Game Licensors Should Aim For Sequels—Gosen

• Posted by James Quintana Pearce
• Thu 08 Mar 2007 06:36 PM

IPlay CEO David Gosen gave a speech on “Publishing and Marketing Blockbuster Content on Mobile” at GDC this week, which I couldn’t get to, but he did answer a few of my questions. The perennial question about mobile games is what makes a mobile game successful?

“The success of a mobile game is always dependent on several factors,” said David, “ranging from the right license with quality relevant gameplay to maximum device coverage, power deck placements and increasingly so today, cut thru marketing.” He said that marketing cannot currently make up for bad deck placement, and won’t be able to until a far greater proportion of games are sold from places other than the carriers deck.

I think he’s strongest point was made when he said: “The challenge is to create a sustainable mobile game that evolves into a franchise that can deliver innovative sequels.” One of the most important factors when people buy games is whether they’ve played and liked it before—consider the Madden franchise—and a series of games that sell well are better than a single best-selling game. Licenses of big brands give a boost to this process. In Iplay’s case the best example is the Fast and Furious series of games, with the three games selling over 6.5 million paid-for downloads so far, and the lastest in the series—Tokyo Drift—selling one million in five months.

Aside from being a quality game (it won “Best Made for Mobile Game” at the 3GSM Awards) and being innovative (it differs from previous racing games by being based on drifting rather than speed), the brand was used in an extensive marketing campaign which included movie ads, shortcodes on posters and promotional DVDs, and promotions on point-of-presence displays in companies partnering with the movie. Coming on the back of two other successful mobile games also helped. All this helps to get good deck placement—carriers are more likely to give placement to a game that is backed by a strong marketing campaign, and one where previous iterations have sold well. This in turns helps the game be successful, which gives a boost to the next one in the franchise.

“Marketing via mobile compared to above the line and other forms of marketing target two different audiences,” said David. “Marketing on the mobile portal targets the converted mobile gamer, whereas the above the line advertising and marketing outside of the mobile medium targets the virgin or lapsed gamer. Both are equally important as the major challenge today is to grow the total size of the mobile gaming market.”