-How much is a casual user willing to pay for downloading a mobile game?
 -How much is he willing to pay per session?
 -Is the hardcore gaming buff ready to accept high priced games?

In a price sensitive market like India, getting the price right is probably one of the most important factors for growth.

The first post lunch session on DAY1 at MG2005 was devoted to Pricing. The panelists were Yahoo India's Vishal Maheshwari, Tata Indicom's Pankaj Sethi, Reliance Infocomm's Krishna Dhurba and M2W's Rajiv Hiranandani. The discussion was moderated by Mobile 365's Kaustav Ghosh.

What determines price?
Volumes and base costs.

What determines volumes for a consumer product like games is the number of loyal unique gamers who consistently play + the number of first timers.

Growth in Volumes is dependent on getting these first time users hooked on to gaming and retaining the existing loyal ones. This in turn means that better games are needed, smarter not necessarily just lower pricing has to be tried, newer niches have to be addresed.

Another way of increasing volumes is decreasing price and luring more users. That would help to seed the market and grow it. More of an accquisition activity.

The discussion was an eye opener for many in the audience what with all the panelists revealing some interesting market realities.

Sample this -:

- Within a year of its launch, 30% of the Indian Mobile gaming market is dominated by Tata Indicom, currently averaging 4.5 lakh downloads a month. Price Points include Rs25, Rs 40, Rs 60, Rs 99 & Rs 149.

- Reliance Infocomm claims to have game downloads volumes in a day, what Vodafone has in a month. RWorld has now gone pay per play, sachet strategy Rs 2 per game session (generic games)

- Yahoo India (mobile) finds VAS is big in UP, Bihar and other Northern states. There is an entertainment starved market waiting there.

- Reliance Infocomm hosted 8,50,000 sessions of Mobile2Win's Sholay game at Rs 4/ per session

- 30% increase in Mobile gaming on Saturdays and Sundays observed by Reliance Infocomm

- Tata Indicom has users from the lower end of the market, yet the game downloads beat other categories like ringtones, wallpapers and others

Out of sync Pricing
Yahoo India's Vishal Maheshwari made a strong case for the need to price games more competitively. "Be it handset prices or the connectivity charges or anything else connected to the mobile space, all the prices have lowered substantially in the past few years yet the cost of Mobile games has stayed the same" he said.

"A lot of mobile gamers are going online to download free games and we are losing out. The Indian mobile gaming market is currently at $26 million and is expected to grow upto $336 million by 2009" he added.

An interesting factor is that most gamers on Mobile are new to games and the market is gradually getting dominated by casual games. M2W's Rajiv Hiranandani then made a presentation illustrating how carriers across various countries have introduced casual games at lower price points (budget games)

Australia - Orange has general games priced $6, it has introduced budget games at half the price -$3.

South Africa - Generally mobile games cost 8to 10 rand, new pricing strategies at 5 Rand

Nigeria - vmobile has introduced value games priced at half the cost of general games

Italy - Carriers have priced some games at 1 Euro as opposed to 4 euros

Phillipines - Casual games at 30 pesos

RESULT - Net yield has gone up by 20% by reducing the price to half per game.

Flexi Pricing & Free Trials
International carriers have introduced flexible pricing models where free trials are offered and the gamer can then buy an unlocking key to play the game for a week or can choose to download it competely.

Great handset Penetration but addresable market for mobile gaming very small
There are a lot of factors that need to be considered in the Indian mobile gaming playground. Currently the number of unique gamers who consistently game is pretty low.

Another factor is the low number of gaming enabled handsets and GPRS connected consumers. Dhruva's Rajesh Rao quipped to Animation 'xpress that "We need to realize that the Mobile Penetration in India could be in millions but for game developers the addressable market is comparatively much smaller"

Smart pricing out here will not only have a direct positive effect on volumes but will also help seed and grow the market.

Market exists at all levels
This is something where the long tail comes into play. The market though majorly consisting of a lot of new users and casual gamers, a lot of niches are yet untapped. Reliance Infocomm's Krishna Dhurba stated,"The Market exists at all levels, these levels need to be discovered"

While at pricing, the panelists also discussed various revenue sharing models between carriers and publishers. The complex structures of revenue share were demystified to an extent. Lot of International countries that share more percentage revenue per game with a publisher actually price games lower and have separate charges for data transfer and the like. A new slab structure in revenue sharing is evolving in some countries where carriers would follow slabs based on the marketing spend that a publisher does on a game.

The gist of the discussion was that newer pricing models have to be invented, new market niches need to be discovered and addressed and overall quality of the games has to increase if the market has to grow.