I-Play's David Gosen

Content is a real differentiator and is really important to the mobile gaming industry. If you look at gaming coming out of 2006 globally it was worth around about USD 3 billion worth of revenues. And that's happening here and now. It's not hype, it's tangible. That's forecast to grow to USD 11 billion by 2011 - that's big numbers. In an industry where there tends to be a lot of talk about the future and promised revenues it's great to be involved in something that's happening and really driving the business today.

As always, talk is cheap. Those that don't have a lot to sell today talk about the future. If you look at the challenges that face the carriers today they've got declining revenues from voice. SMS is great in terms of data, but they still need to supplement that with growing revenues. And content is going to deliver that.

If you look at the profile of today's consumer you'll see they want to be entertained. Downtime is not allowed. The mobile phone has reached the stage where it is potentially a digital distribution hub. You can talk about the set-top box in your living room or your PC, but none offer the convergence potential that the mobile phone does.

When you go out at night you don't take a utility belt with your GameBoy, phone, digital camera and MP3 player attached. You just don't do that. You take one device and that's the mobile phone. The phone is really positioning itself as this digital distribution hub for mobile entertainment. For us it's outstanding that we can bring our content to mobile. It's not just mobile games now, we've moved in to streaming video as a way to leverage our own technology and relationships with licensors and carriers, to take advantage of where the market's going and what the consumer wants.

If you look at the industry today, ten per cent of phone users have downloaded a game. 75 per cent of those people have played the game for less than 10 minutes. 95 per cent of those people play the game while doing something else like travelling. It's a totally different experience to console.

Mobile does not equal console. Not only is the usage completely different. But you've also got 50 per cent of mobile games being downloaded by women, which is also totally different to the console market. The average age of the mobile consumer is older, it's not that core 16 - 24 year old. Here you have a mobile gaming industry that is different in experience and demographic so what you need to do is create games that take advantage of that and those are not hardcore, console-style games.

What we need to remember is that in a world where there have been 300 million consoles sold in the last 25 years, 1 billion mobile phones are being sold every year - which one is mass market? What we mustn't do is turn a mass market into a niche market by focusing on console-style games.

3G technology shows that consumers are twice as likely to download a mobile game, which is great news when 3G penetration is only at 15 per cent. The fact that consumers like to play arcade, casino, puzzle and card games - simple but intuitive content - I don't think that's a surprise if you understand the market. If people want a hardcore gaming experience they'll play on the PSP.

Over time the experience will benefit from rich graphics and faster downloads. Maybe people will want to dip in and out of really good racing or first-person shooters, but today it's about growing the mass market base and not transposing hardcore console games onto mobile for an experience that may not meet consumer needs.

The console companies in the mobile space have got great brands and mobile provides a new challenge. What we're seeing is that it's possible to leverage your assets as a brand owner, by taking advantage of that channel. But again, it goes back to who's playing.

Time will tell, but if you look at the some of the most successful games on mobile at the moment, whether it's one of I-Play's or something from EA, they are games that resonate with a mass market consumer. It's not about Halo or GTA: Vice City on the mobile. It's about games that fit the device. If you understand the constraints of the mobile then you can build an excellent game to fit.

What you've got to do is offer something more than a single five minute experience. People will replay a game if it has the right playability - the challenge within it. What we're seeing in the US is that subscription based pricing models are very important and are showing considerable growth. People are subscribing to a service on a monthly basis and they keep coming back to it.

Another point that's quite interesting is that we found that over 70 per cent of people who have played any mobile game have said they would recommend mobile gaming to a friend. That's great news for the industry because it means that virally, people are recommending games to their mates, which is invaluable to industry growth. Word of mouth is getting more and more important, in some respects, it's more important than straight advertising.

It builds on our learning from the mobile gaming business in terms of bite-sized chunks of entertainment. That's how people consume media on their phones. It's not about full-length feature films or live TV.

We've also launched our new golfing service which consists of 600 clips on how to play better golf. That's about thinking where people spend a lot of their time. 37 million people in the US play golf and on a Monday morning after a nightmare round they want to learn how to play better. We're giving them one or two minute clips and tips on improving their game. We'll also be making two or three new announcements in the coming months looking at new streaming video content that we're bringing to mobile.

Yes, we're looking at working with other licensor's, we'll be potentially generating our own content and looking at other areas too. It's important for us to be a mobile entertainment company, rather than just a mobile games company. Mobile gaming will always be the majority part of our business and we have a real robust business there, but we also see a real opportunity to expand into streaming video and link that back into games.