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Can In-Store Wireless Distribution Open the Mobile Game Window?

Mobile games carriers have a thankless task. The miniature window on most handsets gives a service only five or six lines of text in which to merchandise a vast catalog of mobile games. It is hardly surprising that few mobile customers even bother to drill below the top five most popular games that usually show up on most phone interfaces. In a partnership that may offer a way out of this perennial problem, EB Games will install in 100 stores this December wireless game distribution kiosks built by "proximity services" provider WideRay and perhaps marry the power of in-store promotion with mobile game downloading. "We can put presence in-store with promotion, so the handset is not the whole window into the game catalog," says Nathan Solomon, director of business development, EB Games. In fact, this system, which was recently tested at select EB locations, can push to consumers' phones game reviews and even videos that can give a consumer much more information about a given game than any wireless portal via common carriers.

The secret is in using fast Bluetooth technology to download much larger games and promotional materials to phones, rather than standard wireless phone connections. Working in a 30-foot radius, the WideRay kiosk can reach out to passersby even outside of EB Games stores and offer their Bluetooth-enabled Symbian Series 60 or Microsoft SmartPhone decks a compatible menu from which they can retrieve games and related materials. They can download a demo of game and then go directly to the EB checkout counter to buy the full version on the spot ($4.99 to $25) and get a game unlock code on their receipt.

Solomon is enthusiastic about this novel distribution technique because the initial tests demonstrated surprising consumer interest. "We learned that in the more successful stores we were getting the number of downloads to convince us that there is an audience for this distribution." The trial version of the kiosk included PocketPC PDA game distribution as well, but EB discovered that the IR transfer method on these devices was too slow and few gamers carried their PPC with them to the store.

Because Bluetooth transfers data at 750kbps, the WideRay system lets EB target the core gamer segment with much more ambitious titles than the phone carriers. "Symbian Series 60 devices run 3D game applications of 500Kb to 2 MB in size, so that's not really what [consumers] are downloading over the wireless network," says Solomon. EB plans to announce in the next few weeks its publisher-partners for wireless distribution, but Microsoft and Nokia were already content partners in the testing phase. Solomon admits they are still tweaking the system to make it more profitable.

Drop-In Technology

EGB demoed one of the test units, and the in-store personnel testified to the system's remarkable ease of use. The kiosk is called a WideRay Jack Service Point, and it has a diminutive Linux server and CompactFlash memory card to store games and related content. The unit downloads new material from a GSM wireless network for local storage and distribution, and every kiosk can be fully managed from afar over the network. "You can upload new software elements and all maintenance can go on remotely," says Jon Marshall, sales manager, WideRay. "They can drop in the technology and have zero IT in shop."

Bluetooth, which is capable of sniffing out live compatible devices in its communications radius, can detect which OS the device is using and not only offer it the compatible menu for download but even customize the Top 10 list of games so that only the ones that are compatible with the specific handset show up. This improves the user experience by reducing the navigation that is tortuous on a handset. "You can push down a catalog and don't have the user surfing for games specific to the device," says Marshall.

Both Marshall and Solomon agree that the technology and business models are evolving. For now, gamers buy a title at the point-of-sale counter, but they may be able to buy and unlock code later through their carrier. In fact, Solomon is hoping to integrate the mobile carriers in the future.

We at EGB would like to see the wireless kiosks exploited more fully for marketing purposes. While the test unit we saw is not the re-tooled version for the December roll-out, it was not used to merchandise or promote specific titles, and we think this is the real power behind a blended retail/wireless model.

As for whether EB's foray into wireless distribution is just a toe in the water for other types of in-store digital downloading, Solomon says that for now there are too many obstacles and not enough interest. "We talked about it a bunch, but there are a lot of reasons we don't burn CDs [in store]," he says. There are installation and maintenance woes in such small stores, security issues, and not enough demand for any more catalog titles than the stores already carry.

If the WideRay project succeeds, this blend of wireless and retail distribution could overcome one of the chief frustrations of both marketing and buying mobile games - finding what you want to play. Not surprisingly, WideRay is already talking with other retail environments, including the phone carriers themselves, about in-store digital distribution. Direct sales aside, such a system allows a retailer to interact with users while they are in the store and provide product information, video demos, trailers, instant discount couponing, etc., that can inspire a purchase.