A teenager sits intently pressing the keys on his mobile phone. Neither does he respond to his mother?s repeated summons, nor is there a flicker of excitement when his favourite TV show comes on air. A man stuck in a traffic jam, is staring incessantly at the screen of his mobile phone with his ear phones plugged in. Both are playing games on their mobile phones!

Connecting to the world around. That is not what mobiles are restricted to today. Besides listening to your favourite music collection and tuning into the radio, gaming on the mobile is on an all-time high among all age groups. Dhirti Ray Dalai, lecturer, Banaras Hindu University, says: ?Let alone youngsters, grown-ups too get addicted to playing games on the mobile if they are not careful.?

And Debashish Mazumdar, SAP Global Head, IBM finds gaming on the mobile to be a good stress buster. He believes: ?playing on the mobile needs you to concentrate a lot more than on a PC as the keys are smaller than those in the PC. One also has to be very careful and dextrous at the same time. This increases your cognitive power and also makes you swifter with the keys.?

However, Arunaksha Banerjee, programmer analyst, Cognizant Technology Solutions, is of the opinion that ?the games on the mobile are far more restrictive than the ones on the PC or consoles as there is very little space for defining them properly?. This is a big challenge that the mobile gamers face and developers revert to easier methodologies: they introduce games that are already known to people and thus hardly need any explanation except for specification on the keys to be used.

More importantly, gaming on the mobile is in demand across all income and age groups ? particularly those in the age group of 14 to 35. Tuong Huy Nguyen, principal analyst, Gartner Research Services says: ?Although current consumer interest in gaming, (online, PC or mobile) is generally low, the potential for growth remains promising, with the market skewed towards all socio-economic, mobile workers and smart phone and personal digital assistant (PDA) users.? But it would be wrong to assume that gaming on the mobile is not hot, as the maximum players belong to mobile phone users, which is by far a larger segment than PC users.

Talking numbers

A survey conducted by analysts at Gartner Research Services shows that worldwide, mobile gaming revenues are set to total $4.5 billion in 2008, a 16.1% jump from the 2007 revenue of $3.9 billion. And players like Breakpoint, Glu Mobile, Gameloft, Player One, Mophun, Electronic Arts are stepping up their investments to rake in the moolah. On a per game basis, Gaming Hungama could charge anything between Rs 20 to Rs 150, by way of the tab. The pay-per-play cost with Jump Games (on Reliance) could be anything between Rs 5 to 10. As for a one-time download on most networks, the charges could vary between Rs 50 to 100. For a relatively small sum, consumers can enjoy a game over and over again. That is why the sun is shining on the mobile gaming sector. And more so in emerging economies, where penetration of consoles and PCs is low.

Gartner also predicts that mobile gaming revenue will experience a compound annual growth rate of 10.2% between 2007 and 2011 with worldwide end-user spending reaching $6.3 billion in 2011. It is believed that India is expected to lead among Asian countries in terms of total mobile gaming revenue generated, with the 2007 figure at approximately $80 million. The forecast is also that the revenue would reach $450 million by 2012.

Kiran Karnik, former president, Nasscom says, ?Animation and gaming in India have taken off in a big way in the past two-three years owing to recognition of India?s IT expertise, creative skills, entrepreneurial drive, and last but not least, the recognition that this as a potential growth sector right now.?

Creativity at its best

Today, 100% of the mobiles introduced in the market are preloaded with games. They are based on various technologies like Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Symbian OS, Adobe?s Flash Lite, DoCoMo?s DoJa, Sun?s J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition), Qualcomm?s BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless), WIPI or Infusio?s ExEn (Execution Environment).?Recent innovations in mobile games include Singleplayer, Multiplayer and 3D graphics. A location-based game is by far an advanced gaming technology that is played on the mobile, using localisation technology like GPS. It simply means the players can coordinate on line, irrespective of place and direction.

Such innovations in mobile gaming are a boon to game lovers like Aniruddha Banerjee, a software developer with Genpact. He says, ?I play games on my PC but then you cannot take your PC along with you everywhere, so I prefer playing on the mobile.? He however isn?t happy that his mobile phone doesn?t have a large enough display and good sound quality, which are essential for enjoying action games.

Mobile make up

Despite the odds, it?s comforting for most to know that programmers are working overtime to up the world?s tech competence. And there is a sea of games out there for you to pick and choose from. With advanced sets like ?Sony Ericsson W760i which comes with as large as a 2.2? screen and Motion Sensor Gaming you can play top games on your phone with 3D effects,? says Sudhin Mathur, GM India, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. What?s more, you could play golf too, on Sony Ericcson?s Pli. So you can actually forget the morning scramble for the greens.

Customers are often baffled by the kind of games that the high-end mobile sets can support. However, Manish Malik, General Manager, Gaming Hungama is of the opinion that: ?Mobile devices have not been designed for playing games though every set has a predefined configuration such as screen size, heap size etc to support various mobile games.? Mobile operators on their part maximise customer profiles and devices by tailoring marketing to individual consumer segments,? says Jessica Ekholm, principal analyst at Gartner.

Handset manufacturers also make sure there are supporting devices for downloading online games, sometimes free of cost and sometimes at a minimal charge. The games can be downloaded through a GPRS / WAP connection which the customers subscribe to from their respective operators. They sure are keeping abreast with the games people play today.