>That seems a bit of a harsh characterisation. Riot-e were certainly taking
a
>gamble on plopping down big license advances - I heard they paid $1M
advance
>for LOTR - but I also heard they were going round europe operator by
>operator and getting big advances for territory exclusives against that
>property.
>just got caught by the market taking longer to arrive...
I don't think there really was a significant market at all. There are just
some things that ultimately aren't worth the big money. Mobile devices
simply can never be the dumping ground for every kind of diversion known
to man at a premium price. It may offer good alternatives in entertainment
and new ground to break, but there are those of us who pay for many of
those services already (pay TV, premium internet, video games/consoles)
who aren't going to pay yet more to extend what amounts to a rather nasty
subset (small pics, fractured games) into a mobile device.
When pocket TVs came out in the early 1980's (I still have my monochrome
Casio pocket TV) I really thought that people would spend time watching
them at work (at lunch, even in the toilets!) or on the bus and they would
become some sort of modern-day social problem. As it turned out, besides
the TV content being quite awful during work hours, people just didn't care,
and still don't.
My boss nixed Riot-E at their first appearance and I wasn't so sure at the
time, but it looks to be a pattern for the future. The line between
profit and loss is ever creeping away over the horizon, especially for a
large number of companies who place bets and themselves on the line far in
advance of user sentiment and technology.
SteveZ
trackhq.com
Received on Wed Mar 20 07:13:22 2002