Anders Evju Joins PlayPhone To Head New Social Gaming Initiative

Destination & white-label mobile content shop purveyor, PlayPhone, announced this morning that industry veteran, and all-around great guy, Anders Evju has joined the company to lead its new mobile social gaming platform initiative. Evju is now SVP & General Manager of the PlayPhone Social business unit, which is charged with creating new mobile gaming communities, across mobile operating systems, leveraging the power of gamers' social graphs. PlayPhone Social will allow users to play multi-player games, post scores to leader-boards and earn virtual credit rewards for inviting their Facebook, Twitter, et al friends to join the fun. The platform SDK will give developers the ability to monetize applications using micro-transactions and subscription features. It will also integrate with leading ad networks, and support multiple payment methods, including Premium SMS, Credit Cards and PayPal.

Evju joins PlayPhone after a long, distinguished career with I-play & Oberon Media. He had been at I-play (known then as Digital Bridges) since 2000, where he served as general manager of the Americas. He played a critical role in that company's substantial growth during the middle part of the decade, by fostering powerful relationships with all the major US operators. From personal experience I know that much of the blockbuster success of The Fast & The Furious mobile games franchise, which realized over 15mil paid downloads prior to the iPhone era, was the result of his adept stewardship of the property in the US market. Soon after I-play's sale to Oberon Media in 2007, Evju took over management of that company's global online games operations.

Good thing for PlayPhone that they've got a solid guy in place, because this initiative will not be without its challenges. There are more than a handful of social gaming SDKs currently vying for developers' attentions, including publisher fielded offerings like ngmoco's Plus+, Chillingo's Crystal and AuroraFeint's OpenFeint as well as standalone products like Scoreloop. In addition, for many developers the social features provided by distribution channels, like Apple's Game Center, may be enough... granted those offerings don't work across operating systems. That said, I wish Anders & PlayPhone the very best of luck and look forward to seeing them do some disruptive stuff that will set them apart in this market space.

Social Mobile Madness?: DeNA ngmoco Rumor

Yesterday's TechCrunch story about Japanese social mobile gaming powerhouse DeNA making a play for San Francisco smartphone games shop ngmoco, for over 400 milly (!), sent the buzzometer through the roof amongst mobile content peeps at XYZ & the Redwood Room (oh, I mean CTIA). Some were adamant that the deal was done, some were more skeptical, some were hoping the story would goose their stock price (it didn't). If this is true, the valuation is beyond super-frothy! My estimate is that ngmoco probably has revenue of around $10mil & net of around $2mil (maybe), which means DeNA would be paying more than 200x earnings. Why?... this would be like EA/Jamdat all over again. Who's advising these guys?... 'cause I definitely want some of whatever they're smoking & I think I'd be entitled to a few million yen for saving them a fortune with my secret insider brain knowledge that they could buy Glu Mobile (market cap $43mil), Digital Chocolate & the social platform of their choice for a fraction of that price. Oops!... well I guess they can send me one of those bean cake jelly gift boxes as a token of their appreciation.

I'm at CTIA in San Francisco Weds Oct 6th & Thurs Oct 7th...

...see you there!?! I'll recap my thoughts when I return... meanwhile make sure to follow my brain farts on Twitter (http://twitter.com/jeremylaws)

There's Nowt So QR as Folk

Motricity Closing Stock Price Since IPO

Motricity's stock has really sailed in the last couple of weeks following positive analyst recommendations from Deutsche Bank, RBC Capital Markets & most recently JP Morgan, which gave it an overweight rating & a $19 price target on bullish growth prospects for the the company's international business, particularly in Southeast Asia. As a result of the recent run-up, Motricity now has a market cap of $522mil and the 2nd highest enterprise value on my list of public mobile entertainment ecosystem companies... blowing past Gameloft to sit (well) below Japan's DeNA. Let's see if they can keep it value up through Q3 earnings season.

PocketGamer.biz: 10 Mobile Gaming Trends Sept 2010

Updated: Name That Claim!

On the heels of the massive popularity of the "Name That Balance Sheet!" game a couple of weeks ago, it's time to play everyone's other favorite game, "Name That Claim!" Be the first to correctly identify the mobile entertainment company associated with the claims on the website screen grab above and, if you happen to be at the Redwood Room in SF on the nights of Oct 6th or 7th, 2010 while I'm at that venue, you'll be entitled to one (1) overpriced Vodka Redbull and a few minutes of my blether. No rainchecks, no cash value, no substitutions. Answer must be submitted in comments below before 6PM Pacific Time today (Sept 27, 2010).

