Must Play

Mobile Devices As Game Consoles
More evidence smart phones are really game consoles. I agree with Gamasutra's central idea - creating games should be serious fun. As we create mobile games we should embrace the OTHER side of the phone such as:

* GPS.

* Always ON.

* Always NEAR.

* Almost always logged in. 

These conditions are UNIQUE to phones and mobile devices. An XBox has an "Event Horizon" where everything STOPS for game play to start or resume. The phone's "Event Horizon" is almost infinite since phones are left ON and we stay logged in. 

These unique to mobile devices conditions CAN BE incorporated into game play. Like long distance chess our phones are capable of remembering our and our opponents last moves AND locating us in space and time. 

What if I walk into a Starbucks and the Starbucks Game is in progress? I can join in, watch or learn from the game. If all brands are publishers now I would argue all brands are game creators too, even more specifically the coolest brands will become mobile game developers and use our phones and mobile devices as the game consoles they are becoming.  

Games Biz Is Different
Fascinating look at what is working in games. FREE to play games, a version on the freemium business model, are doing well. When then is Big Fish, a major Seattle employer, laying off 49?

I've never worked for a company with record sales that are laying off people, but I was a consumer products goods (CPG). CPG used to be about boots on the ground.

Doubt boots on the ground matter all that much today since the battle for hearts and minds is what sells the brands. Distribution is still a WAR, but without the market dev done before your product is on a shelf any brand has little chance. 

Today's distribution is only as good as the social media, mobile marketing and Internet marketing creating the demand by winning hearts and minds. Video games are different.

Video games, especially the smaller faster free and mobile play games need fewer people with more skills. You don't invade Russia in the winter in the same way as P&G made sure they had the right number of Bounce product facings. 

Big Fish is an example of the new math. Bring people together, create fast, amplify everything, respond to the zeitgeist almost as it happens and don't carry more costs on your P&L than shifting sands can afford.  

Google's Android could be a powerful ally in the continuing move from phone to game console. What is clear about "mobile marketing" is no good comes from thinking of a smart phone as anything other than a really small iPad :).