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Chennai
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PLAY phones
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Mobile games have caught the imagination of the youth. SANGEETH KURIAN on the trend
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LAKSHMAN PRASHANTH detests dreary train journeys. The moment he boards a train everyday, this 19-year-old engineering student takes out his Nokia 3530 mobile phone and engages himself in a game of bowling, skydiving or solving puzzles.
"Before I know it, I have reached my destination, feeling elated at breaking another score or figuring out a puzzle."
For Sonalini M., a fashion designer, mobile games occupy the time when she is waiting for a friend or standing in a queue. "Games are an ideal way to fill in the small spaces of boredom," she says.
Prashanth and Sonalini are among a growing number in the city, which has been bitten by the mobile gaming bug. Mobile gaming - it's the `next big thing' on a cell phone after MMS and ring tones.
Though most gamers at present are content having a go at the pre-installed games available on their handsets, industry analysts predict that it is only a matter of time before they start downloading games.
"Mobile games is one of the fastest growing areas worldwide for operators," says Mahesh Prasad, president, Applications Services Group, Reliance Infocomm. "It is going to be a key product differentiating factor for mass market mobile phones in the future," says Ramesh K. Narain, chief officer, sales and marketing, Airtel. "Just like ring tones, people will start downloading games once they get bored with the existing ones," predicts R. Shivashankar, vice president, operations, Hutchison. "With rentals and call rates dropping it is also a sure fire way of improving the revenue of the company," says T.G. Suresh Babu, chief manager, marketing, RPG Cellular Services Ltd.
Cashing in on this promising trend, Hutchison has launched a slew of java games for its customers. Through its `Hutch world' portal, subscribers can download high-resolution games such as `Spiderman,' `Funny faces,' and `Jungle fury,' apart from games on racing and shooting on to a compatible handset. These games are offered in two versions, limited and unlimited. While a limited version can be played 20 times and is priced at Rs. 20 per download, an unlimited version is priced at Rs. 50, Rs. 75 or Rs. 99 depending on the game. "Our developers bring out two to three games every week," says Shivashankar.
Similarly gaming is one of the important target segments for Reliance, which introduced it as part of R World.com at the time of launching the Reliance India Mobile Service. The games can be downloaded free of cost until March 2004. "Mobile games is a key component of R World portfolio which consists of 40 games," says Prasad. According to him Chennai is among the top ten cities where games are popular.
But then Reliance has an advantage over others. All its 2.96 lakh subscribers have java-enabled handsets that can support mobile gaming, unlike Hutchison, Airtel or RPG, where few subscribers have handsets compatible for downloading games. However the gap is closing fast with the prices of java-enabled handsets falling frequently.
"With major handset manufacturing companies coming up with five to six models every month, the entry level price for java-enabled handsets has come down to less than Rs. 7,000," says Vinodh P., proprietor, Hello World, a retail outlet for mobile phones. And since a major chunk of the game users are the college goers, the price reduction is an added incentive for the operators who target them as prospective gamers.
"Youngsters are going to be the early adapters to the game. Just like SMS, which has become a rage among them, we expect mobile games to spread like wildfire within this market segment," says Narain. Both Airtel and RPG are introducing a series of downloadable games shortly.
Localisation seems to be the new mantra among service providers. "The way Tamil ring tones outsell other languages, we believe we have to localise games if we are to succeed," says Shivashankar. Hutchison has already tested the water with a brick game based on the Bollywood film "Kuch Na Kaho." "The game did extremely well in Mumbai," claims Shivshankar. Airtel too has added a couple of Indian games such as Maharajah and Matka on to its list. "Based on the feedback we will attempt greater localisation in the future," says Narain. Probably the day is not far off when you see your favourite Kollywood heroes rough up villains on a mobile!
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