Top 5 Paid Game Downloads for iOS as of Sept 2010

As usual, please let me know if I've missed any titles here or if I don't have the most updated figures... obviously these numbers are pretty dynamic and I've noticed that these self-reported downloads don't always get picked up by outlets in a timely manner. I'd be interested to see numbers (broken out for iOS) for titles like Monopoly and Tetris, which I imagine could be in league with these guys. If I can collect enough additional data, I'll re-do this as a Top 10 list. Please note that these are straightforward Paid App downloads and do not take into account freemium, or paid with upsell models, which in the case of franchises like Tap Tap from Tapulous can be significant... allegedly yielding up to $1mil a month at the end of last year.

BTW - do you guys think this means that the most any publisher has ever made from any one title in the App Store, using the paid app model, is $8.4mil ($2.99 x 4mil x 70%)?

US & Japanese Mobile Activity Compared

This represents a comparison of comScore's MobiLens data for the US market released September 15, 2010 and data for the Japanese market released September 22, 2010. The areas of major difference in behavior are 1) text messaging, which is a relatively recent phenomenon in Japan, where e-mail is the preferred form of mobile-to-mobile communication (54% usage); and 2) browser usage, which has been popular in Japan for over a decade and for a long time was more widely used than the online internet (it may still be). In terms of app usage, the gap is closing very quickly and I suspect we'll see parity sometime next year. One stat from the Japanese market, that's interesting (and not on this spreadsheet, because I don't have an apples to apples comparison) is mobile video consumption. Apparently 22% of Japanese mobile users watched TV and/or video on their mobile phones... which has to be substantially higher than in the US, where I believe usage is under 10% (a little help?).

Top 25 Game Titles In Nokia's US Ovi Store

It's been a year since my last, somewhat snarky, look at the top paid game titles in the US version of Ovi Store. Clearly, during that time Nokia has been able to attract a more robust line-up of publishers to their platform. From what I can tell Gameloft, EA Mobile & Digital Chocolate are now each fielding about 40 paid titles on the service. Meanwhile, Glu Mobile & I-play each have about half that many, with the latter company seeing particularly strong performance in the US Top 25... perhaps a factor of their AppStore-esque pricing strategy. On that note, as we've seen across the spectrum in mobile gaming, price erosion is in full effect... with the average price of the Top 25 having dropped 33% from $4.03 to $2.71 in the last year. I must say, I was happy to see some lingering randomness from publishers I've never heard of, but by virtue of there being less of it, and in light of the myriad head-scratchers that pollute Android Market, this aspect of Ovi is much less amusing than it was a year ago.

Though Nokia recently touted that they're doing 2mil downloads a day through the Ovi stores worldwide, I feel pretty confident that;

1. very little of that activity is coming from the US market (I wouldn't fall down if I learned the Ukraine represented more downloads);
2. most of those downloads are free games (as is true across all smartphone app stores);
3. considering that no publishers are bragging publicly or privately about Ovi revenues, numbers are still small relative to other channels.

That said, with new talent at the helm at Nokia (and Ovi), more carrier billing integration and a slew of new games friendly devices on the horizon, we'll all be hearing about some boffo results everywhere, including the US, by September 2011... right?

btw - I put this data together on the web store, prior to selecting a handset... that way I figured I'd get the best result across devices.

Mo'gossip: Casio G'zOne Rock... Hideous Love Child of G-shock & Pontiac Aztek?

Gartner Mobile OS Market Share Forecast Through 2014

Click here to read Gartner's release associated with this table.

Name That Balance Sheet!

It's time to play everyone's favorite game... "Name That Balance Sheet!" Click on the image above, identify the mobile company associated with this balance sheet recently filed with the SEC, and submit your answer as a comment to this post. If you answer correctly by 6pm PDT Friday September 10, 2010 you'll be entered for a chance to win a supermarket sushi lunch with me at the Ralphs of your choice in Glendale, CA (or something nicer if you're paying), at my convenience, sometime in the next 6 months. Travel and accommodations are not included... and no, you can't get the party platter (maximum retail value is $8.99). If history is an indicator, very few will enter, probably no one will win.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab Looks Kinda Badass

• Android 2.2
• Video calling
• Google Maps Navigation embedded
• Flash Player 10.1
• and you can hold it in one hand

...take that iPad

Gameloft: Revenue & Net For The Last 2 Halves

Gameloft released its financial results for the first half of 2010, after teasing topline sales late last month. The points that caught my eye were...

1. Profitability seems to be ramping nicely, which isn't typical in the space
2. The company now sits on a stash of $33mil in cash
3. Emphasis on Java/BREW marketshare the company is gaining as competitors exit that space

All of which make me wonder what how much of Gameloft profitability is being generated from non-smartphone channels.

