Mobile gaming still alive: Hype around iPhone bolstering market

SAN FRANCISCO — Barry Cottle is pimping his ride with eye-catching rims, fancy hood art and those cool hydraulic things that can bounce a car like a basketball at red lights. And he’s doing it all with one finger.
The SVP and GM of EA Mobile is showcasing the Apple Inc. 3G iPhone version of “Need for Speed Undercover,” a slick racing game slated for release later this year. The game is one of several high-profile titles coming to the gadget in the next few months from EA, which for now, at least, continues to dominate the gamespace.
EA made news earlier this week when it released an iPhone version of “Spore,” one of the most highly anticipated offerings in video-game history. “Spore Origins” serves as a kind of “mobilized” variant of its namesake, a console game released last week and developed by Will Wright, creator of several blockbuster simulations including “SimCity” and “The Sims.”
The release of “Spore Origins” marked the beginning of a surprisingly busy week on the mobile gaming front at this fall’s I.T. show. Verizon Wireless continued its relentless assault of press releases, trumpeting a host of new offerings from nine publishers including Gameloft, a European outfit that appears to be nipping at EA’s heels on the mobile front. The activity created some buzz in a space that has languished for the better part of two years but is seeing renewed interest – thanks largely to multimedia friendly devices and the rise of online storefronts as distribution channels for mobile applications.”Games are the No. 1 entertainment industry worldwide; people just need to know where they are,” Cottle said, noting Spore’s nearly instantaneous success through Apple’s App Store. “Within minutes, it was a top seller.. If you create a great game, and if you allow for great discovery, people will buy it.”
Indeed, knockout graphics and high-powered processors have never been the problem in mobile gaming – a lack of innovation and cumbersome discovery processes have. The new application stores not only provide a highly visible alternative to the dubious concept of drilling down through carrier decks, they allow developers to bring their offerings directly to consumers and tweak their applications to conform to the market. And while the App Store is making headlines today, several newcomers are expected to come online including Google Inc.’s Android Marketplace, Microsoft Corp.’s Skymarket and a rumored similar offering from T-Mobile USA Inc.
Other publishers are changing the game too. Digital Chocolate, the Silicon Valley startup launched by EA founder Trip Hawkins, is making headway with community-based games by using new distribution channels such as Facebook and other online communities. Greystripe, a pioneer among ad-subsidized game publishers, this inked announced a partnership with NBC Universal to distribute more than 900 free games through NBC’s mobile and Web properties. The news is the latest in a series of wins for Greystripe, which continues to expand its portfolio and distribution channels even as it draws scorn from the few established publishers firmly positioned atop the industry.
“This partnership is a huge opportunity for us, as NBC Universal is an amazing, reputable brand,” Greystripe CEO said of the deal. “NBC understands mobile and sees the huge potential in the ad-supported model.”
And there were several other announcements: Seattle-based publishers Mobliss Inc. (which cashed in on the “American Idol” voting in the early days of text-messaging in the United States) and Reaxion Corp. merged, rebranding as PressOK Entertainment, and Mpowerplayer, a San Francisco-based startup that delivers demos of mobile games, pocketed $2.5 million in a Series A round.
So the long-suffering mobile gaming space is finding stickiness with at least some of the stuff it continues to throw at the wall. But it’s Apple – with the iPhone and its popular online storefront – that is driving much of the hype this time around. And this time, it seems, some of that hype is warranted.