Telecom clients keen to play

By RICHARD WOOD

Telecom is building a nice little earner selling access to games through its cellular phone network, and attracting an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 players a month.

The company offers 40 games on Wap (wireless application protocol) cell phones. One of them is the locally created Swingers bar game, where users go into a virtual bar, chat up people and earn "mojo" points. The bars are based on real places in Auckland and Wellington.

In another, called Atomic Dove, the player builds a future civilisation and competes with other players on other mobile phone networks globally. It comes with a $5000 prize.

Although Telecom's games turnover is not being revealed, it is understood to be between $2 million and $5 million a year. Games make up 60 per cent of the overall Wap revenue for Telecom. Another 10 per cent is adult entertainment and the rest is news, sports and weather.

Telecom's manager for mobile data, Miki Szikszai, said even a move to usage pricing at around 7c a click had not stopped the business moving ahead at breakneck speed.

The pricing change three months ago slowed growth from 30 per cent a month to 10 per cent but it is now back to 20 per cent, he said.

Telecom changed the pricing structure because the telco itself was paying games suppliers on a per usage basis and needed to cover that cost as it grew.

The games are supplied by five contracted local and international suppliers.

These suppliers get around 40 to 50 per cent of the revenue based on traffic flow, said Szikszai.

The games rely on getting people to come back again and again.

A lot of them allow points to accumulate between sessions.

Szikszai said the company originally expected the games would attract a youth market but that is not the way it has turned out, as corporate staff are playing.