January 14th, 2008 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial | 2 Comments »
Downloading mobile games via the PC is an uncommon topic for the
regular mobile games consumer. With N-Gage 2.0 coming, it will no
longer be…
Mobile Entertainment Magazine started to talk about the subject of sideloading mobile games onto mobile phones via the PC. This way of installing mobile games on devices is elemental to the N-Gage service. On Mobile Entertainment’s website, a number of people from the industry speak out about the possibilities that will come available, but how about the dark side of this method!?
It is clear that Sideloading offers the possibility to offer much bigger downloads to consumers and thus, bigger and better mobile games experiences. However a big number of mobile gaming fanatics are sideloading for a lot of time already! They use P2P networks most of the time to get hold of .jar files illegally.
With the new N-Gage platform, we might be educating many consumers how to do the most difficult job, installing the gamefiles, themselves. This way, sideloading could damage the mobile games industry even more. The full story can be found at http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/29604/Sideloading-tops-games-agenda.
Smartphone / Blackberry users have been sideloading a long time, in addition to savvy cell phone users. This is true. And certainly if the industry moves a bit in this direction, there could be an uptick in pirating game builds.
But, it still takes work to be a pirate, and most people (read, the majority) will not take this line of action. For one, it is illegal. And two, it takes an USB cable (which costs money). Three, it means sitting in front of a PC and taking the time to do this. Lastly, its not really straightforward, and many devices would need to be hacked to do this (like a RAZR).
Aside from this, though, one thought I have is the ability to avoid wireless carrier billing systems…and those of us in the business know that carrier billing takes a HUGE chunk of the profit margin. Sideloading + credit card/paypal billing is an interesting model.
Cheers,
John
Hey guys I think mobile gaming is the future of gaming and rightly so, I mean look at the possibilties, MMO games on the mobile, racing, fighting, single player, multiplayer, we get so many options in multiplayer gaming, i think its the future. do you guys know any websites wherein i can download mobile games, my favorite is http://www.zapak.com/zapakmobi.zpk?utm_source=b ,this is a great site with awesome games, pls let me know if there are any more.