Mobile Games on Twitter

Birds (sic!) do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it, and now even Oprah (have you been there before her? Check here)... so: what about mobile games companies tweeting? Now, there's many of them already out there (see list below) but how much sense does it make (that it makes sense for your business I demonstrated recently)?

Looking at a few of them, you'll find anything from very 20th-century in-your-face selling (probably not so efficient) to enlisting (or trying to) followers to help in everything from game design, logo colours to community components that should go into the next iteration of the website. And it is in the crowdsourcing where I see a bit of potential: most mobile games companies are fairly small, and money to spend on sophisticated research, focus groups and what not is scarce or AWOL. If one can draw on the opinions and insights of friendly followers to learn about their (the consumers') preferences, this is surely all good. Since Oprah is on there now, too, there is even a chance that your followers will not only be fellow industry professionals...

Although, even to the industry, Twitter is as powerful a tool to the mobile games people as to anything else (maybe with the exception of the global car-wash industry - everyone who's been to CTIA Wireless will understand the reference): it is a great channel to get the message out to people who matter to you (and who actually show that they care by following you), which puts trade marketing (even if not in the strict sense of the word) onto the list on why you should do it.

So here's a (surely incomplete - please excuse and feel free to add!) list of mobile games companies who tweet:

EA: @eamobile

Gameloft: @gameloft

Connect 2 Media (yes, that's us): @connect2media

Glu: @glumobile

Oasys Mobile: @oasysmobile

Hands-On Mobile: @handsonmobile

Digital Chocolate: @dchocgames

I-Play: @iplaymobile

Namco: @namconetworks

Tag Games: @taggames

Fishlabs: @fishlabs

Gamevil: @gamevil

Distinctive Developments: @distinctivegame

Lemonquest: @lemonquest

Kiloo: @jacob_kiloo

Oh, and I'm out there as @vhirsch...

Casual Connect Europe in Hamburg

With the conference season upon us, I shall be trekking to my former hometown of Hamburg on Monday to join the good folks from the Casual Games Association for their European iteration of Casual Connect. It looks like a pretty cool show with lots of interesting stuff going on, in particular also on social gaming and cross-platform initiatives: they have numerous panels and keynotes on both and a whole strand on mobile. Interesting speakers, too: Rob Unsworth (Digital Chocolate), Ami Ben-David (Oberon/I-Play), Philippe Dao (Gameloft) are there plus an interesting panel with Fishlabs' Michael Schade and Handy Games' Christopher Kassulke on the same panel (their two companies had a little bit of a tiff recently). I'll be there to elaborate a bit more on mobile social gaming... Fingers crossed.

If you are there or close, drop me a line, a tweet (vhirsch) or whatever else. I'll try to post my impressions in between but it might need to wait (day jobs turn into night jobs during conference seasons, you see...).

Fishlabs nets fresh catch

The wonderful people from Fishlabs from the beautiful city of Hamburg announced the close of their first round of funding by VC Neuhaus Partners. Fishlabs, who are specializing in high-end 3D mobile games want to use it to add connectivity to their games. Wonderful coincidence then that "best friends" Exit Games are also an investee of Neuhaus.

Whilst I am not sure if the words of the Neuhaus Partners Managing Partner according to which 3D games are about to become mass-market are true just yet, the addition of connectivity to the beautiful titles of the Fishlabs guys will make for a very powerful proposition. And it might not matter when the mass market sets in because the niche for these high-end gems might just about become large enough for a gifted development house. The perceived value of such games will be higher and, with Exit Games' connectivity suite, this value can be extended even further.

This seems to be confirmed by a couple of deals they have done in the past months where they extended distribution to highly evolved regions like Korea as well as with some tier-2 publishers like Player X, which has a larger reach than Fishlabs could have mustered themselves.

In any event, I wish them a good catch!

Disclaimer: yes, I have lived in Hamburg and love the city. Yes, I know the guys from Fishlabs and Exit Games and really like them. No, I do not benefit in any way.