Mobile Holiday Cheer 2010 From John Szeder

Twas the night before christmas and all through the net
People were working on their best product yet
It was free to play but cost money for hats
A dime got you shoes, and dresses and cats

Game innovators were constantly moaning
About how they lost their profits to cloning
But if you ran out of energy and were stuck in a pickle
You can reload it to fifty percent for a nickel

The mobile game companies watched social game companies with envy
While social game companies watched mobile game companies with envy
Everyone's grass looked a thousand times greener
And the largest litigious corporation grew bigger and meaner

There were lawsuits to file, and patents to issue
And offer completion companies needed more tissue
There were acquisitions, investments, mergers and dealings
And crosspromotional toolbars gave many developers traffic and good feelings

But where was the money? The arpu to climb with the dau?
Just buy more traffic and don't have a cow.
Just post the achievement, and redirect back to your site.
And click here to share a merry christmas with 12 friends tonight!

© 2010 John Szeder

Check out John's 2009 message.

Update: Top 10 Mobile Games Publishers WW November '10

Update #1 Nov 24 2010 @ 9:45pm: Based on feedback I've added Capcom to the list & moved Digital Chocolate up in the rankings, while moving Namco down a bit. I've elected to remove Artificial Life because only about 50% of their revenue can be attributed to mobile games. Please... I encourage more feedback in the interest of making this the definitive list.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Note that I've added Chinese mobile powerhouse KongZhong to the list... in recent quarters mobile games have become a much more significant portion of the their overall revenue, which is about $145mil over the past 4 quarters.
• Purely from a mobile games perspective, it could be argued that both Artificial Life & Digital Chocolate don't belong on this list, but I'm keeping them here for the time being, while their primary businesses are still mobile games. If current trends persist, Digital Chocolate will quickly evolve into a company that primarily derives revenue from social online gaming (Facebook games).
• Per a previous suggestion from Jon Jordan over at PocketGamer.biz, I'm considering adding Disney/Tapulous to the Top 10... but I'd need some independent confirmation that their combined worldwide mobile games business yields at least 20 something million dollars.
• Overall I'd suggest that the Top 10 are becoming less significant in terms of their contribution to mobile gaming revenue and even in terms of real dollars I've dropped their aggregate revenue to $715mil from $720mil just 3mos ago.

Mobile Content Stocks vs Nasdaq Last 3 Months

My current basket of stocks includes: net Mobile, Buongiorno, Artificial Life, GetFugu, Gameloft, Mobile Streams, Glu Mobile, Velti, Linktone, Ku6 Media, ROK Entertainment, NeuMedia, 2 Ergo, KongZhong, Amico Games, DeNA, LiveWire Mobile, Motricity, Bango, Acotel Group, Vringo, conVISUAL, Lenco Mobile & Electronic Arts. I'd like to add GAMEVIL & Com2uS, but I haven't found a good way to integrate Kosdaq companies into Google Finance ('cause it still kinda sucks).

Battle For So. Korea: GAMEVIL vs Com2uS Q3 2010

GAMEVIL

• Q3 sales were led by ZENONIA 3 & Baseball Superstars 2011 in the Korean market
• The company believes it can maintain high profit margins by focusing on franchises & virtual goods sales within games
• Aggressively pushing into smartphones & tablets (but figures not broken out)
• The company is preparing to release its first online social game by the end of the year

Com2uS

• Company didn't have a major title launch in Q3, due to a product delay
• Smartphone revenues (36.8% in quarter) are growing rapidly, but not fast enough to offset rapid decline of feature phone revenues (hmm, where have I heard that before?)
• Homerun Battle 3D continues to be a star, but Slice It is off to a strong start
• Company has reduced royalty costs by focusing more on original IP games

Shadow Cities Dislocates Angry Birds in Finland

Remember a few months ago, during E3, when I got all wound up about a location-based iPhone game called Insurrection that was on the verge of being released by a company called Paranoid Games... all based on a tweet from Mark Cuban? Well that thing obviously didn't happen, and judging from the dire nature of the company's website & Twitter feed, it probably won't. Look at me being all irrationally exuberant like Mark Cuban... can I get rich doing that?

Well now comes word, from a much more reliable source, that Finnish games company Grey Area has actually released a location-based MMORPG for iPhone called Shadow Cities (see trailer below) in that country's App Store. Not only is this game real, but in its first day of release the freemium title (monetized via virtual goods) actually unseated powerhouse Angry Birds, from cross-town rival Rovio, as the Top Grossing game & also grabbed the Top Free App crown. Apparently rapid viral adoption, far exceeding the publisher's expectations, was driven by a slick integration of Facebook Connect... with impressive results!

