Less than a week after introducing a new suite of messaging services targeted in part to teen users, Sprint PCS introduced a new package of wireless Internet-based games to its Wireless Web service.
The move is targeted at capitalizing on two wireless trends-increasing teen usage and the ramp-up of entertainment content for wireless Internet services. Games have proven a popular wireless medium in Scandinavian countries as well as Japan.
“Teenagers around the world have led the meteoric adoption of wireless products and services,” said Chip Novick, vice president of consumer marketing at Sprint PCS. “Sprint PCS recognizes this potential for customer penetration and retention in the teen market and as a result, we’ve designed a suite of real-time, real quick and real cool services.”
The carrier added a new “Games” folder to its home page deck containing links to 27 multi-player and solo games from some 7 different content partners. They include Boxerjam, FunCaster.com, Froghop Inc., indiqu, Jamdat Mobile, MysteryNet and nGame Ltd.
In addition, Sprint introduced a new price plan designed specifically for younger users and their parents called Wireless Allowance. The plan is sort of a prepaid offering controlled by parents, who can set up a $35 a month account for their children, allowing them to use Sprint PCS services at a flat rate until the $35 is used up. More minutes may be added using the Sprint PCS Payment Card, so parents can control usage and avoid surprise account balances.
But the big news is the games feature. The games folder separates game types into categories such as mind games, adventure/combat, word games and casino games. Some are solo games while others are multi-player interactive games.
Games include AlienFish Exchange, Blackjack, Bombs, Chopstix, Code Breaker, Concentration, Crash, Get-a-Clue!, DataClash, Dr. Popko, Gladiator, Honeymoon, Investment Challenge, Knockout, Masterkey, Merchant Princes, Pigskin, Poker, RJ Trivia, Safari, Slots, Tic-Tac-Toe, Video Poker, Word Rope and Worm.
AlienFish Exchange from nGame is an especially popular game overseas. Players catch, buy or trade different kinds of strange fish characters-such as Zen Philosofish, Drummen Bass and Support Grouper-and guess what their opponents are going to do with their stock of fish. Aside from acquisition, players must manage the fish in their tanks. Players must feed their fish, encourage them to breed and mutate, freeze those they can’t feed for later thawing, and trade for new ones. Sometimes, a player’s fish will eat others in his own school stock, or an opponent’s fish may try to eat other players.
Players win by either generating the most amount of money from selling their fish or by collecting every different type of fish at one time in their tank. In the United Kingdom, kids have been known to spend up to six hours a day playing AlienFish Exchange. AT&T Wireless Services PocketNet also offers the game.
Like any other service on Sprint PCS’ Wireless Web, users will be charged on the basis of how long they’re connected to the network.
More than just a fun and interesting service offering, Alan Reiter, founder of Wireless Internet and Mobile Computing, said games like AlienFish Exchange and others could help revolutionize the way people view their mobile phones.
Games help users to see their phone as something for things other than mere phone calls, he said. Once a user’s mind is opened to all the other possibilities of the wireless Internet, it paves the way for other applications to be used as well.
“People are looking at these devices as more than just a phone,” Reiter said. “Phones are going to be fun and they’re going to be personal.”
Games also represent new revenue streams for carriers, such as flat-rate pricing, ad-based games, pay-per-session games and tie-in merchandising, Reiter said. The more sophisticated the game, the more likely these new layers of revenue become.
In addition, games target the younger generation of wireless users, who are more impressionable and more open to seeing wireless devices in a new light. Wireless Internet business applications are all well and good, but older wireless users are more difficult to educate on new data uses, analysts said. Worldwide, it has been the younger generation that has adopted these new services first.
Jeff Hallock, director of consumer marketing at Sprint PCS, pointed out that Microsoft Corp. includes Solitaire in all versions of Windows so users could practice their click and drag skills-a fun way of teaching users the capabilities of the software. Wireless games have the same potential.
“It’s an entertaining way to educate consumers on what they can do on the wireless Web,” he said.
