I’m tempted to take this study with a grain of salt, since they’re drawing far-reaching results from a simple poll, when there are actual market indicators they could have used (at greater cost and trouble) that would have given a more comprehensive picture of the industry. Still, for what it’s worth, the research they did indicates that a third of mobile phone users played games on their phones, and a fifth downloaded them from third-party sites. I guess if you extrapolate that data you can get yourself a billion dollar figure, but that’s rather a bit hocus pocus, don’t you think?
At any rate, the biggest challenge facing mobile gaming is fragmentation, both platform and distribution. There’s no one place where you can go to get your demos, your games, your reviews. And of course every phone has a different control layout. Here’s what needs to happen: everyone get together and establish a basic gaming standard — simple rules for downloads, controls and so on that any developer can look at and say “If I adhere to these, I will be able to reach a hundred million handsets.”