Ain't Price Erosion A Bitch?

Angry Birds is the current reigning champion of iOS Paid Apps. The simple, addictive game from Chillingo & Rovio has sold over 6.5mil copies in 8 months. This eclipses former App Store phenoms like Lima Sky's Doodle Jump, which hit 5mil in June, the Tap Tap franchise from Disney's Tapulous, that was allegedly pulling down between $500k and $1mil a month in late 2009, and Firemint's Flight Control, which realized 2mil downloads within 11 months of launch. No doubt, all amazing feats from great, small companies. Moreover, the impact these companies have had in terms of introducing mobile gaming (and apps in general) to a broad audience, and in perpetuating the cult of iPhone, cannot be overstated. Unfortunately, the economics of the very ecosystem they edify are conspiring to keep them small.

As PocketGamer reported yesterday, the average price of an iPhone game is now $1.24. We can all see that the Top Paid Apps chart is now dominated by 99¢ titles. Increasingly user reviews bash titles that are priced any higher, and perhaps to appease these consumers, publishers now run frequent, often endless price promotions. Let's face it, 99¢ is the price the user community has come to expect for most games. Apple, of course, fosters this scenario, as part of their reverse razorblade model in which they provide budget priced entertainment for their premium priced hardware.

Ironically, back in the much maligned carrier deck era, the economics were actually better for top-tier games. Circa 2006/2007 the average blended global wholesale price (after carrier) for a triple-A Java/BREW title, including monthly re-ups, was about $2.25. That's more than 3X the 70¢ Chillingo, Lima Sky et al are seeing from each of their downloads post Apple. And it's not like hit games weren't doing boffo download numbers back then... in fact less competition, recurring subscriptions (in the US) and some politics conspired to create mega-blockbusters on a scale (considering the addressable user base) we may never see again. Of course, the all time king is Tetris, which has allegedly been sold over 100mil times in its various mobile incarnations... yielding at least $200mil for EA Mobile and its predecessor companies. On the lower end of the Java-era hit spectrum was the Fast & Furious franchise, which I-play openly claimed had sold 13 million units by the dawn of the iPhone era... which meant something like $30mil for the publisher if my math is correct. Then there are franchises like Namco's Pac-Man and PopCap's Bejeweled that sat between these two... closer to the Tetris end. At today's App Store prices, Chillingo would have to sell 40mil copies of Angry Birds to be in the league with these Java/BREW era revenue stars, and over 300mil to be the new Tetris. Even considering the the cost savings afforded by slicker development environments and not having to port, I'm confident that today's hit titles are far less profitable than those of the pre-iPhone era.

So, the consequence of current smartphone platforms being more democratic, and their owners being price agnostic, is that publishers not only have a significantly more difficult time manufacturing hits (in the fog of 10s of thousands of titles), but thanks to price erosion, those hits are less meaningful to their bottom lines. These dynamics, along with the added complexity of the freemium model, will further escalate a frenzied state of competition without price differentiation amongst publishers... virtually ensuring that none will amass enough wealth to aggressively scale their businesses, and that many will be forced to exit altogether. Meanwhile, it's better news for consumers, who continue to get more for less, and the hardware and network guys, who are laughing all the way to the bank.

The Beginning of Think Different

Thanks to Pekka Parnanen for pointing me to this great video from the beginning of Steve Jobs' reinvention of Apple, soon after regaining control in 1997. I'm not an Apple fanboy (and don't use an iPhone), but I have no end of respect for this company, its products and its market savvy... and I think most of it is attributable to the singular vision of Mr. Jobs. I would go on to propose that Apple has emerged as the most important force in terms "consumerizing" the mobile entertainment products many of us worked on, in relative obscurity, for years (I expect some arguments) and that the mobile revolution they've spawned is a corollary of Think Different. BTW - the ad Jobs introduces in this video still gives me goosebumps.

Top 10 Mobile Games Publishers WW August 2010

All numbers are for the most recent 4 quarters for which I have data, at today's exchange rates.

In terms of non-public, guesstimated data, I've moved Chillingo onto this list... due to their boffo performance in the AppStore (see related post)... I'll move them up or down based on community feedback. I've also let Namco slip a bit as the PacMan franchise seems to cooling a bit in the new retail channels. I still have D'Choc hanging on by a thread. Granted, they've rolled a lot of iOS titles, but none appear to be rockstars and their new emphasis on Facebook games is a bit of a tell, right? Do you guys think ngmoco should be on this list? Please, please let me know your thoughts.

Battle For So.Korea: GAMEVIL vs Com2uS Q2 2010

Enterprise Values of 22 Public Mobile Entertainment Companies Aug 2010