What Games Are: Squeaky Bum Time:
You can get a little bit sick of interesting times. Just when you think the rules have changed and your industry now works in a new way, the new way is subverted. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on the new way to get rich, it turns out that the market gets stuck.
That stuckness is a feeling in the mobile games industry at the moment. Outside of the lucky or well-funded few, the mobile market seems to have become a swamp. Previously verdant platforms are perceived to have turned into dense jungles full of predators. Once-easily acquired users have vanished, replaced with networks looking to charge a premium for access to quality users. Investors seem to be backing the hell off. All in all it seems that 2014 could be – to paraphrase how Alex Ferguson famously characterized the experience of managing a football team – squeaky bum time. The time when there’s nothing to do but watch the market play out and pray.
