Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
14.
See Fuaad Said and Akmaliah Adham (2010) for a “Porter-model” detailed
analysis of mobile content industry in Malaysia, confi rming the low entry
barriers for developers and the bargaining power of other agents in the
ecosystem.
15.
As a primary example, Disney has purchased music game developer Tapu-
lous, the start-up behind the best-selling iPhone series
Tap Tap Revenge
,
in
July 2010
.
See
http://www.fi ercemobilecontent.com/story/disney-acquires-
iphone-game-hitmaker-tapulous/2010-07-02
(Accessed 19 Mar 2012). Also
Electronic Arts purchased publisher Chillingo in October 2010, development
studio Firemint in May 2011 and TopCap in July 2011, the company pub-
lishing the popular
Plant vs. Zombies
mobile game. See
http://www.fi erc-
(Accessed 19 Mar 2012). Social network MyYearbook acquired fi ve Android
mobile games (popular
Toss It
, for instance), and Android did the same with
multiplayer gaming engine FlockEngine in March 2011.
16.
The interested reader can check Feijoó et al. (2009a) for mobile content in
general; De Prato et al. (2010) for games; Feijoó, Gomez-Barroso and Ramos
(2010) for television; Feijoó et al. (2009b) for social networks;
17.
In fact, Electronic Arts claims that about 60 per cent of total mobile games
revenues in Europe and the U.S. in 2010 will come from smartphones, and
by 2013, this will rise to 72 per cent. See
http://www.mobilesquared.co.uk/
news/3079 (
Accessed 13 Jan 2011).
18.
Gameloft announced in July 2011 that its Gameloft Live social gaming com-
munity topped four million users across the main mobile platforms. The
community was launched in 2008 and enables gamers to fi nd fellow play-
ers, chat, send messages and earn virtual rewards. See
http://twitter.com/#!/
gameloft/statuses/90708952748265473 (A
ccessed 19 Mar 2012).
19.
Zynga (the company behind FarmVille, the most successful game in social
networks) stated that its daily active users across mobile platforms grew
more than tenfold between November 2010 and June 2011.
20.
See additional references at Feijoó et al. (2009b).
21.
For a detailed account of a location-based mobile game, see, for instance, De
Souza (2008), where
Alien Revolt
is described. The game used Java-enabled
cell phones equipped with location awareness to transform the city into a bat-
tlefi eld. Following much of the Swedish game
Botfi ghters
idea,
Alien Revolt
's
goal involves virtually shooting other players within a specifi c radius in the
city space. It also showed how limitations in available technologies at the
time (the game was played with 2.5G-3G mobile communications) hindered
the dif usion of the game.
22.
Apart from a location system (GPS), camera and accelerometer/digital com-
passes, this would require some Near Field Communications (NFC) technol-
ogy to interact with nearby objects. Only a minority of smartphones will
include NFC during 2011.
23.
Rovio announced in June 2011 the launch of
Angry Birds Magic
, a MAR-
enabled extension of their
Angry Birds
game where users would interact with
objects and other gamers via GPS and NFC technologies.
24.
For instance, in 2011 PlayStation Vita has introduced Near, an application
that pinpoints which titles other nearby Vita gamers are currently playing as
well as the most popular titles in the area. Near also enables location-based
gaming features like “gifting” (enabling users to access virtual game-related
items that other gamers are sharing by checking in at geographic locations
that others have previously visited). Following the MAR rationale, PlaySta-
tion Vita includes front and rear cameras, GPS, six-axis motion sensors and
three-axis electronic compass, and wireless connectivity.
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