Coattail surfing

Via Clickz, good news for mobile gaming. In the world of mobile games, download games are more popular (53%) vs. that of games already built into the phone (39%). A small percentage (8%) of games played were web-based. These figures are indicative of the growing mobile games market but that's not really the most "interesting" bit from this story. But let's give 100 Points to mobile games.

When consumers were asked what factors they considered in the purchase of the game, the top three were price, trial and familiarity (hit the chart for actual figures). This last factor means that consumers purchased because the game was a spin-off from another platform (console or PC most likely). In other words, they purchased because of brand recognition.

What interests me about this insight is what it says about mobile games. It's not breaking new ground in terms of content but rather is riding the coattails of general gaming. Oops -100 Points. This got me thinking, can we expect innovative content on this platform or will it forever be reduced to just a micro-version of something else? If anything, the relative low cost to produce for this medium should make it an exceptional testing ground for indy-like content. Frankly, I'm a little depressed by it all.

By the way, if you recall an earlier post, 59% of mobile game players are women. Therefore, I blame women for ruining this emerging medium. 0 Points. ::ducks and runs::