2010 Will Be Remembered As The Year of...

The results of my latest poll are in... and considering that 2 of the most popular responses show that readers believe that 2010 will be remembered as a year of "pain" and "consolidation" it's pretty clear, despite consumer smartphone exuberance, the general mood amongst those that provide content for those devices is pretty negative. I must say that this echoes the majority of sentiment (with several notable exceptions) that I heard from mobile games publishers at GDC this last week. Competition is intense, iPhone growth is not offsetting carrier declines, price erosion continues on iTunes and no other smartphone platforms are close to providing meaningful revenues yet. Basically we're going through the mobile equivalent of a console upgrade cycle... where consumers (particularly those with a propensity to buy mobile content) are rapidly moving to sexier hardware. The problem is that the content distribution channels are developing unevenly, with business models that don't necessarily play to the advantage of incumbent players. No doubt the landscape of top performing companies in mobile entertainment will look quite different a year from now than it does today.

Digital Chocolate Set To Announce Groundbreaking Virtual Goods Platform?

D'Choc CEO Trip Hawkins is delivering the keynote to kickoff Engage! Expo in San Jose next week entitled "A New Approach To Virtual Goods." Organizers promise he will "announce and explain a new game service that gives a virtual item 'platform power' across a variety of games, networks and devices." I'm eager to hear the full details... anyone out there going to this conference?

The idea that one could purchase a virtual item (a weapon or an outfit for your avatar) within one game and use it in a host of other games would be unique in mobile and ostensibly compelling for Hawkins' "omni" gamers (casual, social, time constrained) that he believes dominate the mobile games market. Based on the success with this form of monetization on mobile in certain Asian markets, particularly South Korea (enuring to the benefit of publishers like Gamevil), the financial opportunity of such a platform could be substantial. There's been a lot of industry buzz about this in the Europe/Americas... and microtransactions for virtual goods within Apps was one of the most highly touted features of iPhone OS 3.0... but I still haven't seen any groundbreaking implementations outside of Asia. Perhaps that's about to change.