The mobile gaming world according to Mork
Glu's European marketing director, Patrick Mork, tells it how he sees it
When it comes to the big three mobile games publishers, the ranking goes EA Mobile and Gameloft, then Glu Mobile, which is why we were mighty keen to hear what Glu's European marketing director, Patrick Mork, had to say when speaking on the subject of 'Mobile – Dead or Sleeping?' at the Casual Connect conference in Amsterdam.
There were plenty of positives; expectedly Mork wasn't so keen on the 'dead' or 'sleeping' status.
Instead he highlighted the power of trends such as pop culture – Glu's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire mobile continues to sell incredibly well – as well as brain training. Significantly, Glu managed to get a big non-branded, non-licensed mobile hit with its Brain Genius, a game developed in-house within a number of weeks and released on over 360 handsets.
"It's the Glu game I was most proud of in 2007," Mork said. "It was the only self-owned intellectual property that featured in the UK's mobile top 10 in 2007."
Unsurprisingly, he thinks the genre is now over-saturated and too many 'me-too' games will be released in 2008.
More controversially, Mork also reckons there are plenty of barriers stopping mobile publishers becoming more successful. The option of selling mobile games directly to consumers (i.e. not via the operators' deck) remains difficult, while he claims that alternative business models such as advertising-funded gaming, remains to be proved.
"Where are the advertisers who will pay $30 CPM [cost per 1000]," he said. "Everyone's keen on free trials, but where's the real money?"
However, he considered touchscreen mobile gaming would be a strong positive factor in 2008 – something Glu will support – while the wider distribution and cross-promotion of mobile games via web and console would become more viable.
As for the possibilities of Nokia's relaunched N-Gage, he said Glu was backing the format. It will release World Series Poker Texas Hold'em and is supporting it with free trial demos.
In general, Mork said the platform would improve the discovery of mobile games, although he thought Nokia had launched the service towards an overly hardcore audience, with a particular challenge being the high cost of N-Gage games compared to the average price of mobile games.
