Disney goes ad-funded with new mobile portal
Stuart Dredge
Pocket Gamer
February 14, 2008
One of the more
intriguing announcements at this week's Mobile World
Congress was Disney's launch of its Disney.co.uk portal
for mobile phones. It'll have up to 60 mobile games
available, and advertising will reduce the price of many
of them.
"The business model on the portal will be some
ad-wrapped free games, some mid-priced games, full-price
games, and then a subscription service," Alan Welsman,
European marketing director for Walt Disney Internet
Group, told us at MWC. "The truth is, we need all of
them, although the subscription service isn't live yet."
The portal can currently be accessed by texting Disney
to 83335 or typing www.disney.co.uk into your mobile
browser, although Welsman says Disney is keen to also
make it available through links from operator portals,
when possible.
Currently, Pirates of the Caribbean and Cars are being
offered for free, while newer titles like Bomberman 2008
and Townsmen 5 are being sold for £3 – complete with
Pocket Gamer's review scores on their product pages to
help you decide what to buy.
Context to the launch of the portal is provided by a
controversy last year, when Disney was rapped by the
UK's Advertising Standards Authority, which claimed it
didn't make the prices of mobile games clear in its
print brochure adverts for mobile games.
Although Disney has always maintained that it's
targeting families, not just kids, ad-wrapping mobile
games at least brings down the price, answering concerns
that children are being encouraged to spend £5 plus data
charges on mobile games.
Of course, putting advertising in games that kids may
download could be a touchy issue itself in the months
ahead, so we'll have to see how that turns out.
Meanwhile, Disney has announced a stack of new mobile
games heading our way. They include Lego Bionicle
Defenders, which blends Lego's Bionicle range with the
popular web-game Tower Defenders.
There's also PK – Phantom Duck, which focuses on Donald
Duck's superhero ego in a platform game with puzzle
mini-games. Later in the year, there'll also be Narnia
Prince Caspian, based on the CS Lewis book.