Juniper Research has just released a white paper (PDF) on future trends and market opportunities in mobile gaming.
The casual games sector is going to be the market driver, even though it may not be at the leading edge of mobile games technology. Casual games make most use of the inherent advantages of the mobile platform. People want to fill ‘dead time’ with easy to use, but fun games. This is the same in just about every culture.
This is hardly news. Casual games, content and entertainment are ideal to fill those ‘in-between-moments’ you spend with your devices. Dave Gosen, CEO of I-Play calls it “snacking“
“mobile gaming is a snack, console gaming is a 3-course meal. They are a different user experienceâ€.
At Vidfest last week, I overheard Pierre-Paul Trepanier, Director of Marketing for Nintendo Canada explain that with Brain Age, they’re starting to see a shift in game and device buying patterns. While it’s impossible to tell the age group that’s actually purchasing the game (is it gift? personal purchase? etc.) what they have been able to track is the overall contents of purchases.
So far, they’ve found that most people seem to be buying Brain Age along with a Nintendo DS—which would indicate that some of them are maybe not already gamers. Or at the very least, are new to the DS (or possibly—handheld gaming) market.
A Cingular webcast I sat in on yesterday listed the top 5 casual game genres as
- Arcade/Puzzle (32.1%),
- Casino (20.7%), Card (19.1%),
- Retro Arcade (14.2%), and
- Strategy (12.2%.)
(Top 5 Mobile Game Genres by Country: % of Average Monthly Downloaders, quarter ended Jan 2006, via Cingular “Introduction to Downloadables”)
This is all well and good and certainly would indicate that the casual game market will grow; but I think the term ‘casual game’ may be a bit narrow.
Let’s forget games for a moment and talk about play.
Think back to your typical ‘break-time’ at school, as a child. Twenty kids scattered around the room. Some are alone—reading, building stuff, sorting stuff, examining stuff, breaking stuff, staring out the window, contemplating the pattern in the weave of the carpet. All good stuff.
Others are in small groups—maybe 2-4 kids—doing very much the same thing—just together in some way. Even there, differences emerge. Some participants are passive. Others prefer to lead the interaction or instruct others.
Then you have the kids who roam or browse around the room. Call it low attention span or call it curiosity. (Does it really matter?)
Now look around the office during break time. Are adults really that different? And do our current casual ‘games’ offer something for all these different types of ‘users?’ (nasty impersonal word btw…must stop using it…)
Do current mobile games allow for quiet time, playful time, competitive time, learning time, contemplative time, silly time..?
We have a unique opportunity with mobile devices in that they can be insanely personal and private while being incredibly social and contextual (presence, location etc.) They can offer small moments of quiet play or learning—no peers, no pressure—or small moments of highly networked interaction and competition. Not to mention hybrids of the two.
I think we’re currently just scratching the surface.
Photo credits:
‘old pic| traffic’ by miss_pupik on Flickr, licensed Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
‘Karen plays as Luigi’ by drag on Flickr, licensed Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
11 responses so far ↓
1 Carnival of the Mobilists 33 at m-trends.org // Jun 22, 2006 at 11:09 pm
[...] Stefanie Rieger gives us her insights on mobile games in Casual Mobile Snacks For Everyone: “Do current mobile games allow for quiet time, playful time, competitive time, learning time, contemplative time, silly time? We have a unique opportunity with mobile devices in that they can be insanely personal and private while being incredibly social and contextual (presence, location etc.) They can offer small moments of quiet play or learning—no peers, no pressure—or small moments of highly networked interaction and competition. Not to mention hybrids of the two.” Refreshing blog, and my favourite post of this week! Do check also her selection of June’s Best Industry Podcasts. Excellent choice if you ask me. [...]
2 Pick the Best Post For June at Carnival of the Mobilists // Jun 30, 2006 at 9:39 am
[...] June 23: Rudy de Waele at m-trends.org nominated Stephanie Rieger’s post on “Casual mobile snacks for everyone” [...]
