Los Angeles-based EA Mobile division of Electronic Arts Tuesday announced the launch of Tetris Blockout, a 3D cell phone version of the classic game Tetris.
That game might mean more to the future of EA than titles released for traditional gaming consoles. The company’s preliminary financial reports for the quarter ended Dec. 31 show cell phone games are one of only three platforms increasing in revenue.
The chart shows revenue from games for cell phones, PS3 and Wii are steadily increasing. All other platforms are trending down — led by the sharp decrease in EA’s biggest money-maker: games for the PS2.
The PS3 and Wii consoles debuted in November 2006 and their growing popularity can help explain EA’s growth in revenue from games for those systems.
Cell phones games have been around since 1997 (according to a BusinessWeek’s History of Cell-Phone Gaming) and EA has been selling mobile games since early 2006.
By the fourth quarter of 2007, EA’s cell phone game revenue equaled that from Wii games: $36 million. Playstation 3 games brought in $52 million during that same period.
The amount of money coming from cell phone games might be considered a drop in the bucket, accounting for about 5 percent of the $3.1 billion EA took in during 2007 . But, that slice of revenue has grown 3600 percent, from $1 million generated when they first started selling cell phone games to $36 million in the most recent quarter. Here’s a close-up view of the little black line of cell phone game sales from EA. (Click the chart to enlarge.)
That might explain why EA spent for $680 million (about a quarter’s worth of revenue) acquiring mobile game maker Jamdat Mobile in Dec. 2005, which is how EA got the Tetris title.
Tetris was invented in 1984 by Russian computer programmer Alexey Pajitnov and while the first PC-compatible version of the game was released in 1988, Henk Rogers made it into a game for mobile devices in 2002. Tetris then went to Jamdat when it bought Rogers’ Blue Lava Wireless in April 2005.
The new Tetris game joins EA’s three other Tetris titles: a classic version, a multi-player version and Tetris Mania. In 2007, the standard mobile Tetris was the most downloaded mobile game, according to Nielsen Mobile.
The latest addition to the mobile Tetris family, Tetris Blockout, requires the blocks be rotated and placed into a three-dimensional playing field. It is available on major wireless carriers throughout North America and Europe. Click here for more information.
