August 16, 2006

Greystripe's Free Mobile Gaming Portal Launches
by Steven Hopper

Michael Chang, CEO of Greystripe, walks us through their solution for free mobile games

Greystripe announced earlier today that their free mobile gaming portal, GameJump.com, has officially gone live, opening up the floodgates for completely free games. While most gamers know to approach the term “free gaming” with a grain of salt considering the mass amount of scams flowing out there, Greystripe seems to have developed a relatively sound business model. GameZone recently had a change to sit down with Michael Chang, CEO of Greystripe, who kindly gave us a walkthrough of the site before it went live and discussed with us the business model behind GameJump.com and the free mobile gaming movement.

In a nutshell, the way that GameJump.com works (and essentially what will keep it afloat) is in-game advertising, or Greystripe’s AdWRAP system. Ads can be embedded into the game’s code post-process, which are then distributed through GameJump. The end result is game publishers will receive revenue from ads, and gamers will be able to download their games for free, much like free network TV.

GameJump.com currently has support from more than 16 mobile game publishers, with hard-hitters like HANDY Games pledging their support to the gaming portal. At today’s launch, the site currently hosts more than 70 games, with many more down the pipeline.

Chang sees Gamejump.com has an opportunity to breathe new life into high-profile games that have been retired from a carrier’s distribution service, in order for newer content to come along. The added revenue from in-game advertising and wider channel of distribution can only mean good things for games that have been pulled from a carrier’s repertoire. “[Ad revenue] is a nice flow for the publisher after the carrier,” Chang said.

Another way that GameJump.com  aims to change the mobile market is through the interaction between publishers and the consumer. Whereas game download information has generally been left in the hands of carriers (who seldom keep track of information like how often the consumer plays the game and so on), GameJump.com employs a user review section (kind of like amazon.com or youtube, where people who downloaded the game can write up their own thoughts on the game, helping publishers to see what works and what doesn’t when they make a game. The goal is to give the site a more communal sense among gamers and publishers, opening up active discussion. “The end point is a close relationship between consumer and publisher,” Chang said.

The website itself is very easy to navigate and sign up with. You can set up an account for free, filling in your carrier, phone, and phone number. Once you have your phone added in, the site’s database will automatically filter out all of the games that your phone can’t play, leaving all the ones that are fair game. The website tracks your downloads, telling you the most recent titles that you’ve downloaded and so on. The site offers two ways of downloading games, as you can either download the game straight to your phone by giving them your phone number, download the file to your PC from a couple of different hosting links (after which PC savvy gamers will be able to transfer to their phone via Bluetooth).

While most “free” offers that you find on the net are fairly suspect, the folks at Greystripe seem to really be on to something with their ad-supported mobile portal. If you're a mobile gamer looking to score some free, legit games, Gamejump.com certainly deserves a look.

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