3 Carnival Of The Mobilists 34 at Wireless World Forum at m-trends.org // Jun 30, 2006 at 10:36 am
[...] My post of the week in last weeks’ Carnival went to Stephanie Rieger’s post on “Casual mobile snacks for everyoneâ€. Carnival Of The Mobilists, carnivalofthemobilists, m trends.org, mtrends, W2F, w2forum, wireless world forum, wirelessworldforumSocial BookmarkingThese icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
4 S60 Multimedia Blog // Jul 19, 2006 at 2:59 pm
MobileMonday Boston: Yiibu and mobile snacks…
I’m Oren Levine; I’m based in Boston, and work in the same S60 Multimedia team as Jukka. Since Jukka is away for the Finnish summer holidays, I took the opportunity to contribute a guest post (or two) to the……
5 everypoint // Jul 20, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Keitai / Casual Mobile Snacks for Everyone…
Everyone seems enamored with ‘casual games’ — and there are some indications that Nintendo’s new Brain Age (which includes Soduko amungst other brain-teasing puzzles) is attracting a very different set of buying for their DS. But Stephanie from Yii…
6 Carnival of the Mobilists # 38 at MobHappy // Jul 31, 2006 at 12:01 pm
[...] Congrats to Rudy and Stephanie for winning host and post of the month in the awards sponsored by Khosla Ventures for June. [...]
7 Carnival Of The Mobilists 38 at Smart Mobs at m-trends.org // Jul 31, 2006 at 3:42 pm
[...] I am pleased to receive the very first $500 “Host of the Month” award, sponsored by Khosla Ventures for my hosting of the Carnival of the Mobilist 33 here at m-trends.org in June. I am also pleased to see that the $250 “Post of the Month” award went to Stephanie Rieger with her post on “Casual mobile snacks for everyoneâ€, my selected post of the week from the same nr. 33 edition. [...]
8 Keitai / Carnival #38 and Post of the Month :-) // Jul 31, 2006 at 5:33 pm
[...] Another week, another Carnival. Don’t miss this installment of the Carnival of the Mobilists (#38), hosted by Judy Breck at SmartMobs. The Carnival has also announced the winner of last month’s ‘Post of the Month’ and ‘Host of the Month.’ Congratulations to Rudy who wins host of the month. And it seems, I beat out C. Enrique Ortiz’ ‘Mobile Perimiter‘ post (by a hair) to win the June post of the month with “Casual Mobile Snacks for Everyone“. Many thanks to everyone who voted and to Khosla Ventures for sponsoring the competition. [...]
9 Carnival of the Mobilists # 38 at Carnival of the Mobilists // Aug 1, 2006 at 10:59 am
[...] Congrats to Rudy and Stephanie for winning host and post of the month in the awards sponsored by Khosla Ventures for June. [...]
10 Carnival of the Mobilists - Khosla Post of the Year! at MobHappy // Feb 9, 2007 at 6:50 pm
[...] off, we have Stephanie Rieger’s Casual Mobile Snacks for Everyone. Stephanie takes a look at mobile gaming and not only finds the future promising, but thinks that [...]
11 mopocket » Blog Archive » Vote For MOpockets Carnival Of The Mobilists Best Post Of The Year // Feb 12, 2007 at 11:05 am
[...] * Arjan Olsder at Mobile Gaming Blog - The Big ‘07 Forecast * Dennis at Wap Review on 2006 - The Mobile Web Grows Up * Rudy de Waele at m-trends.org - Nokia N91 Kills the iPod * Xen Mendelsohn at Xellular Identity - Youth Mobile Trends Summary * Keith McMahon at TeleBusillis - Qualcomm: An Empire Under Siege * Pondering Primate - We Interrupt This Broadcast… * Michael Mace at Mobile Opportunity - We need a new mobile platform. Sort of. * Justin Oberman at Mopocket - Coltan and Your Mobile * Ajit Jaokar at Open Gardens - The Mobile Web Phone: A gedankenexperiment .. * and Stephanie Reiger Casual Mobile Snacks for Everyone [...]
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