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Digital Games Industries:
Developments, Impact and Direction

In the future your games will go with you? Mobile Entertainment in Europe

Karenza Moore & Jason Rutter
CRIC, University of Manchester, UK

Keywords: mobile phones, mobile gaming, mobile entertainment, third generation, 3G, consumer research

The mobile phone is now firmly embedded in consumers' everyday lives throughout Europe and in many states has become a near omnipresent technological artefact with ownership outstripping that of landline phones. During this process of diffusion and assimilation the under-thirty market has demonstrated regular and heavy use of SMS and mobile phone calls and are currently being seen (along with premium rate business users) as the potential economic saviours of European mobile telecommunications faced with unusual economic circumstances:

In April 2000 the UK government happily received £22.5 billion from the auctioning of third generation (3G) spectrum licenses for the next generation of mobile phones. Similar auctions shortly afterwards in France and Germany netted the respective governments £12 billion and £32 billion. Despite Finland and Luxemburg allocating licences for free, about £220 per person throughout Europe was spent on the battle to control slices of the mobile phone airwaves.

The problem is that this feeding frenzy has to be paid for. In September last year in Germany Mobilcom came desperately close to bankruptcy and in March this year, Graham Howe, the deputy chief executive of Orange, said that he did not expect 3G services to become a mass-market proposition for another 3 years. As such, throughout Europe mobile operators are searching for new ways to catalyse sales of new handsets, increase the amount consumers spend on profitable data services and, at least partially, recoup these considerable sums of money spent on 3G licenses. 'Mobile entertainment' - which includes not only gaming but also gambling, adult services, music and location based services - is recognised as the most promising fillip for the industry.

This paper looks at the reality of the forecasts around mobile entertainment, what the purpose of these forecasts may be, and the assumptions concerning mobile voice and data users that underpin them. Moving away from the digital optimism of market analysts it argues that there is utility in understanding micro level behaviour in order to inform planning and foresight at a macro level. As such the authors draw upon both focus group and questionnaire data on consumers' expectations, behaviour and opinion within Europe.

After providing a brief overview of the current state of the mobile and mobile entertainment markets along with recent market predictions this paper details focus group research undertaken in the UK and other locations throughout northern Europe and supports this qualitative data with the results from a Europe-wide web-based questionnaire undertaken during the first half of 2003.

Regular themes emerging from the research such as 'convenience', 'compactness', 'convergence', 'cost', 'complexity', 'clarity' [C⁶] 'age appropriateness' and 'access' [A²] are explored in light of mobile entertainment, with a particular focus on user's understandings of them. For example what exactly do users mean when a device is described as 'compact'?

Building on this consumer research the paper argues that if a replay of the WAP fiasco is to be avoided within the mobile industry in Europe then serious questions must be asked about why commercial predictions do not correlate with users expectations and behaviour. The paper produces a critique of industry assumptions about current and future uses and users of mobile entertainment. Further it suggests that the emphasis on hardware, 'user education' and technological deterministic perspectives current within industry practice must be addressed (and a realistic perspective on user practices be implemented) in order to realise any attempt to generate significant changes in consumer spend on the new generation mobile devices.

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Digital Games Industries: Developments, Impact and Direction

In the future your games will go with you? Mobile Entertainment in Europe

Digital Games Industries:
Developments, Impact and Direction