Abstract
While growing at a fast phase, mobile gaming industry is facing a transformation both in terms of technical infrastructures as well as business models. At the users’ end, formerly preferred specific game consoles are increasingly being replaced by mobile phone platforms. From the game developers’ perspective, the new possibilities to distribute games over mobile phone networks as well as over the Internet, affect both the viable partner relationships and possible revenue stream options. In this paper we introduce analytical tools to evaluate business models of software companies producing mobile games. With the help of these tools, we explore and analyze the revenue logics and related product distribution models of four companies producing mobile games to the international market. The results indicate that even though the fast growing market offers a plethora of opportunities to agile software companies, the revenue models are governed by telecom-operators, who are currently reaping the largest benefits from the business.
Highlights
Mobile devices have been the fastest adopted consumer products of all the times with more mobile phones shipped annually than automobiles and personal computers combined [18], [4]
We investigate empirically four case companies producing mobile games: we explore the differences in the business models of firms producing mobile games, to see if we can explain the differences in revenue logics by differences in distribution models and the level of value added in the product offerings
We focused on the channel choices and revenue logics of companies producing mobile games
Summary
Mobile devices have been the fastest adopted consumer products of all the times with more mobile phones shipped annually than automobiles and personal computers combined [18], [4]. The fast developing mobile game industry has a prominent role in mobile technology development. As the experiences with the Internet hitherto show, games are among the few network data services which consumers will willingly pay for [22]. The new mobile games market accelerates the handset development. Experiences with PC based Internet and Japanese mobile iMode services emphasize the role of entertainment services as a significant factor in the growth of mobile network usage. Games and entertainment services are important application areas for information industry as a whole [26], and as the third generation mobile phone networks proliferate, demand for these services will increase rapidly. We develop the model further for mobile game industry and use it to discuss the revenue logics of mobile game developers. We summarize and draw conclusions on the discussed aspects of mobile games
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