The mobile market has slowly been growing, but not as quickly as it was projected.

Trip Hawkins stated last week, in this article at Next-Gen.biz, at the Game Developers Conference that "The mobile games industry can’t go anywhere with the fees being charged by licence holders. They take single digits for console or handheld games, but up to 50% for mobile games. It’s exploitative. It means an inferior experience ends up being offered to the consumers. It’s an abuse of the customer, or the carrier and of the publisher.”

I had a chance to speak to Vipul Sawhney, Hovr's president on mobile gaming, on how Hovr is looking to bring mobile gaming to the masses. Vipul also responds to Namco Networks Scott Rubin's comments in a previous interview we did on Hovr's offering of free mobile games.

Jump to the full interview below. Let us know your thoughts on mobile gaming with your comments below.

Hi Vipul. Tell us a little bit about your background.

VS: I've been in the mobile space for 7-8 years. I started with location based services. From carrier platforms as well as carrier applications all around the world. In 2003 I saw the mobile entertainment market with 3G and larger screens. I jumped into that market and I was part of a mobile entertainment company that did ring tones, wallpapers and mobile games. I started Hovr towards the end of 2005. We have gone public with Hovr as of Monday, Feburary 29th.

About how long are the ads that play in the beginning and at the end of the games?

VS: The ad is displayed and then you can immediately choose to go to the game. Within a second if you want. Or you can go and interact with the ad by entering an email address or clicking on a survey. We don't predefine a set period of time that the ad plays. It can be there for a second or more than that, depending on how engaged the user is with the advertisement.

So If an advertiser says they want to have their ad appear for five seconds, would that happen?

VS: No, we don't have that right now.

Within the game itself, are there advertisements?

VS: We have the capabilities of showing the advertisements within the game. Between levels, within the game main menu, etc. At this point a lot of the games don't do that. Where it makes sense, if some developers choose to integrate it within the game levels. Really what we are telling the user is that traditionally you are paying $5 to $10 to download a mobile game, and that's kind of stunting the growth of the whole mobile gaming industry. I know you had the discussion with Namco, and they are doing great. The fact is, at the end of the day, if you look at the research reports, only 2-3% of the mobile subscribers are buying a mobile game. Even though Namco is doing great, it's only based on 2-3% of subscribers downloading games. The number one reason that is cited is that it is expensive. I mean, people will say it's only a couple of bucks, $4-$5, but if you really think about it, you are paying $65 for your cellphone bill and another $5-$15 for a mobile data plan and then on top of that if you are going to pay $5-$6 for a game, that's going to put you out of reach of many, many subscribers. How many kids do you know that have $80-$90 a month just to spend on their mobile phone?

You don't necessarily have to give the games for free, you can subsidize them. Perhaps instead of charging $6 for a game you can charge $4 and show an ad in the beginning and an ad at the end. Do I think it interferes with the gameplay? Not really. Perhaps the ad can give me a discount off PIzza Hut or something, so it's even more valuable to me.

Scott Rubin of Namco Networks had said "It's not best for the business. I don't see any games on Hovr's web site that are in the industry or are well known or quality games. I don't see anything on this web site, which makes me nervous, as someone in the industry.," and points out that the internet suffered in 1999 by offering free content.

VS: I completely understand with him and his position there. I mean, we don't want to see a 1999 where everything is for free. When we speak to a lot of these game publishers we tell them that you don't necessarily have to give them for free, you can subsidize it. You can discount it a dollar or two. Namco has come out with games four or five years ago that I'm sure are not on carrier decks anymore, so these games are just sitting idle on their servers that really no one is downloading. Why not make a revenue stream that is advertising supported from these games?

When a carrier decreases the sale of a game even a couple of dollars, the downloads go up exponentially. So perhaps instead of Namco selling 10,000 units a day at $6, perhaps they can sell 30,000 units a day at $4 and the remaining $2 they can make from the advertising revenue. Is that better rather than just charging a premium and being strict with that?

Have any other game publishers approached Hovr like Konami, SEGA or Tecmo?

