July Systems Launches Mobile Game Tournament Service on Jippii

Cross-carrier interactive mobile service allows UK users to compete for high-score rankings & prizes

News by GamesIndustry International Contributor

Published on Feb. 8, 2005

Santa Clara, CA, Feb 08 2005 - July Systems, an innovative technology solutions provider of smart mobile content retailing services, announces that it has launched a mobile game tournament service on leading UK mobile content portal Jippii. The tournament service, managed end-to-end by July Systems, allows users to download special tournament-enabled versions of mobile games, play, and post their scores to the tournament leaderboards directly from their phones. The service also offers a unique free trial feature for users to try the tournament before subscribing, and a convenient weekly subscription pricing. The first tournament JT1 features the best-selling mobile game Gem Jam. Over a hundred prizes including iPods, Xbox gaming consoles, Game Boys, and Nokia n-Gage gaming phones are on offer for players with the top leaderboard scores daily, weekly and for the whole tournament. The cross-carrier tournament service is available to both post-paid and pre-paid subscribers of Vodafone, O2, Orange and T-Mobile.

July Systems provided iTouch (which owns the Jippii portal) a complete end-to-end managed service including sourcing games from July's content partners such as Elkware, enabling games for the tournament, designing the service, testing and certifying the service for multiple phone models, hosting content and managing service delivery, as well as billing integration with iTouch billing systems. The service will be regularly updated with new tournament games by leveraging July's patent-pending 'wrapper' technology that allows mobile games from any content provider to be easily enabled for tournaments and other innovative services.

"July Systems' smart mobile content retailing solutions allowed us to transform the way content such as mobile games is offered to our subscribers," said Lourens de Beer, Portal Director, iTouch, "The tournament service delivers an exciting new mobile experience for consumers, that is far superior to just playing a game on the phone. Our experience selling mobile content has shown that consumers are willing to pay for such innovative services."

"The JT tournament service demonstrates how July's mobile content retailing technology can multiply mobile game revenues and profitability for our customers" said Ashok Narasimhan, Chairman, CEO & Co-Founder of July Systems "In addition, our low-cost, end-to-end managed service capabilities mean that live services are up and running in weeks with minimal integration requirements or investments by the mobile content retailer, in this case, iTouch."

About July Systems

July Systems provides innovative technology solutions that enable mobile content retailers to multiply revenues and profits by transforming the retailing of mobile content to reach the mass-market. July Systems' turnkey solutions are delivered as low-cost, fast time-to-market, end-to-end managed services. Founded in July 2001, July Systems is privately held with investments by Charles River Ventures, WestBridge Capital Partners, NeoCarta Ventures, Acer Technology Ventures, Jumpstartup and Silicon Valley Bancshares. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, and operates its Global Product Center in Bangalore, India.

JULY-ITOUCH TOURNAMENT SERVICE Q&As

1) Can you tell me about your company?

July Systems provides innovative technology solutions that enable mobile content retailers to multiply revenues and profits by transforming the retailing of mobile content to reach the mass-market. July Systems' turnkey solutions are delivered as low-cost, fast time-to-market, end-to-end managed services. Founded in July 2001, July Systems is privately held with investments by Charles River Ventures, WestBridge Capital Partners, NeoCarta Ventures, Acer Technology Ventures, Jumpstartup and Silicon Valley Bancshares. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, operates its Global Product Center in Bangalore, India, and has Europe offices in UK, Germany and Italy.

2) Can you explain how your system (the tournament service) works?

July's tournament service has been created using the smart retailing capabilities of July's mobile content retailing & service delivery platform. July provides the service as an end-to-end managed service that includes all the steps from working with game developers and providers to enable tournaments to managing the end-user service.

July works with content providers to enable the game for the tournament service to integrate the content and service.

July conceptualizes and designs the service around the content. July's service retailing and delivery capabilities are packaged around the content to deliver a seamless experience to consumers.

Consumers who request the service (by sending JT1 to 8181, iTouch's shortcode) receive a bookmark in response, and can download the tournament enabled game.

The unique free trial feature allows consumers to play the tournament game for as long as they like. The free trial ends when they upload a score to the JT1 Leaderboard

Consumers who want to continue playing are offered a weekly subscription to the tournament.

JT1 has various competitions running simultaneously and subscribers can participate in any or all of the following tournaments to post their scores and compete for the relevant prizes: daily high, weekly high, weekly lowest unique, overall high, overall highest total

The competitions are designed to offer an interesting challenge to a broad segment of users with different skill levels

3) What companies are you aiming your system at and what has been the response?

The tournament service is aimed at mobile content retailers - including both operators as well as non-operator retailers such as Internet portals that sell mobile content to their subscribers. July has seen significant interest for the service from potential customers, and expects to deploy this and other services with more customers in UK, Germany, Italy and the US during Q1 2005.

4) What are the benefits to your system for the gaming public?

July's tournament service offers the gaming public a new, compelling proposition that is far superior to just downloading and playing a mobile game

It gives users the ability to interact and compete with hundreds of other mobile gamers for high scores and prizes, creating a virtual community of tournament gamers

Unlike most services, it allows users to actually download & try the service for free, and subscribe to it only if they like it. This lowers existing barriers to trial and adoption by new and casual users

Multiple contests such as daily high, weekly high, weekly lowest unique etc. give gamers with different skill levels the chance to win prizes. The service is not targeted only at expert or core gamers.

Being a cross-carrier service, it allows users to compete with their friends and other gamers irrespective of who their wireless carrier is

5) How do you see the market for games progressing in the future?

According to IDC, wireless gaming is on track to become the single largest wireless data application category from a revenue perspective, overtaking ring tones in 2005 and rising to nearly $1.5 billion annually by 2008. The analysts say the key wireless gaming trend is the shift away from single player, device-only gameplay toward virtual community-oriented subscription games. IDC predicts that casual, community-oriented subscription game revenue will grow from a distinct minority of total wireless gaming revenues to market dominance, by the end of 2008.

David Linsalata, analyst, Mobile Devices says, "The next few years will see a fundamental shift in the market as casual, community-oriented subscription games rise from being a novel concept to become the engine of innovation - and revenues. Associated with this shift will be a wave of consolidation among developers and the emergence of immersive multiplayer wireless gaming environments."

US July Contact Information

Gigi Wang

Vice President, Marketing

July Systems Inc.

Email: gigi@julysystems.com

US PR Agency Contact Information

Lorie Hirson

Vice President

MS&L PR Agency

Tel: +1-415 364 3805

Email: lorie.hirson@mslpr.com

UK July Contact Information