Industry backs mobile to get results
2011 looks like the year that mobile will at last leap not just to the forefront of the majority of egaming discussions, but also more importantly, to the forefront of egaming strategies
After being promoted as the next big development for years, the mobile gaming market has finally kicked into gear in the last few months.
A number of factors have come together to make this possible, with smartphone technology being widely adopted by consumers in the last 12 months as well as catching up with the expectations of developers, while the legal obstacles of recent years have also eased off.
2011 looks like the year that mobile will at last leap not just to the forefront of the majority of egaming discussions, but also more importantly, to the forefront of egaming strategies.
A breakthrough from Bwin?
The release of apps late last year from Betfair and Paddy Power certainly got the industry paying close attention to further developments, while the partnership between William Hill and the Racing Post on an iPhone app in December demonstrated the potential seen by many leading egaming players for progression within this lucrative market.
However, a real breakthrough was reached in January this year, with Bwin launching the first ever real-money poker app for the iPhone.
The launch has triggered a flurry of releases from competitors, with sportsbooks, casinos and bingo all receiving attention when it comes to mobile development. And it has caused William Hill Online CEO Henry Birch to speculate that “eGaming Review will be having a mobile conference before the end of 2011″.
“I think every operator is excited about mobile this year and we have dedicated a large number of resources towards it,” explains Birch, whose company has launched horse racing and sports betting apps for the Android market.
The growth of the app store
The growth of the app store is another of the main factors sparking this growth, and Spin3 CEO Matti Zinder is well aware of how much the industry has been changed by the stores for iPhone and Android beginning to bring in gambling apps.
“Before gambling games were available on the app store, we had a deal with Vodafone which was integrated so users could pay through their phone bill. Now the app store is open for gambling it is a major breakthrough.”
Still, while the process of entering the market may now be smoother, developers and operators have to consider potential network sizes and player bases when releasing poker apps in particular.
Bwin’s app is currently only available in the UK and Austria, and head of product management RNG and mobile Berthold Kao explains how confidence in the company’s own technology plus an awareness of its potential user-base helped the operator produce what it believes is the best poker app possible.
“With poker you have the factor of network size and we needed to tie that in with our strong mobile technology background,” he says. “We still need to give it a couple of months to see where more [mobile] revenue comes from: new or existing customers.
In-house vs third-party
Those responsible for the latest mobile apps are “ broadly speaking “ divided into two camps: those whose strength in numbers and technology makes provisions for in-house development, and those bringing in white-label developments for smaller and medium-sized operators to pick up.
Spin3 falls into the latter camp. Zinder is keen to stress the ‘user experience’ provided by the company’s mobile product. He mentions the significance of developments in the mobile gaming world, and how games like Angry Birds create an immersive framework that he hopes to transfer into gaming.
Mark Irvine, managing director for online at Inspired Gaming, adds: “Handsets have started to overtake content, on the betting side of things at least, although operators have been bringing out phenomenally good apps. The William Hill and Racing Post joint app is very good, for example.
“But gambling companies are now starting to realise that people are beginning to use iPads in place of laptops and adapting to that. One great aspect (of the smartphone and iPad market) is play-for-fun games. We will try to migrate those users to online.”
Indeed, the monetisation of mobile content is perhaps the logical next step as more and more operators and developers break into the market. No doubt a few months down the line we will have seen different players go down different avenues, and have a better idea of mobile’s next move.