Mobile Games Leaders Converge to Discuss Industry's Future

Authored by Ned Sherman on July 11, 2007 - 3:12pm.

Yesterday, we hosted our first annual Mobile Games Insider, a half-day invite-only event for 150 top games and mobile executives. The event was held at a private beach club in Santa Monica, CA, just down the street from the new E3. The sole focus was on the mobile games industry, which despite $3.3 billion in revenue was not given any dedicated time or space at E3 this year. We felt that this event was needed and warranted by the simple fact that the mobile games industry is an industry here to stay. Moreover, when you combine 3 billion handsets worldwide with the increasing desire for entertainment anywhere, anytime, it isn't hard to see that this industry could really take off. As Lucy Hood, CEO of Jamba, simply put it in her keynote, "the mobile gamer is anyone."

There was a lot of great discussion at the event about how the industry will get from here to there and a common recognition that one of the key stumbling blocks continues to be the "sucky" discovery process, which requires consumers to go through a 14 to 17 click process to get to the games on their handsets. Addressing this point in his closing remarks, Nokia's Head of Games Publishing, Mark Ollila, stated in no uncertain terms that "discovery is something we are working on and will be solved shortly."

There were a lot of other great take-ways from the event, so we've decided to bring you into the inner circle by posting the podcasts from the event. We hope you enjoy!

If you are looking for other intimate and high level events like this, check out our upcoming events calendar.