Community features breathe new life into mobile games

Mobile games have never been a big money maker for wireless operators or the game developers themselves. While 64% of wireless subscribers have access to these games on their handsets – more than even have Internet access – they are considered amongst the least essential feature to have, according to a July ABI Research study. Many game developers are starting a crusade to change this through downplaying the gaming and upping the socializing – and the carriers are getting on board as well.

Cellufun, a community-driven mobile gaming portal, this week inked its first carrier deal, a partnership with MetroPCS to provide free mobile games and social community features to its subscribers. The carrier, known for its flat-rate, unlimited service plans, will carry Cellufun games like Space Wars and Call of the Pharoah on its deck.

Since the company was founded four years ago, Cellufun was focused on downloadable games via a Web portal. The move to mobile came for the company around the same time the move to a social experience that extends beyond the leader boards became more important. Players from anywhere in the world can access the Cellufun WAP site in their own language and compete or chat with other players and participate in a site with customizable avatars, blogging and multiplayer games that require players to call on others to earn points or advance. According to Keith Katz, vice president of marketing at Cellufun, as a result of the company’s increased support for its community portal, players are using the site in ways he hadn’t originally anticipated. What started as a community of casual gamers has since grown to a social network that communicates on other issues as well.

“On mobile, people are really looking for a different experience,” Katz. “They can do their hard-core gaming elsewhere, whether it’s downloading a $6 game from a carrier or at home on their X-Box, but we’re offering a casual way to connect and the vehicles are really the games, but it’s more about connecting and having something to kill the time when you’re sitting around.”

Katz said partnerships like that with MetroPCS increases discoverability – a past roadblock to mobile game adoption, but that Cellufun’s goal is to let consumers on any phone or network play with everyone else in the user base, which is equally split between males and females of all ages.