Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Startup spotlight: Movaya Wireless

this article sounds interesting and i thought someone at GTP might be interested. i only read it quickly, but i believe Movaya Wireless is offering an affiliate program for games on mobile phones. although i HATE paying for crap like that that i could play for free on my pc i'd MUCH rather give my money to someone other than my stupid ass cell phone company.

not to mention the fact that a mobil phone game service would be a great way to fund this site. just sharing a thought.

if i wanted a little game for my cell phone i'd rather go through GTP, that's all i wanted to say really. :)

 
 

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via Video Game Venture Capital - VGVC by vladcole on 11/24/07

Seattle-based Movaya Wireless caught our attention when the company blogged about Capcom's decision to embrace off-deck sales by using Movaya technology [1]. Movaya's position and focus appear to be strong, hence this brief spotlight. [Neither of the authors of this blog have any financial interest in the company.]

The 13-employee company is betting an increasing portion of mobile game sales will move "off-deck." That is, consumers will purchase games for their mobile phones from websites and locations other than the too-crowded on-phone listing (presently about 85% of sales are made through the carrier-controlled deck). Movaya's technology allows websites small and large to merchandise some 500+ mobile games directly from their sites "in a matter of minutes."

To test this claim, we signed up for Movaya's service in order to add a single game for sale to the end of this post. It took about eight minutes to do so. Simple! Still, the service could be better from a merchandising perspective. Movaya needs to specify the commissions that web retailers can hope to earn from products (the FAQ fails to specify), for example. Movaya also doesn't allow its affiliates to specify their own pricing, which limits the ability for good marketers to juice sales through promotions and other standard marketing tools. And unlike Big Fish Games' affiliate program [2], Movaya doesn't back its affiliates with marketing muscle. In all, Movaya's PlugNPlay platform is a limited, but simple and fast means for mobile games ecommerce. (We did not evalutate Movaya's more powerful Enterprise and "Platform M" solutions.)

Movaya has raised an unspecified amount of capital from angel investors in the Seattle area and is currently seeking additional funding. Company CEO Phil Yerkes makes his pitch for funding on PlanHeaven.com (account required) [3].

Sources:

  1. "Capcom Interactive is Revving Up Off-deck Mobile Game Sales," Movaya Wireless, November, 19, 2007
  2. Big Fish Games Affiliate Program
  3. Movaya Profile, Planheaven.com
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