Glu Releases Quarterly Results and Mystery Case Files Game

Mobile games firm Glu Mobile (NSDQ: GLUU) announced that their first quarter revenues grew 31% year over year to $20.6 million, up from $15.7 million.

Glu CEO and President Greg Ballard said the better than expected revenues had been boosted by strong sales in the US and China, as well as a “rebound” in the European market.

Glu's top ten titles represented approximately 43% of revenue in the first quarter of 2008, which was down from approximately 57% of revenue in the first quarter a year ago. The average revenue per top ten title was $886,000, roughly equal to the first quarter of last year. New titles released in the first quarter of 2008 included Age of Empires III, based on the best selling Microsoft strategy franchise, Solitaire Pop from PlayFirst, as well as key original titles from Glu such as Space Monkey and CrossPix.

In addition, Glu launched “Mystery Case Files: Agent X,” a game designed and developed by Big Fish Games for mobile phones in North America. Mystery Case Files has established itself as an industry-leading brand and franchise from Big Fish Games, with more than 1.8 million units sold. Big Fish Games is credited for creating and molding the hidden-object genre, which is now the most popular category in the downloadable casual games business.

“We’re very excited that our partnership with Big Fish Games will bring innovative and exclusive content like Agent X to mobile phones,” said Jill Braff, senior vice president of global publishing, Glu. “Mystery Case Files is a powerful brand, and we look forward to providing fans with a deeply engrossed and unique experience in bringing a hidden object game to the mobile platform.”

“Our Mystery Case Files franchise has an extremely loyal following; fans will now have on-the-go access to a new and exciting chapter in the series,” said Paul Handelman, vice president of business development at Big Fish Games. “We developed Agent X to meet the high standards of the Mystery Case Files series and with the help of our publishing partner Glu, pushed the limits of the platform and delivered a best-in-class mobile gaming experience.”

Mystery Case Files: Agent X casts players as virtual detectives solving mysteries by finding hidden clues. The game includes exciting weekly updates that provide fresh content to bring players’ into immersive environments. Users can also post high scores to the Mystery Case Files leader boards to compete against others and compare their abilities.

Gameloft's 2007 results

French mobile game developer Gameloft (EPA:GFT) announced details of the company's sales results for Q4 2007 and for all of 2007. For the quarter, Gameloft had sales of EUR25.8 million, up 19% from the previous year. Full year sales increased by 40% compared to 2006, reaching EUR96.1 million.

The sales of downloadable games, which are the company's core business, reached EUR90.2 million during 2007, a 45% increase over 2006.

Europe represented 44% of sales for full-year 2007, North America 34% and the rest of the world 22%. The sharpest growth took place in the rest of the world, up 86%.

"The market shares gained by the company in 2007 are due to the strong performance of Gameloft's back catalog, which continued to account for more than 70% of the Company's downloads, and also investments in R&D made in 2007," said a Gameloft representative. "These investments allowed us to release more games than our competitors on more handsets across more countries. To date, Gameloft's catalogue includes 200 mobile games adapted to over 1,200 different handsets and sold in over 80 countries via direct distribution agreements signed with more than 180 carriers."

Gameloft is the biggest "pureplay" mobile game publisher in the world, and they are either #2 or #3 in market share for mobile games worldwide behind Electonic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS).

Glu Mobile (NASDAQ:GLUU), the other #2 or #3 in market share, will issue its earnings release for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2007 after the market close on Monday, February 11, 2008.

Namco and Big Fish launch Atlantis Sky Patrol

Casual game publisher Big Fish Games had their first mobile game hit the market this week thanks to their partnership announced last July with Namco Networks.

Inspired by the online PC hit game, Atlantis Sky Patrol is an addictive, action-driven puzzler with more than 100 levels. In the game, players must knock out and destroy doomsday devices by shooting and matching chains of colored marbles moving through a track before the chain reaches a detonation core.

The game launched on Verizon last week and can be found in the What's New, Puzzle, and Exclusives categories of the game section of Get it Now. The game is scheduled to launch on other operators soon as well.

This is the first of a number of Big Fish titles to hit the mobile market. In October, Big Fish announced a partnership with Glu (NASDAQ: GLUU) to bring Mystery Case Files: Agent X to the market later this year as well.

Top Mobile Games on Verizon for 2007

This week is the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. There will be lots of news coming out of the show that we will try to report on. One headline today came from Verizon Wireless, who announced the 10 most successful mobile games the company introduced in 2007. The top-ranked games of the past year include:

1. Tetris by EA Mobile (New 2007 version)
2. Smarter Than A 5th Grader? by Capcom Entertainment
3. Guitar Hero III by Hands-On Mobile
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare by Glu
5. Need for Speed ProStreet 3D by EA Mobile
6. Diner Dash 2 by Glu
7. Assassin's Creed by Gameloft
8. Madden NFL 08 by EA SPORTS 3D by EA Mobile
9. The Simpsons by EA Mobile
10. God of War: Betrayal by Sony Pictures Digital

Tammy Robinson, manager of broadband, wireless downloadable content for Verizon Wireless, noted, "We are constantly adding new games to a variety of categories -- including sports, action and strategy games -- because Verizon Wireless customers have demonstrated they have a healthy appetite for mobile games."