MOBILE NEWS
A third of mobile game downloads don't work
They just make you hurt... |
 |
That image above is how we look when we download a mobile game only to find it doesn't work on our handset – despite us paying good money for it. And it seems we're not alone in our rage.
A survey conducted by game site GetJar claims that more than a third of mobile games paid for and downloaded in the UK every year don't work due to compatibility problems. A third!
The company has done its sums and reckons this could mean UK mobile users are wasting more than £29 million a year on games that they can't play.
"This is an important challenge for the mobile entertainment industry, for developers and for the operators who supply the vast majority of games in the UK," says GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs, suggesting that developers and operators should do more detailed testing before games are released.
(If you were wondering whether there was a commercial imperative behind the survey, GetJar is touting its beta test community as something that can help in this detailed testing.)
The company surveyed nearly 1,000 UK users to reach these findings. Equally shocking is the fact that a lot of people whose downloads don't work, don't actually complain.
"Users will tend to blame themselves for a compatibility failure and therefore do not actively pursue a refund," says Laurs.
We're going to be asking operators to comment on GetJar's claims, but what are your experiences? Have a third of your mobile downloads failed to work? And if you complained, what reaction did you get from your operator or the supplier?
Joined:
Nov 2007
Post count:
22
This is definitely a big problem at the moment.
I am currently in dispute with my mobile manufacturer due to the fact that games that I purchased (and paid for) from their website either failed to download (most common complaint) or didn't work once downloaded. After a month I still haven't had any satisfation despite numerous promises that they would resend the games. The has to be better ways to distribute games.
Another related issue is that you just don't know if the version of the game you are buying is the same as the one advertised due to handsets compatibility issues.
Joined:
Oct 2007
Post count:
110
I have been stung by this issue when I downloaded a game from an operator. (prince of persia I think it was) Every time I loaded the game I would get an error and the game would crash. Took about 4 phone calls to get a refund.
Maybe if the operators decided to only support popular handsets rather than force developers to deliver 200-400 builds the customer would find the situation would be better?
Only charging the user when the game was installed through an online activation might also help, since they must already have an internet connection to get the game I don't see why this would be a huge issue.
Joined:
Feb 2008
Post count:
1
never had any problem among the 10 games i have dowloaded
but i have only bought gamelfot games, from gft portal...
Joined:
Feb 2008
Post count:
7
Try-before-you-buy (on the actual device you're buying it for) is the answer
Joined:
Nov 2007
Post count:
6
I'm surprised to hear it's such a large percentage but am aware it is a problem. I've worked with an indie mobile games dev for a few years but I see there are a few issues around mobile games and their reliability. (I might ramble here so I apologise in advance :p )
1) vaga222 is right, when you have to deliver 200 - 400 handsets, then things get a tricky. Operators don't care what is a high spec phone or not, they want to maximise the number of handsets they can provide games for, even if download figures show low spec handsets don't download games ever!
2) Java Signing. Not to get too techie but signing basically means putting some code on the game files you download to say "hey this developer paid a fee and is considered trusted". Each phone has a collection of certificates (eg Verisign). Unfortunately there's no standard certificate across all handsets... which means the game could technically work but if it doesn't have the matching certificates the phone will just refuse to download it... and this is AFTER you hit "buy now". For big developers I'm sure they have enough cash to buy all of the ones they can find but this stuff can kill indie developers. In addition I've encountered handsets being sold with no certificates at all!
3) Firmware and operator branded handsets. An unlocked unbranded handset works fine, but from my experience, when we get an operator branded handsets (eg a handset with Vodafone logos/icons all over it) they seem to show problems than the unlocked unbranded versions which can cause games to crash, not display properly etc. Couple this with the number of handsets in 1) and the number of operators in a global distribution.. and well... it's depressing :s
My advice: get an unbranded (it's usually unlocked too) phone, settle for nothing less than 240x320 resolution, and either Nokia or Sony Ericsson (Samsung, Motorolas LG just can't compare in performance).
These will always have the best possible versions of the handsets as they are 3D capable, multitasking device.
www.gsmarena.com is a good source to check up on phone specs.
Love to hear other people's thoughts on this
Joined:
Jan 2008
Post count:
6
Because our midlets process thousands of pounds in poker, blackjack, roulette and slots bets every hour, we take a different approach from that of most games publishers (especially vs. our competitors in real money casino games). Aces Royal therefore doesn't claim to support hundreds or thousands of handsets. Instead, we only claim support for what we afford to verify personally. This calls for an expensive QA regression each time we release, but as a result the only complaints we receive concern user specific network provisioning (APN) issues which we address via proactive response by our technical support team.