Ten years after the Swedish games company It's Alive! first tried this (way too early!) with BotFighters, I think these guys have a real chance to create a meaningful consumer event with this game across multiple territories. As services like Foursquare & Gowalla have seeped into the popular consciousness, and with Facebook now encouraging check-ins with benefits, I think the masses might just be comfortable enough with location aware services to embrace this type of gameplay. As Grey Area CEO Ville Vesterinen explains it, their game actually benefits from evolving consumer behavior even beyond the current location based models, enabling them to use real neighborhoods as the context and, almost, as characters within Shadow Cities. "While much of the recent wave of location based games and services has relied on a check-in model we at Grey Area strongly believe that to achieve a lasting engaging experience neighborhoods and their inherent social setting offer much more potential than single venues. By only focusing on venues it is hard, if not impossible, to let the true character of a city shine through. Playing Shadow Cities has showed us a new side of Helsinki and opened a window to see how others navigate the locations beyond single venues," says Vesterinen.

As most of you know I'm a big fan of this stuff, because to my mind this type of product represents a critical evolution in mobile gameplay, as it fundamentally relies on the unique capabilities of a connected, context aware mobile device... much more so than the myriad casual games that really could be enjoyed on any device with a touchscreen & a processor. Therefore, I'm rooting that these guys can maintain their current success, and that it can be replicated in other markets... which we should see in mid-December when they launch in the US & UK App Stores, if all goes as planned. I'll keep a close eye on this one and keep you posted.

80% of Mobile Visits To Cabana Mobile From iOS

Big 4 US Carrier Metrics Compared Q3 2010

The top four US mobile operators currently represent about 92% of the 293mil US wireless subscriber connections.

I've highlighted the top performer in each category. Note Sprint's Data ARPU is in italics because they haven't provided an update to that number since Q1 2010... guess they have nothing to brag about.

You can link to my previous carrier metrics spreadsheets here.

Big 3 Mobile Game Publisher Revenue Comparo Q3 2010

EA Mobile:

• Saw both Q-on-Q & Y-on-Y revenue declines
• "Almost" offset losses in feature phone business with smartphone games in quarter
• Company revealed that Chillingo purchase was for $17mil in cash, with up to $12mil in earnouts... still seems like a pretty good deal to me

Gameloft:

• Strongest performer of the Big 3, realized both Q-on-Q & Y-on-Y growth
• Geographical mix was Europe 32.6%, North America 31.9%, Rest of World 35.5%
• North American & European revenue fell slightly from Q2. Makes me wonder which developing markets are driving growth... LatAm?
  
• Revenue relative to EA Mobile is benefiting from the strong Euro

Glu Mobile:

• Smartphone revs were $2.35mil, or 15% of total Q3 10... includes Android, Windows, RIM, iOS, Palm, Ovi, Symbian & in-game advertising
• As the company pushes its freemium persistent games agenda, it's emphasizing Daily Active User (DAU) & Monthly Active User (MAU) measurements a la Facebook apps
• Guiding Q4 revenue down even further, at between $14.0mil & $14.5mil, with a GAAP net loss between $7.0mil & $7.4mil. Clearly things are going to get harder still before they get easier
• 23% of revenue came from original IP... that number expected to increase
• Verizon accounted for 14% of revenue, China Mobile 11% & Apple almost 10%

Guess Who Isn't Struggling In Mobile Games? Billion $ DeNA

Update: Top 20 Movie & TV iPhone Games By Revenue

Update Nov. 2, 2010: Based on some welcome feedback I've tweaked my model very slightly and added one major title to this list... EA Mobile's The Simpsons Arcade. As a result of this combination of changes, Sony's iZombieland has dropped out of the Top 20. Also, just a quick clarification, since it's come up several times... my model uses the estimated average price over an app's lifetime (not the current price, shown above) to calculate estimated revenue.

It's been about 11 months since I last looked at how movie & television based game titles were faring in the App Store... so I figured it was about time to update my spreadsheet. This time 'round I'm showing my estimate of the Top 20 performing paid iPhone titles currently available in the US instance of the store, sorted by total publisher revenue. I've elected to hide my current title-by-title revenue estimates, but what I will tell you is that I think they range from $600k up to about $3mil, and the average for the lot is about $1.3mil.

