Do Small & Medium
Sized Mobile Game Publishers Have a Chance?
Posted: 10.03.08 on Mobilegames.blog.com
Writen By: Ryan Morel, VP of Business Development
at PressOK Entertainment.
A little over
a year ago I listened to a panel where a Studio GM of
a large mobile game publisher was asked whether or not
small publishers could survive without being part of
a larger organization; the answer was a resounding “no”,
small and medium publishers either needed to go big,
or go away.
At the time I did not believe that statement, mostly
because I did not want to hear it; but, up until 4
months ago, it was becoming clear that if you were
a small or medium mobile game publisher (who didn’t
have a hit franchise) you could be in trouble, like,
liquidation trouble.
And then the App Store showed up.
No, I am not going to claim that the App Store is
going to change the fate of every mobile game developer
and publisher, because it won’t. I’m not going to claim
that mobile operators will all the sudden be guided
by the Adam Smith of mobile gaming (Apple) and create
free markets for mobile games by the new year, because
they won’t. So, what did the release of the App Store
do?
It gave us hope.
The hope that by creating great games publishers can
generate substantial revenue and actually be profitable;
the hope that innovative game play will lead people
to download your game, review it and recommend it to
their friends; and, most importantly, the hope that
the success of a game will be dependent on consumer
action, not operator reaction.
Clearly, hope is not a strategy, but it will get you
out of bed in the morning to put on the gloves and
keep fighting for the day when companies who produce
great mobile games will be successful. Can anyone be
sure that it is anything other than hope? No, but I
have to believe that day is closer than it once was...
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