T-Mobile launches free ad-funded games

T-Mobile has become the first network in the UK to offer free games that are funded by advertising. Customers can access at least one new game per week by watching two advertisements before starting the game and two adverts after the game has finished. [Press release]

Worst mobile content of 2008

Yes, I was right - it's time to start the reviews. FierceWireless has published its "Mobile Content Turkeys of 2008" list, which features John McCain Themed Content, Mobile TV, Bad Licensing Deals, Mobile Messaging Addiction and Dumb iPhone Applications.

Mobile gaming worth $10 billion by 2013

Juniper Research says the retail value of the global mobile games market is expected to rise from $5.4bn in 2008 to more than $10bn in 2013, although the potential for growth in many key markets is being dampened by poor marketing and limited on-portal revenue share for publishers. They say the Apple iPhone could end up being a popular choice for game publishers due to the revenue share offered by Apple, which could see the end of Java games. In addition, the volume of paid-for mobile game downloads has flatlined across North America and Western Europe - a phenomenon that was reported in February by M:Metrics. [Press release]

Nokia considering unlimited game and video services?

There are suggestions that Nokia's "Comes With Music" unlimited music service could be expanded to offer unlimited games or movie downloads in the near future. [Sources: NMA.co.uk; NokNok.tv]

Mobile gambling wagers to hit $27.5 billion by 2013

The research just keeps coming. Juniper Research say mobile betting will be worth $27.5 billion (£17.5 million) by 2013. They reckon mobile operators are much more interested in offering betting services and accepting advertising from betting companies than they were last year. [Press release]

US mobile consumers aren't using 'high-end' features

Consultancy firm Accenture says US consumers aren't using 'higher-end' applications on their mobile phones. The organisation's recent research shows 88% of users never use mobile devices to watch videos, 84% don't use mobiles to send email and 79% never play games on their mobiles. [Press release]

Almost half of US mobile customers use their phones for entertainment

Mobile gaming company Artificial Life has released a survey that shows almost half of US mobile phone users - 46%, in fact - use their handsets for entertainment. When the company just looked at smartphone users, 87.5% accessed entertainment. The survey (of only 200 users, so admittedly it's not particularly accurate) also said that 33% favoured mobile entertainment over other features, including email, mapping and web browsing. [Press release]

Zed buys mobile game company Mobitween

Mobile entertainment entertainment company Zed has bought games maker Mobitween, which has a number of network deals and also runs its own Ugengames and Mobigamz services. [Source: MoCoNews.com]

Mobile Content Tools worth over $8 billion in 2008

Companies that offer mobile services - including music and electronic game publishers, television broadcasters, video production companies, content aggregators and telecommunications networks - are expected to spend more than $8 billion on the tools needed to create, edit, manage, and load content onto mobile devices by the end of this year, according to new market research from The Insight Research Corporation. [Press release]

Ringback tones to lead mobile content growth

Ringback tones - music heard when you're waiting for someone to answer their mobile phone - are likely to become the most attractive mobile content category within the next four years, according to research from MultiMedia Intelligence. It says worldwide revenue for ringback tones will nearly triple to $4.7 billion (£2.5 billion) by 2012, with ringback tone revenue coming a close second to mobile gaming revenue. (The mobile premium content figures don't include mobile video and mobile TV). Total revenue is expected to reach $29 billion by 2012. The company says ringback tones are largely unaffected by Digital Rights Management or piracy, unlike conventional ringtones. [Press release]

Mobile gaming revenue up 16.1% in 2008

Revenue from mobile gaming this year is expected to be over 16% higher than last year's figures according to research firm Gartner. It reckons worldwide revenue will continue growing by an average 10% per year between now and 2011.Figures for Western Europe market are expected to increase from $701 million in 2008 to $862 million (£434 million) by 2011. [Press release]

Nokia annoys N-Gage gamers

There were protests last week when gamers realised that N-Gage downloads bought for their Nokia handsets were locked to that specific device. The All About N-Gage website revealed that customers who replaced their phone or upgraded to a different Nokia handset needed to buy the games again if they wanted to keep playing. Nokia has subsequently relented, saying it is now "solution that would allow people to transfer purchased N-Gage games to a new Nokia device". The N-Gage gaming platform was re-launched last month, five years after the first dedicated N-Gage device appeared.

Premium rate phone watchdog to investigate mobile phone promotions

PhonepayPlus, the premium rate phone regulator, has said it will be reviewing premium services on mobile phones. The UK market is estimated to be worth around £350 million annually. The regulator will look at ringtones, games and other chargeable downloads, with a particular focus on unsolicited promotions, price transparency and subscription services. (PhonepayPlus was previously known as ICSTIS; it's the regulator for services that allow you to charge purchases to your phone account). [Press release]

Nokia N-Gage goes live

The Nokia N-Gage gaming platform has been officially launched. Anyone with a compatible Nokia phone - just the N81, N82 and N95 at the moment - can download the N-Gage application for free game trials and chargeable full game versions. The launch is a little later than expected, having originally been scheduled for November 2007. [Source: N-Gage.com]

A third of mobile game downloads don't work

Earlier this month we heard that just 8.8% of customers in the USA and Europe were playing games they'd downloaded to their mobile phone - and last week we discovered that 50% of all application downloads failed to complete successfully. Now comes news that a third of mobile game downloads in the UK fail to work owing to compatibility issues - and only 15% of mobile gamers had never experienced a non-working game. The figures, which come from application developer GetJar, claim that over £29 million is spent every year on games that customers never play. The company blamed insufficient testing for the high failure rate. [Source: VNUnet.com]

'Smart phones' are the preferred choice for games

Smart phones are the preferred choice for electronic games, according to a new study released by Magmic Games and the Information Solutions Group. 51% of respondents said they played games on their smart phone, more than on any other type of gaming platform (including PCs and home consoles). Among women, the figure was 60%. 90% of people said that gaming on a smartphone was better than using traditional phones, while 91% of smart phone gamers said they would be unlikely to switch back to using a standard phone for entertainment. [Press release]

Mobile game downloads are static

More people are playing mobile games than ever before, although the percentage of people downloading a new game hasn't increased in the last year, according to figures from M:Metrics. Nearly three-quarters of game-playing customers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States (surveyed in December 2007) played a game that was pre-installed. Just 8.8% of customers played a game they had downloaded to their phone (up a mere 0.1% from the previous year) and only 3.3% of mobile customers in the USA and Europe downloaded a game in December 2007 (compared with 3.6% in December 2006). [Source: Cellular-News.com]

Nokia releases N-Gage platform

Nokia's N-Gage gaming platform has been released, with Nokia N81 users able to download a pre-release version of the software. [Sources: BBC News, N-Gage.com]

Top mobile searches of 2007

Internet service provider AOL has published this year's most common searches from its mobile portal. Iraq was the most popular mobile search term of the year, followed by MySpace, iPhone, Games, Mail, Chat. Music, Facebook, Ringtones and eBay. [Sources: RCRnews.com, Cellular-News.com]

Mobile gaming to hit $6 billion by 2011

The analysts at Understanding & Solutions say revenues from mobile games will rise from $3.6 billion this year to $6 billion (£3 million) by 2011, showing stronger growth (although admittedly a smaller market share) than console games and dedicated handheld devices.

And, on a similar subject, Nokia is officially relaunching its N-Gage mobile gaming platform this week. Instead of only being available on a dedicated handheld device, the new N-Gage service will be accessible on a range of compatible Nokia phones - starting with the new N81 handsets. [Sources: UandS.com, Nokia blog]