Glu Mobile's Kristian Segerstrale: Part Two

I think that they are two different things. I do think, of course, that it's very important that we as an industry regulate ourselves in such a way as to protect young people from inappropriate content. At the same time, I think that we've got to let the industry mature without meddling with it too much.

If you look at the development of any media, anything from the DVD player to the Internet, some parts of it have traditionally been driven by adult content. I personally don't think that adult content will be as important on mobile, due to the form factor of the device - obviously, the numbers will speak for themselves in the long run, but I do think it's different.

I think it's very important that, as an industry, we come together and ensure that we can protect young people from inappropriate content, but at the same time, my sense is that the broader access issues for mobile gaming are such that the biggest hurdle that we have by far is still to communicate the availability of games, and make it easier for consumers to get hold of mobile entertainment content on their phones. At this time, that is by far the bigger hurdle, more than figuring out whether content is appropriate. The age verification schemes of the various operators do seem to be working, and they are being implemented across the board - I think we're reasonably far ahead there.

Most of the operators that have implemented this verify age by either requiring you to enter a credit card number, simply to check that you have a credit card and hence that you are over 18, or obviously if they have access to that information in some other way then they might use that.

As a publisher, we will of course always discuss with our channels, when we roll out a piece of content, what kind of rating that will have. It's not really that sophisticated at this point - it's very much adult or non-adult. As a business, we aren't involved in the adult categories today.

We think it's still very much a mix. I think we need to watch closely as the market evolves - one of the things we need to do as an industry is to continue to do further research, and to further understand the kind of micro-segments within the core consumer segment for mobile games.

The only data that we have available, raw data from a consumption perspective, is the ELSPA charts in the UK - and that of course does say something about the appeal of specific games, individual titles which seem to be up there month after month. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire for example, and Tetris, both come to mind.

We as a company have a line-up mix which is, we think, pretty evenly distributed between mass-market IP that originates either from media companies or from popular webgames - from PopCap for example, or PlayFirst - all the way to console IP and innovative original IP. So we very much still believe in the balanced portfolio, and in trying to leverage the many segments that are out there as well as possible.

I think we, as an industry, need to understand data better. We have been getting better slowly but surely - in 2004, we were taking complete shots in the dark. You could look at some individual operators' top tens but you weren't even sure if those were hard-coded or actually showing real sales.

Now we've started seeing things like the ELSPA chart, and I think that the sooner we get proper Chart-Track type data for mobile, and the sooner we can dive deeper, into finer granularity in that data, then the faster we as a publishing community and as an operator community will be able to make more appropriate products, smarter and better available for consumers, and grow the market.

Data is important in that respect, and I think that the companies who have specialised in gathering data for mobile are making a lot of waves right now for that very reason.

Just to add to that, I think it's worth pointing out that Kristian and I have been in this market for quite a long time, and previously, you could take some risks. While you can still take calculated risks today, and moving forward, we're in quite a rapidly maturing market here. There's a lot of money around, there's a lot of investment interest around. We need data in order to make the right decisions. If you look at console, you can go and get a live update through Chart-Track. For the ELSPA mobile chart, usually you're looking at two or even four months behind.

Even then, you're not sure what the value contribution of the titles in the chart actually is. Is a title at number five because it's being sold for a pound or for 50 pence in the bargain basket, or is it at number five because it's a premium game that consumers have bought?

So you'll see companies like M:Metrics starting to come into Europe this year; we've been working with them in the US and it does add real value when you can have a realistic snapshot of how you're doing, versus your assumptive models and some sales data that kind-of supports it. I think that real data, in 2006, is going to be really crucial.

We were very pleased and encouraged by the results of this specific research. I mean, it's only one data-point at the end of the day, but still, seeing that it really is the youth that drives the market, that they have something like four times the propensity to consume in that market, simply means that perhaps all those analyst predictions of where the market is heading may not be that far off. If we are at 5% consumption today of subscribers, and youth already consumes at 20%, then that seems to be an encouraging sign of things to come.

Well, we expect the market to grow, and we expect the generation of people who have grown up with them.... I've grown up with consoles as a kid, and I keep on consuming those things as an adult, whereas a generation older than me still doesn't get it! So yes, we would expect people to some degree to continue consuming. They have grown up with a mobile device as one of the primary computing devices that they have; yes, we would expect them to keep doing that.