Bullet Business

A company like Million-2-1 Limited acknowledges that a significant development for mobile gaming last year was undoubtedly the acceptance of mobile gaming by the major UK mobile operators who have all recognised mobile gaming as a source of new revenues and have developed strategy and now allow on portal promotion of gaming products.  

In the first instance, the mobile operators are able to generate revenue from advertising models paid for by mobile gaming operators and secondly from revenue sharing type deals mirroring affiliate type arrangements online.  

Reflecting on how last year progressed for this sector, Chris Sheffield, CEO, Million-2-1 Limited (IGT-UK) told bulletbusiness.com that 2008 will be remembered for the development and customer acceptance of new handset technology and capability characterised by phones such as the iPhone which now enable the development of high quality mobile based games which mirror the playability of games played online and in the real World.  

“As an example,  at IGT-UK, we are now able to re-purpose our most successful games from land-based slot games, the Internet and interactive TV without major compromises and provide a very similar experience for these games on the mobile enabling our business to capitalise on the huge following such games and brands have already developed in other media,” said Sheffield.

He added that last year it was also notable that the “big guns” in the gaming arena have virtually all adopted mobile strategies and products to complement their other offerings and in particular sports betting products such as those developed by Mfuse are already successfully integrating mobile applications with their web based counteparts and seeing acceptance of the mobile channel by the consumer.

“In other territories around the world,  mobile lottery models have also been adopted by an increasing number of State lottery operators and in countries where lotteries are the only form of legal gaming this is an exciting development for providers of multi-channel lottery solutions such as IGT who are able to provide lottery operators with integrated solutions for land based terminals, online and now mobile,” said Sheffield.

Triggers for growth

Sheffield  feels gambling on mobile phones will continue to grow rapidly as phone technology continues to improve and larger operators develop mobile marketing strategies and increase spend in this sector.  

“In particular, it is clear that consumer confidence and trust in mobile gambling can only be improved by the entry of larger and recognised brands in this sector supported by high quality and “playable” games which mirror their counterparts in other media,” said Sheffield.

Among other developments, it is being said new 3G wireless technologies and phones will play a big role in the growth of mobile gaming by making it more convenient and secure. New networks and phones will allow real-time, exciting and player-to-player betting to be possible.

“In simple terms, better phones, faster connections and enhanced security can only bolster the acceptance of mobile gambling but it is important to recognise that not all forms of gambling are going to be appropriate for the mobile phone or easy to replicate.  Based on our expectations,  2009 will be characterised by higher quality games and the increased adoption of the mobile by gambling operators and consumers and it is already clear that longevity and playability of mobile gaming products will be significantly improved in 2009 as will consumer’s trust in these services,” said Sheffield.

New phones and technology will have a big impact on the quality and adoption of mobile gambling by the consumer particularly as such devices allow games to be developed which are just as playable and exciting as their counterparts in the real World and online.  

“Whilst previous phones have been technically capable of delivering casino style games, as a player the experience and quality of the games have been pretty poor especially where a “one size fits all” solution has been used to provide games which support all handsets, whilst in reality it is the customer with the latest must have phone who will engage most readily with  mobile gambling but expects products which utilise the best features of their phone and have a long shelf life and play factor,” said Sheffield.

There are companies which are talking about exclusive software that will allow users to stream live interactive feed from legal jurisdictions to play poker, blackjack, roulette and baccarat on personal cell phones.

For his part, Sheffield feels it maybe too early for this type of application on mobile and live streaming based products are at the moment much better suited to the PC with a larger screen and access to cheap and high levels of bandwidth and for the time being it maybe too soon or too nichey for this type of application to be commercially feasible.

The level of ease with downloading applications

“It is clear from our own experience that downloading java games to a mobile phone whilst still a little clunky is a model readily accepted by consumers and the concept of downloading content to mobile devices has become second nature to most consumers given the prevalence of download models for other content such as music, video etc,” said Sheffield.

However, he added that, the main complexities in this area are activities such as age verification, security and legal compliance.

“Early products have suffered from technical, security and legal issues whilst others have suffered due to quality issues (i.e. consumer will not play a poor game for long nor complete a download if the process takes too much time).  The key to a successful download model is about great technology and CRM which can only be developed from building on experience and investment in people, process and technology whilst also recognising that mobile marketing is very different to online marketing,” explained Sheffield.