One of the most shocking things to note is that 9 out the 10 titles on my December 2009 list are still in this Top 20... and the Top 3 are exactly the same. There are a handful of new strong performers, including, on the film side, Avatar and Iron Man 2, both from Gameloft and Predators from Chillingo. From TV, the new stars are Family Guy and, in the biggest surprise on the list, Dexter from Marc Ecko Entertainment (who knew they made games, right?). But in general my take is that paid movie and TV game titles aren't playing a particularly important role in the App Store, and are certainly not the revenue stars of the show... as is evidenced by not one of them currently appearing in the Top 150 of Top Grossing Games. This clearly presents challenges to studio/network digital & licensing groups, who are undoubtedly saddled with unrealistic expectations about how their properties should be performing in a climate of smartphone exuberance.

As usual please let me know if I've missed any titles, and I'll make the appropriate changes.

Recent Cabana Mobile Facebook Page Updates

I hope you guy are all following & LIKE the Cabana Mobile Facebook Page. For those of you who've been missing the fun 'cause you're snoozing at the keyboard, been too busy raising your next round or are conscientiously objecting to social networks (resistance is futile), that site includes all my blog posts & more quick commentary. It's like super-tweets about articles I find interesting and more brainfarts on the mobile/digital entertainment space in general. Check it out. Meanwhile here's a list of some recent posts...

10/16/2010 Re: Fast Company article Should Albums Cost $1.50?: "Consumer me loves the idea of a $1.50 album & MBA me sees the value of inefficiencies being taken out of the system across media as a result of consumer/OEM-centric digital distribution business models. That said, all of us vested in content should be wary of the rapid race to the bottom in terms of pricing. This will inevitably lead to less content being created, fewer risks being taken and the loss of thousands of jobs. Deflation is a dangerous spiral... once consumers begin to believe that content will be cheaper (or free) in the future, they get really good at keeping their wallets in their pockets."

10/15/2010 Re: Gameloft sizzle reel on YouTube: "Will the Samsung Galaxy Tab & the availability of quality game apps prove that the tablet market isn't only about iPad? What will the paid conversions on these impressive Gameloft's teaser apps look like if they rely on Google Checkout?"

10/15/2010 Re: Tweet from Google exec Mike Steib: "Perfect tweet to sum up Google's mobile business from Mike Steib: "$1B.""

10/15/2010 Re: Mobile Entertainment article Full Angry Birds Android game goes live on GetJar... for free!: "Interesting strategy. When a red-hot developer believes that the best path forward on Android is to give their trophy title away, sell some ads against it and figure out in-app monetization later, it really manifests the dire state of paid app monetization within Android Market. Frankly, I'm worried that this approach will just further contribute to price erosion in the overall mobile content space... but I'll be happy to be proved wrong by some mindblasting freemium success stories (outside Japan/Korea) in coming quarters. Meanwhile I'm getting the app for my Nexus One as soon as GetJar's site is back up."

10/14/2010 Re: PocketGamer.biz article Opinion: Why ngmoco is worth the $195 million DeNA might actually pay for it: "Perhaps DeNA isn't actually overpaying for ngmoco... what do you guys think?"

10/14/2010 Re: Business Insider SAI video interview with Gene Munster: "Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster stands by a 12-month price target of $390 for Apple and tells Business Insider that "Apple is in the best position of any technology company" for the next decade... assuming Jobs is at the helm."

10/14/2010 Re: The Register article When Dilbert came to Nokia: "Apparently the matrix organization structure that Nokia trumpeted for years played a large role in stifling product innovation..."

10/13/2010 Re: PocketGamer.biz article Opinion: The ten next best acquisitions in mobile gaming: "Nice opinion piece from Jon Jordan. I think Digital Chocolate is missing from this list... who else should be on the radar?

10/13/2010 Re: Mobile Entertainment article The numbers behind DeNA's ngmoco acquisition: "‎$403mil buyout on $3.16mil 2009 revenues & net loss of $10.9mil (significantly lower than I had guessed). Am I missing something or this just stupid?"

10/12/2010 "Yahoo! has $1.2bil in the bank, their embattled CEO is due to take a big swing & they haven't done anything crazy in mobile for years... just sayin'"

10/12/2010 Re: TechCrunch article Kleiner Perkins Harvests Over $100 Million From Ngmoco Acquisition: "Things are about to get super-extra-frothy..."

10/12/2010 "Google has got to fix Android Market if publishers of quality paid apps are going to support (or continue to support) the platform... buzz at CTIA was that despite impressive market penetration Android is still almost meaningless to publishers from a revenue perspective. Anybody experiencing anything different?"

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?).