Mon, 01/19/2009 - 14:02
Mobile games to boom as 3G takes off - KongZhong CEO
by Cindy Geng
- Wang Leilei, CEO and chairman of KongZhong Corp.
Beijing. January 19. INTERFAX-CHINA - The reduction in mobile Internet fees and expansion of bandwidth that will accompany 3G services in China will be a boon for the country's mobile game industry, Wang Leilei, CEO and chairman of KongZhong Corp., operator of China's biggest mobile Internet portal, Kong.net, told Interfax recently.
"Fees for mobile Internet will be reduced and mobile Internet user numbers will surge, which means demand for games and other mobile entertainment will be greatly increased," he said.
According to Wang, increased bandwidth will also remove a long-standing bottleneck faced by mobile game developers.
"Many mobile phone game developers were so hampered by bandwidth problems that they could only develop non-networked mobile games in the past," he said.
Wang said that according to his company's research, around 200 mobile games were launched in China in 2008, of which 90 percent were unsuccessful due to low bandwidth and an immature market.
"3G will not only expand bandwidth, but it will also introduce more partners for mobile phone game developers, such as social networking services, instant messaging services and in-game advertisers," Wang said. He added that mobile game developers will also need to work closely with data security companies to prevent ID theft and in-game cheating.
Revenues from online mobile games will be easier to collect with the spread of 3G, Wang said.
"Game developers can cooperate with telecom operators to charge players by downloads, playing time and the sale of in-game items," he said. "Telecom operators have sound billing and top-up systems, which can provide reliable transaction records. As such, by working with telecom operators, game developers can reduce the investment they need to make in such systems."
Wang added that mobile game operators are likely to find it less of a struggle to generate revenues than their non-mobile counterparts, as there is less resistance to paying for services among users.
The fact that mobile users can play games "anywhere and at any time" will also increase revenue, Wang said.
In-Stat China predicted in a recent report that mobile online games will generate total yearly revenue of RMB 5 billion ($731.09 million) in China by 2012.
