By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net
UPDATE: Editor’s note: Added video taken by INQUIRER.net technology reporter Erwin Oliva.
A FILIPINO startup has announced its entry in the free, advertising-based mobile game market in the country, as it offered at least 800 Java-based downloadable games for free to local subscribers, its chief executive officer told hackenslash Monday.
Ubersoft Inc. CEO Vince Yamat said the company was betting on the increasing demand for free mobile phone games that are currently offered at premium prices of about P30 to P50 per game by local service providers.
“This is something disruptive,” said Yamat, as he pointed out that mobile phone games contribute a significant amount to the total revenues of mobile phone networks.
With mobile phone browsing cost going down, the Filipino-owned company believes that advertising-supported games will attract not only subscribers but advertisers wanting to target local mobile phone users.
To date, Ubersoft has several international advertisers on board, according to Yamat.
The free, downloadable mobile games are accessible via the startup company’s Swoopin WAP (wireless application protocol) site. Handsets should be able to run Java-based games to download the licensed titles from the startup.
“So our service is really web-based, although it uses WAP,” Yamat said.
Asked how big the market was for Java-based games in the country, Yamat said the figures for the mobile games were not yet clear because they were often lumped with other value-added services. But he is convinced that this unexplored service in the country will soon fly.
Among the games offered are Mobile Aquarium, Rollercoaster Rush, Origami Tulip, Arcade Pool, and Top Gun: Air Combat, plus different versions and difficulty levels of Sudoku, origami, and poker games.
Players of these games only need to pay for mobile connection cost while downloading an unlimited number of games. Downloaded games are stored on the phone.
Yamat said a similar service was also launched in Japan.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Does anyone know how big the mobile game downloads market is? or at least an estimate?
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:17 pm
YOu can check this out.I can also recommend a cool app for mobiles. It’s called I-Citizen and it came out recently. It’s the world’s first 3D world for mobile handsets. Its fun to play and you can meet people and chat to them as you might have guessed. They have promotions where they give away PS3’s and Xboxes to people in a place called I-Bid in the app. Its beta release was announced in March 2008 and anyone can give it a try. You can get it from your mobiles browser or your pc by going to http://wap.Icitizencommunity.Com also check out http://www.micazook.com for it too. Also lots of free stuff for mobile like games, wallpapers etc they let you upload your content and share it with everyone on the wap or web too.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:35 am
I now hear the download empire of SMART and GLOBE swirling down the drain.
This will definitely make game downloads very affordable, and much more accessible!
Well…free, cant beat that, right?
April 28th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
OMG! Free mobile games! is this true? i have to try this out. do they have a live support if ever we encounter problems in their mobile games like, games not working, can go to the games or cannot download their games?
thanks!