When we last spoke to Michael Chang, in September 2006, the ad-supported model of game distribution was still in the process of being proven. However, with more than 1.4 million downloads on Gamejump.com within 4 months of launch and new distribution partnerships made with networks such as MobilePro's ProGames Network and more and more publishers signing up for the service, including the likes of Orange Pixel and Kiloo, Chang is more than willing to argue that Greystripe's solution is a revolution in mobile gaming. Games On Deck sat down with Chang pre-GDC Mobile to discuss. Chang opened by describing exactly what he felt the revolution in mobile gaming that Greystripe offered was.
Michael Chang: "A revolution in Mobile Gaming. Free. Ad-supported." really describes what we're about. And the reason we believe that this is truly a revolution is that we're the first company to provide mobile games, free to the end consumer, based on the ad-supported model. Analogies include TV, radio, newspapers... They're all ad-supported, and so we think that model should really be applied to mobile content also.
The business model obviously has to make sense to everyone involved in the value chain, however. It doesn't actually just have to make sense, it has to be valuable. So, the publishers, probably the most important people in our value chain, as they're the creators of the games and the application, well, we really consider our product really a service for them. If you look at it, generally it's hard for even a medium sized publisher to get sufficient distribution; they have to work with certain carriers, and so on, so we want to provide them good worldwide distribution and a revenue from that.
We try and provide an end-to-end, frictionless solution for them to make it as painless as possible for them.
The second party that this has to make sense for is the advertiser. Obviously they are the source of all of the revenue in the value chain, so we have to provide them something worthwhile, of a similar quality to what they would get for their money from TV, for example. And so we do that by providing a full screen advertisement on the mobile.
The last part of that value chain is the consumer. Now, we don't want to say that they're not valuable to us, but it's been proven that the consumer wants their media for free, so while we care about their consumer experience, we don't want ads to hurt the experience or mess with the gameplay, and it makes perfect sense that they want their media for free, but we have to balance that.
It's very important for us to work with this value chain end to end. So at Greystripe we really consider ourselves to be in the distribution business.
Games On Deck: Describe for us exactly what happens for a consumer with a title downloaded from Gamejump.
MC: With a game downloaded over Gamejump, when the game is launched immediately an advert comes up and fills the screen. This is the full screen ad that we sell to advertisers. If the user hits any buttons, they get a menu with which they can select an option. They can continue on to the game, or they can select to do something relevant to the ad - they can click to call, click to mobile web, or click to a jump page. So if they decide to continue with the advert they can. They're typically kicked out of the game, but as soon as they're done they can reload it. We typically serve two ads at the beginning of the game and two ads at the end of the game.
GOD: So how long does that process take?
MC: You know, if they're just trying to get through the ads and into the game, it can take 5 seconds, or even less. It's really only a couple of clicks. It's fairly non invasive, but it gives advertisers a very grand, full screen impression.
