30 July 2008

Develop 08:
Nokia's View On Games and Consoles
Glu On Marketing

There's a fair bit of news to come out of the Develop 08 conference on mobile games, and the talks and panels are discussed below.

Aki Jarvilehto, Global Head of Business Development and Innovation for Nokia, gave the keynote - which was largely a take on how Nokia views the mobile game industry.

He talked up the new technology which Nokia will be pushing, including cross-platform capability, touch-screens, accelerometers and so on, and said the biggest potential for mainstream innovation was from GPS reports DevelopMag.

Other trends he sees are a change towards "valuing better production values in games" and more opportunities for developers to self-publish their games.

He also described the six segments Nokia breaks gamers into: "Core Gamer ('playing is part of my identity and I want to play and compete with others'), Web 2.0 ('I want games which let me interact and communicate with my friends and other people'), personal development ('I would play games that make me a better person'), casual gamer ('I want to be entertained while I have a break or nothing else to do'), feminine games ('I want to be entertained on my own terms) local content ('I want to play games which resonate with my cultural background and are familiar to me')."

Glu Mobile's Marketing Director - EMEA Patrick Mork ran through the results of some focus groups about who plays games and where, saying that when people were waiting for public transport was the best time to get them to play your games reports PocketGamer. He also spoke about marketing, and gives a very clear indication of what benefit developers see in licensing IP.

"Mork gave some specifics on how Glu markets its mobile games. The first is licensor co-marketing - "you have to take advantage of all the resources they have at their disposal". So tagging on leaflets inside console games, running joint promotions, and bagging 'money can't buy' prizes...Next is third-party marketing, with handset makers, consumer goods firms and even fast food chains. It obviously helps if you're making, say, a game based on the new Batman movie...

Third comes carrier marketing, running promos with the operators, getting demos embedded on handsets, and traditional above the line marketing." And finally, almost as a last resort, Glu does its own marketing. The message is clear—the more you can get other parties in the value chain to help market your game (usually in a way that doesn't cost them much) the more bang for your own buck. Getting deals with handset manufacturers is particularly lucrative: "Glu has found conversion rates of between eight and 30 per cent from preloading demos on handsets." Lots more after the jump…