Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
2009a; Fransman 2007). The last “interaction” part captures the possibility
of users contributing to content creation within the game, and to the social
ef ects in the usage of games. In the following the main activities (and play-
ers) within this scheme are briefl y introduced, acknowledging that not all of
them need to be actually implemented in a practical of ering. The creation,
production and publishing of mobile games includes (1) the existing studios
in the software games industry that go (or can go) mobile; (2) new studios
specifi cally devoted to the development of mobile games; (3) existing game
publishers; (4) new mobile game publishers; (5) software developers for dif-
ferent types of engines and middleware required both in the game production
and in the adaptation to the mobile environment; (6) other media, content
and in general cultural industries that count on the production and publish-
ing of mobile games to increase the appeal of their products and services—a
museum, a newspaper or a social network, for instance; (7) marketing of
mobile games; (8) activities related with secondary business models in mobile
gaming such as advertising, product placement or sponsorship; (9) intellec-
tual property rights management; and (10) enablement platforms for the
development and adaptation to the specifi cities of the mobile environment.
In this stage the most relevant activities are the same as in the conventional
software games industry: studios and publishers, and on purpose the oppor-
tunities for studios and publishers specifi cally aimed at the mobile domain
have been highlighted. Apart from this, the most relevant addition from the
mobile perspective is the enabling platforms.
The delivery, distribution and access to mobile games includes (1) the
aggregation platforms, lately called “application stores”; (2) the payment
and billing systems; (3) the provision of user data and profi ling for person-
alisation; (4) the provision of context information—location, for instance—
for adaptation to the local environment; (5) the mobile communications
systems, from 2G, where some simple games could be delivered to hand-
sets, to 3G and beyond where any possible type of game can be distrib-
uted to mobile devices; (6) other wireless systems able to distribute content
and applications to mobile devices on a local basis or interact with them;
and (7) Internet, in the sense that either mobile communications allow for
unrestricted access to Internet, thus erasing the dif erences among access-
ing content and applications through any of those two media, or enabling
users to achieve content and applications mobility by their own means for
later consumption. In this stage the most relevant activities are the applica-
tion stores and the mobile and Internet infrastructures to distribute mobile
games. Note that the providers of personal and context information may
contribute to a “new wave” of mobile games, as discussed later. All of them
are absent in the conventional software game industries.
There are three basic mechanisms to deliver and consume mobile games:
over mobile telecommunications networks, over some short-range wire-
less system (context delivery) and over some fi xed “Internet access” and
later side-loading. Mobile communications is the obvious option to enjoy
 
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