I had a quick chat with Derrick Morten, the general Manager of RealArcade, the mobile games division of Real Networks. Real launched the service recently, putting some of their popular online games on the mobile service. So far the most popular mobile game of theirs is Luxor. The Real mobile game service is on all the major carriers in the US, and Real chose that route because the vast majority of games sold in the US are done so through the carrier deck. “As advances allow you to more smoothly send games out from a web environment to a mobile environment we’ll do that,” said Derrick, “but the pieces are just not coming together to make that easy to do.” This is interesting as part of the on and off portal debate, since Real Networks has the brand and the clout to offer the games off-portal, promoting it through the online service, but they’ve decided to go with the carriers. Or maybe a better word is “managed” to go with the carriers.
The company is also sticking with brands for the near future. “[Brands] are really important, because you only have 14 characters to communicate to the consumer what the game is before they want to find out more, so you’ve got to hook them quickly,” said Derrick. “Hopefully one day when direct to consumer comes more into play it will be more game play that gets them in.”
Related stories:
--Netsize And Real Roll Out The RealArcade Mobile Games Service
--RealNetworks Acquiring Mobile Game Company For $15 Million
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