With the World Cup approaching, mobile game publishers throughout the world are busy producing football sims, hoping that they can cash-in on just a fraction of the inevitable global footie frenzy. EA, of course, is right in the midst of it all, promoting not only a mobile version of FIFA World Cup 2006, but also a first handheld outing for its FIFA Street franchise.
Meanwhile, Gameloft has the 2006 edition of its respected Real Football series, Finnish developer Mr Goodliving is pushing the well-made Playman World Cup and Superscape is going with Pele Soccer Skills. Of course, all of them claim to offer the most accurate and authentic football experience on the mobile format.
But two publishers have veered off on an intriguing tangent - and it is a tangent that leads to porn. Well, not real porn, but the sort of Carry On seaside postcard smut that we're invited to laugh at rather than get off on.
InfoSpace, for example, has developed Sexy Football, a collection of skill-based footie mini-games in which the successful player is rewarded with digital snapshots of three models in various states of undress (and for authenticity, they're posing with footballs). And last month, German developer Handygames launched Flitzer, a 'streaking' game, in which you run around a football pitch with no clothes on avoiding the police and performing silly dances for pants, sorry, points...
At first this sounds like a daft and rather sleazy idea, but really, it's just good business. As Stuart Dredge, a mobile entertainment analyst at Informa, points out:
"This summer, every developer and their dog is planning to release a mobile football game to tie in with the world cup. And realistically, most operators are going to promote FIFA, Real Football and maybe a couple of others. So Infospace and Handygames are actually being quite clever in ignoring realistic simulation in favour of boobs and bums - it may help them squeeze onto the operator portals as something different, and thus sell more downloads."
So the thinking is actually extremely sound: sex sells. And not only that, but selling sex is a lot cheaper and easier than going down the traditional videogame publisher route of seeking out a seductive brand, license or celebrity endorsement. There is an implicit understanding here, too, that most people don't go to mobile entertainment for deep, authentic and challenging experiences. They go for cheap, quick, funny hits.
At the same time, the mobile phone has proved a remarkably profitable platform for adult entertainment - according to Informa, adult services generated $973.7 million globally in 2005, and the figure is expected to reach $2.34 billion by 2010. While the traditional videogame industry has never been comfortable with its sexuality, the telecoms business is a comparative libertine. Peruse the back of any lads mag and you'll be virtually accosted by ads for explicit screensavers, logos and mini-videoclips. For most customers, it's not really about sex, it's about sauce - it's sex miniaturised until it becomes funny. So games like Flitzer and Sexy Soccer are the perfect fit. They're daft, they're throwaway... and they're fruity.
Unsurprisingly, the publishers are confident about this offbeat strategy. Speaking in industry magazine, Mobile Entertainment, recently, Handygames CEO Christopher Kassulke boasted, "Precisely because it is unique, the mobile version of Flitzer has received more primetime TV coverage than a conventional soccer game like FIFA ever will". The company is now producing a budget PC version. Perhaps more surprising (at least to those who haven't played it) is the fact that Flitzer is picking up critical plaudits too - it was voted one of the top ten most innovative games at this year's GDC.
This strategy is not confined to the football sim genre. Gameloft, another large, well-respected publisher has a range of Sexy Poker titles, while India Games boasts a sports sim series entitled Sexy Pool. The thinking remains the same - to create awareness of (or notoriety for) specific titles within extremely overcrowded markets. Glu has gone a step further, inventing new game genres to house vaguely libidinous content - the company is soon to release the rather strange Sexy Babes Wild Waterslides in which you control a selection of bikini-clad women as they, yes, whiz down waterslides and get squirted with water cannons...
Whatever is going on here, not every territory gets it. As Stuart Dredge reveals, "I talked to a mainstream European mobile games publisher recently, who described the experience of trying to persuade an American mobile operator to sell their tame adult game. He told me that they just looked at him clearly thinking 'You degenerate European bastards!'"...