VS: We are speaking and are in discussion with major, major publishers. I'm not at liberty to say which ones at this point, but we will be announcing it in the next month or two. Mobile advertising is very early in this space, and mobile advertising within games is very early. So initially you have the early adopters. We knew at the beginning when we started the company that tomorrow it's not that EA will signup, but perhaps once we see the revenue potential or see one of the smaller publishers who don't have a distribution reach to go to the carriers come to us, they will get the model and see it could work for them as well.

Would Hovr consider offering any games that are not free or is it strictly an ad experience? If someone wanted to get a game that you had available now, but without the ad, could they get it that way?

VS: I think that is something we are looking to do in the future. We're focusing on the user. If one of the users tell us "we love this game, we're not so crazy about the ads, could we just get it without the ads?" we have a publisher agreement in place for us to do that. That is something that we can work with, even with top-tier publishers.

Are there any games that are built around any products? Like what Burger King did with its King Games on its Xbox 360?

VS: That's more like adver-gaming where you really embed the logo or brand into the game experience itself. We're not really focused on adver-gaming. It'll run its course in six months to a year after which it will end. We can have sponsors, like a poker company or a beer company, that wants to sponsor a game like Texas Hold'em. So before the game starts we would show them one ad and then after the game we'd show them another ad.

What about targeting the demographic? Do you provide advertisers information that users submit during signup?

VS: If an advertiser comes to us and says we just want to show ads how are 21 and over, we run it across our profiles. We won't go to an advertiser and say "these are all the people that are over 21." We don't supply any information like that.

Do any Hovr games come pre-installed with any carriers? Like Sprint or Cingular?

VS: We are speaking with carriers right now. It's still in its very early stages. We are in discussions with some at the time.

Christine Arrington, senior analyst with Acacia Research said "[Hovr] is creating a seamless user experience by eliminating extra steps to download and view content" in Hovr's press release. In which ways is Hovr making the download and play experience easier?

VS: It's about what is making the platform download experience easier. The number one barrier that is out there is price. People look at $6 to get it on to their phone, it's very difficult. Even though they might know the game, they're not willing to play without seeing a demo or without even trying it. We're giving users the capability to come and play and try gaming on their phone for free. There a millions of users around the world who would try gaming on their phone, but are afraid of having a bad experience and paying for it.

How many titles are offered online from Hovr?

VS: We have well over 100 titles and we are adding more on a daily/weekly basis.

I noticed on Hovr's site there are some games that do have a resemblance to existing titles. For example, Alien Patrol looks like Moon Patrol, Fatal Fist is similar to Fatal Fury and Underground Racer is similar to Ridge Racer. So why would someone want to go and buy Ridge Racer when it is similar to Underground Racer?

VS: Well, I haven't played Ridge Racer but it all just depends, it raises the bar. Underground Racer is one of our top downloaded titles. For example EA's Need for Speed. Someone may want to try something more premium and pay a couple of bucks for it. Maybe it doesn't translate exactly for Ridger Racer, and I'm not sure because I haven't played the game, but it definitely translates for a number of mobile premium games.

How are Hovr's games being made compatible across different devices? Are they submitted to carriers for approval?

VS: We're not building these games ourselves, so we are working with different game publishers. The game publishers tell us they've submitted a build of a game, we in-turn do some testing ourselves on a variety of handsets. A lot of these publishers have sold these games previously, so obviously they are not going to sell these games if they do not work on handsets. We also have forums or ways that you can contact us if you do download a free game and it doesn't work on your handset, let us know about it. We will check it and if there is a case that it doesn't work, we will remove it.

Do the ads add any considerable time to the transfer?

VS: All the ads get downloaded while you are playing the game and are cached on the phone. You will not notice anything while you are playing the game.

Is there anything else you would like to tell our readers?

VS: Sure. I invite them to come and visit hovr.com and try our free games. In terms of the business front, it's not that we are competing against game publishers, but we are seeking to bring mobile gaming to the masses. It opens up the experience to a lot of users who wouldn't otherwise have had the chance because of the high price. By having a free experience it expands it to the masses who then later on say "hey, we don't mind trying premium games."

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