Hi Alex,
>> Am asking because I'm based in SE Asia and really don't see
>> much demand for J2ME games, or even particularly for Nokia's
>> Ngage. Am not sure if this is the same for Europe too.
>
>Where in SE Asia are you?
Currently in Malaysia, which has finally got its act together
with respect to working with operators.
Was in HK for 3 years (left in May), which was a lesson in
frustration. Operators there still take the "if you want to
work with us then (a) you will pay $$ for the privilege and
(b) you will be exclusive to us" attitude, which leaves third
party developers with little scope for making money. Without
ubiquitous premium SMS, the only business model seems to be
in catering to the corporate market which isn't clamouring
for apps.
>Looking at how things are going in HK, Taiwan,
>Singapore or even here in Australia, you may not necessarily see a lot of
>people on the streets playing mobile games but judging from sales - the
>demand is certainly there.
I still see a lot of SMS (downloads/ringtones/etc) but not J2ME.
Premium SMS is where people are making the silly money.
>A little extra marketing wouldn't hurt though. With mobile games, consumers
>generally only stumble across them when they go into a mobile phone shop,
>see an advert in some men's magazine or receive some directmail from their
>carrier. Although Hong Kong's SmartTone did a great job promoting their new
>iN (mobile internet/entertainment) portal. They set up a stall in Lan Kwai
>Fong (the bar district) with pretty girls in short skirts giving
>demonstrations of the games and services on handsets.
I must have missed that one. Smartone have been proactive since 2001
in trying to open-up their platform, which is as much a PR exercise
for Sun (who seem to have their eqpt and interests in all telcos).
>If you look at the number of ringtone/wallpaper/games portals popping up all
>over SE Asia, and check out all their games available you could say there is
>an oversupply of J2ME games at the moment. 80%+ of them are of fairly low
>quality and are the same crap that's floated over to SE Asia from Europe or
>USA. (Not to say that EU or USA games are crap, but just that hobbyist
>games that were made back when J2ME was starting out are still floating
>around on pay sites).
Right and agree. I've actually shelved J2ME development (I was one
of those hobbyists) because there are so many out there, often
given away for free. The opportunity therefore seems to be in
aggregating all these free games, giving the developers a small
split on sales, and hawking it to operators - though in Malaysia
the operators have also worked this out themselves.
Going back to my original angle though, I'm surprised that there
hasn't been a "killer game" which in turn has driven sales of
the category as a whole.
Chas
Received on Fri Dec 12 05:05:08 2003