While Europe`s mobile gaming market is taking off, Exact Mobile portal and entertainment business director Gavin Penkin says the local market is still in its infancy, with gaming functionality not being a priority for most users buying new handsets.
According to a new Frost & Sullivan survey, the European mobile gaming market is expected to grow from just under $800.79 million in 2002, to nearly $7 billion in 2006.
Frost & Sullivan says it is optimistic that the widening distribution channels, increasing awareness of mobile gaming, coupled with the rising degree of comfort with payment and delivery over the air among subscribers, will trigger this explosion in growth.
It adds that the most potent driving force behind growth in the European mobile gaming industry is the increasing number of people with games-capable devices, as well as the increasing availability of quality games titles.
Penkin says while everything is in place for a similar revolution for the local mobile gaming market, the fact that our market is still an emerging one means it will take time before we see similar growth here.
"The first factor inhibiting the gaming market is that South Africans don`t generally look to buy cellphones because of their gaming capability. As a result, of the 14 million cellphones or so in the market, there are only around 1 million phones out there that can download games.
"Added this, the users who are currently buying these phones are the older contract subscribers, while the 15 to 25 age bracket are generally the ones who play the games. It will therefore take time for these more expensive phones to filter down to the younger age bracket and then we should see an increase in the number of games being downloaded."
Added to the lack of penetration by cellphones that can download games into the market, he says only about 10 000 games a month are being downloaded from Exact Mobile.
"While we are the only local supplier of downloadable mobile games, there are a number of providers out there of ringtones and logos. This is the key to the downloadable gaming market because once people are downloading ringtones and logos, it is easier for them to progress to downloading games," he says.
While Penkin agrees with the study that Java gaming will inject new vigour into the over the air sector, he says Java is difficult to set up and use, and this will also inhibit the growth of downloaded Java games until the market is properly educated.
"In order to bring about growth within the gaming market, a lot of education about the number of handsets available that can support downloadable games, and the number and variety of games available for download, still needs to take place.
"With the launch of Nokia`s N-Gage gaming phone and the marketing that is accompanying the launch, hopefully the market will become more aware of the fact that cellphones can download and run games, as well as being devices to communicate with," he says.
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