, again, to the 'Free' economy, where all the money is in advertising and the name of the game is to get sufficient eyeballs to charge a premium rate for those ads. Free is being touted as the new business model for everything from newspapers to mobile TV right now. No surprise that mobile games, notoriously hard to sell to us fickle gamers, are also getting a would-be-free makeover.

We covered the launch of GameJump late last year, and a week or two ago reviewed the services of another newbie, Hovr. Both do what they claim to – give you free games, albeit it freebies of varying quality. Neither yet offers a consistent line-up of the best titles that mobile gaming can offer, however.

In light of this inconclusive survey, is the much-respected GDC Mobile founder Robert Tercek right to argue that what he calls the "Golden Age" of selling mobile games is drawing to a close? Opinions differ wildly, even here at Pocket Gamer. Our mobile specialists think the idea of swapping the likes of Stranded or Tornado Mania for free Breakout rip-offs is a joke, and so they argue that publishers will always be able to charge a premium price for better games.

That ignores the fact that publishers could well prefer to put their better games into free distribution if they believe they'll make more – or more consistent – money by doing so.

The other problem with the 'hardcore mobile gamers will pay' model is that the industry has been so slow to nurture such a fanbase. It's evident that most traditional gamers still don't really rate mobile games, rightly or wrongly. Indeed, surveys have shown that most mobile games consumers tend to casually buy two or three new games when they want something to show off their new handset. Why wouldn't they just get one free instead?

Because they might not know free channels exist – that's one obvious answer. But if the mobile games industry wants more reasons to believe gamers will pay up, it needs to spend more time, effort and money cultivating those of us who do love to play games on our phones, in order to make us feel we're part of an exciting scene with the big launches, eagerly awaited blockbusters and innovative underdogs we're used to in traditional gaming.

Should they opt instead to treat more committed mobile gamers as optional extras, they can't really be surprised if gamers choose to treat premium games the same way.

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