Focus on Russia

Java MMORPG: The New Games for Mobile Phones in Russia

4 Apr 2007

Source: http://vedomosti.ru, 04.04.2007, ?59 (1833)

The new type of entertainment for mobile subscribers came to Russia - Java MMORPG. This type of games can bring additional traffic to mobile operators making their subscribers more interested in mobile content and helping mobile service providers to increase their profits.

Several companies one after another announced the launch of Java MMORPGs on the Russian market. First joint project involves Nival Online, a software company specializing in development and publishing of online multiplayer games, and Megafon, one of the largest Russian mobile operators. The game they have successfully launched is called The Entis Fantasy. This is the first Java MMORPG launched in Russia. Another project is realized by Mobile Infocom, a major Russian mobile service provider, and Euroset, one of the biggest Russian mobile dealers. They published the game called Poslednyi Dozor (The Last Watch). This new Russian MMORPG game is based on the bestselling science-fiction novel by Russian author Sergey Lukyanenko.

Quite some time ago MMORPG games became very popular among the Internet users all over the world. But up to this moment this type of games was not published in Russia. “Until recently our mobile phones and development technologies for such games experienced the lack of standards,”- explains Nival Online representative Lidia Knyazeva. According to the leading specialist of Megafon New Products and Services Andrei Burdukov, his company wants to increase its share of profits from VAS by launching The Entis Fantasy. Megafon is planning to get the main income from GPRS traffic generated by players during the game. The game itself is free to download. Burdakov estimates that the number of all its users can be around 30,000 per year and the annual profit from the game can reach $210,000 if a single player will generate 0.7Mb of traffic daily.

As Euroset' Head of Mobile Commercial Department Vadim Shevtsov said, The Last Watch is available to subscribers of all mobile operators. The game download is free and monthly payment for playing the game is 125 Rubles. Shevtsov thinks that if the players will be constantly playing for about 12 hours each day, they will generate 3Mb of GPRS traffic per person. He also says that the target group of similar MMORPG games for PC in Russia numbers 6-12 million subscribers. Up to April 2, 2007 The Entis Fantasy was downloaded by 10,000 subscribers while The Last Watch - by 5 000.

Shevtsov believes that MMORPGs for mobile phones will become more popular among Russian subscribers after 3G networks will be implemented in the country and mobile phones features will be improved. “This is a brave experiment, let’s see what will happen to them,”- , comments on the release of those games Vladimir Kurd, Vice President of Akela, a large Russian game development company. He thinks that publication of such games will heat up the dwindling interest of Russian subscribers to the mobile content. According to iKS-Consulting, the income from selling the games for mobiles has reached the mark of $45 million in Russia last year.

Permanent link: http://eyeline.mobi/focus_on_russia/85/

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...12     >>

21 Aug 2008
Beeline Helps to Stop Car Theft
Beeline became a partner in the program for car anti-theft satellite monitoring system.

19 Aug 2008
SMS to Fixed-Line Phones
VimpelCom starts providing a new service called "SMS to City Numbers" for its subscribers in Ukraine.

8 Aug 2008
Automatic Payments for Subscription Fee
Russian Billing has announced a new payment solution – a system to automatically extend one's subscription.

7 Aug 2008
Mobile Marketing: New SMS Service for Retail Network
INFON and Lenta trading network have announced the launch of new SMS service enabling regular costumers of Lenta in North-Western region to receive SMS containing information about special offers, events and discount sales in Lenta's hypermarkets.

5 Aug 2008
Olympics 2008 News from MegaFon-Moscow
Now subscribers of MegaFon-Moscow, Moscow branch of MegaFon, have an opportunity to monitor sports events from Beijing Olympics using their mobile phones.

4 Aug 2008
Russian Media: Mobile Version of a Russian Newspaper
Gazeta, a leading Russian news agency, has opened its mobile site wap.gzt.ru.

31 Jul 2008
VimpelCom Attempts to Stimulate the "Dead" Subscribers
VimpelCom, one of the large mobile operators in Russia, decided to charge its "dead" subscribers, in attempt to stimulate their activity.

30 Jul 2008
Mobile Banking in CDMA Network
Sky Link, the largest CDMA operator in Russia, expands remote banking services for its subscribers in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

29 Jul 2008
VimpelCom Modems
VimpelCom, one of the largest mobile operators in Russia, will start supplying USB modems to access Internet from laptops and desktops.

28 Jul 2008
Mobile Player from life:)
A Ukrainian mobile operator life:) has opened a new section on its WAP portal called Mobile Player. The section was created in "Music, Video and TV" category and contains 4.5 thousand songs and melodies from IMMO, leading mobile content provider in Russia and CIS. The payment for downloading the music from this section is based on "per weight" principle meaning that user pays only for WAP traffic, songs and melodies themselves are free-of-charge.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...12     >>