Written by Mark Nelson  on March 22, 2006

Specials: What happens when executives from top cell phone handset, service and game developers get together?

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In the opening salvo of the mobile games portion of the Game Developer's Conference, the key Mobile Operators Spotlight Panel discussed the future of the mobile market. The panel included top executives from Sprint/Nextel, Verizon, Virgin Mobile, and Vodafone. Although these companies are day-to-day competitors, they pretty much agreed on the following subjects.

Surging Number of Games
The first topic of discussion was the increasing numbers of game titles available on mobile carrier portals. Verizon owned up to having the most in the U.S., maxing out at 425 games currently available for download. Even the low-man on the totem pole, Virgin Mobile, disclosed they offered 67 games.

It is estimated that the number of new games being released for cell phones each year dwarf that of PSP, DS and GBA production. Then consider that almost 300 new PSP, DS and GBA games came out last year (and even more are scheduled for release this year). The problem with all this prodigious mobile production is that many new games are shoddy licenses, half-baked button masher, or overly simplistic minigames which are basically a half-step above being a ring tone or wallpaper. All the carriers agreed that developers are spending too much money obtaining big movie licenses, and spending too little on actual game development. This leads to a high degree of consumer dissatisfaction when the high profile license winds up providing less gameplay than its no-name competitors. Not the best way to kickstart a growing a new marketЕ

Increasing Production Values
Although most current generation mobile games don't come close to matching the production values of DS and PSP games, recent advances in handset technology (audio, 3D graphics, network connectivity, screen size) have combined to enable some developers to create an experience approaching that available on the PSP and DS. Witness Tony Hawk from Jamdat/EA. Its 3D graphics rival those of the PS1 version!

But while the carriers would love to have well-implemented ports of known game franchises in addition to well-implemented licensed games, they agreed that the cell phone market needs to cater to the broad mass of casual gamers, rather than just kids and hardcore gamers. This means that rather than simply porting existing console games to cell phones, new concepts will need to be developed. Additionally, the enhanced network connectivity inherent in cell phone devices demands that these new games provide new types of multiplayer functionality.

Pricing
Although mobile games are currently thin on content compared to PSP and DS games, the price points are dramatically lower $2.95 - $9.95 as opposed to $24 - $39. In addition, cell phone games have completely embraced digital distribution technology with MOST cell phone games only being available via Over-the-Air download (cartridge-based N-Gage games are the only notable exception).

But users can expect existing pricing models to change as high speed cellular connectivity (EVDO) and higher device storage capability allows increasingly large game downloads. Carriers and developers alike admit that richer and larger game worlds must command a higher price point.

Consensus
All in attendance were agreed that the next year will be an exciting one for mobile games. A relatively open market, direct-to-consumer distribution, increasing handset capability and improving data transmission speeds will all combine to help the market explode.