How Playyoo Could Change the Mobile Games Business

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by Alexander Smith, mobile gaming enthusiast

In the multi-billion dollar videogame industry, mobile phone games are rather misunderstood. They’re unlike the regular boxed products where people walk into a store and take the game off the shelf—mobile games have distribution through telecom channels—yet that hasn’t kept mobile games from becoming a billion dollar industry in their own right.

Electronic Arts, the world’s largest games publisher, was so convinced by the necessity of mobile that, in 2006, they purchased Jamdat (now EA Mobile) for some $680 million. French rival Ubisoft started their own mobile division—called Gameloft—in 1999, and it will post a projected $130m in consolidated revenues this year.

But a new start-up based in London, England could upset the apple-cart. This week saw the announcement of what is tantamount to a new platform—a new way to get games on your phone. And development for the platform begins now, whilst the public can start to use it in December.

“…what is tantamountto a new platform…”

Internally speaking, the company is focused on what chief executive Chris Pelly refers to as “The enormous success of user-generated content and social networking sites [which] reflects the universal needs of self-expression and identifying with others.”

And there’s a strong case for that. Personalised recommendations for users, game creation tools so that anyone can make a game in a few minutes, rich social networking… The business world of today understands the power of MySpace and YouTube. And to jumpstart this new community, Playyoo is offering $40,000 in prize money for the most successful user created titles.

But what just might put Playyoo’s new platform on the map are free games for mobile users. Most cell phone users are hesitant to rack up charges to their monthly bills—particularly when it’s a company-issued device. Without that costly barrier to entry, cell phone owners everywhere are far more likely to give games a whirl.

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