Depending on which cell phone carriers you ask, mobile gaming is very hot -- or not. And it's this mixed enthusiasm that could be a drag on the growth of that market, say the developers of the tiny games.

Both Verizon Wireless and Sprint call games "key drivers" of their data download businesses. At Verizon Wireless, the leading provider of games for phones, customers have downloaded (but not necessarily purchased) over 30 million games since September 2002 and 12 million in 2004 so far. Verizon has a customer base of 40 million.

At Sprint, the No. 2 provider, 5 million games were sold last year and 3.5 million have been sold during the first four months of 2004. While Sprint doesn't discuss revenue, the price tag of an average game is $4 and so the math is fairly easy.

But at other large carriers, they're not playing games. Or at least the emphasis is elsewhere.

"Games aren't big for us," said a T-Mobile spokesman. Both T-Mobile and Nextel declined to be interviewed for this column.

Developers of mobile games say the onus on advertising and marketing the games they produce for the carriers is on the telephone companies themselves.

"The problem is, the only means we have to promote the games is on the phones or in carriers' advertising," says Eugene Evans, president of Philomont, VA-based Infinite Ventures, a developer which plans to launch this year what it calls the first large-scale multiplayer mobile game, "Land Of Shadowgate." "If the carriers don't educate the consumers that gaming online is available and is a compelling product, it could slow down the development of the business. Because, other than that, there are very few ways for us to reach the mobile gaming audience."

Similarly, at Hudson Entertainment, a San Mateo, CA-based developer and publisher of games for cell phones, president John Greiner says the carriers' failure to sufficiently promote gaming makes it difficult to predict how big gaming will get -- or how quickly.

"Why isn't, say, Verizon -- which is so enthusiastic about its games -- running big ads for those games when it advertises in 500 markets three times a week?" he says. "All those ads are for voice. When I've asked them, they tell me the market isn't big enough yet. But how is it going to get big enough if they don't advertise?"

An informal survey of carriers' full page ads in daily newspapers confirms that there is no mention of mobile gaming.

"I have no idea why some carriers don't show more enthusiasm for games," adds Infinite Ventures' Evans. "That's the reason many people who have cell phones don't know the phones can play games. If no one tells them, they'll never buy games until they see a friend playing them."

But, Sprint says, gaming is not yet one of the three factors that drive the purchase of a cell phone, which are the cost of the service, service availability (where does the phone work and not work), and the handsets themselves.

"Those will continue to be the driving forces in the minds of consumers when they are deciding which carrier to go with and what plans they ought to buy into," says Jason Ford, Sprint's general manager of mobile gaming, consumer marketing. "But we're also increasingly starting to see games and data as part of that decision-making process."

Ford suggests that if developers and publishers would like to see more advertising for mobile games, perhaps they ought to do it themselves.

"Everybody relies on the carriers to do all the marketing and to take on the full burden of education and awareness of games. But if I were to open the curtain, you'd see that the lion's share of the game revenues go back to the developers/publishers. Sure, we make something, but the margins are very, very small. What we get out of it is that the games bring in new customers and delight the ones we already have. But if [the developers/publishers] were willing to flip-flop the revenue share," he suggests, "I guess we could take on more advertising."


Screens from the mobile phone version of "Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow"

Ford predicts that as the publishers see their mobile game revenues increasing, they will start using that money to promote both their brands and their games.

"In the meantime, I don't think it will hurt the market if a couple of carriers aren't as aggressive on this," Ford adds. "A couple of big ones -- like Sprint -- are very bullish about games and are making them a priority even if it's not in your everyday TV ads. No, we don't mention the games in everything we do. Our message has to incorporate so many things; gaming is an important part, but there are so many things you can do with a phone and we have to promote them all."

While neither Verizon nor Sprint spokespeople were willing to hazard a guess as to why other carriers aren't as enthusiastic about gaming, Billy Pidgeon, senior analyst at The Zelos Group, which follows the mobile market, says it's simple.

"Some carriers just don't get it," says Pidgeon. "We expect to see $230 million in game purchases and subscription fees in the U.S. in 2004, up from $77 million last year. And total U.S. market revenues will reach $616 million in 2008 at which time almost 30 million consumers will pay for wireless games."

But, he notes, games have lagged behind other mobile entertainment and non-voice categories -- such as ringtones and text messaging -- which may be the impetus behind some carriers' reluctance to promote games to users.

"Some carriers may benefit more from non-voice data services other than games due to their respective investments in infrastructure necessary to provide games," Pidgeon explains. "And some carriers may not care to share revenues with leading game publishers, such as JamDat, Sorrent, and Mforma, or network service providers like Qualcomm. Nextel and T-Mobile may be disappointed in their performance in the games sector as they have lagged far behind the clear leaders so far -- Verizon and Sprint -- but both companies do offer hundreds of games."

Those carriers that don't invest in games will lose substantial revenues to those that work to keep games an important piece of their mobile entertainment, Pidgeon added.

Another issue that could have an effect on the popularity of mobile gaming, developers say, is whether the game titles that carriers offer meet customers' expectations. As in the PC and console video game sectors, carriers are relying heavily on Hollywood brands to generate sales. Verizon's 400-game library, for instance, includes such titles as "Van Helsing," "Lord Of The Rings: Two Towers," "Pirates Of The Caribbean," "The Fast And The Furious," "X-Men 2: Battle," "The Italian Job," "The Day After Tomorrow," and many more from the much-larger silver screen -- including an exclusive arrangement with Activision for its "Shrek 2" game.

"If the consumer thinks those are the same games as the ones sold for the PC and console, they are sadly mistaken," says Infinite Ventures' Evans. "The industry has to be very careful about that. Some publishers are using the same brands to connote what's being delivered on the phones and they simply won't meet peoples' expectations. These are games that have been redesigned to fit on a 2-inch by 2-inch screen. The resolution is one-tenth that of a PC game. It's like playing on a postage stamp."

But Hudson's Grenier thinks gamers know what they're getting when they buy a mobile game. Especially if they are familiar with such handheld game platforms as GameBoy which routinely offers compact versions of popular console and PC titles.

"If they're buying the mobile version of, say, Everquest," he says, "I don't think anyone expects it to be the same massive multiplayer role-playing game that they see on their PC. I mean, it's on a 2-inch by 2-inch screen."

Sprint's Ford acknowledges the challenge: "That's a very valid point and we're working through that," he says. "We try to see that the games are of the best quality even if they're not of the same quality as on a PC or a console. If we don't meet the customers' expectations, we may not get them back to buy another game."

For that purpose, Sprint formed a game evaluation board which looks at each mobile game with an eye towards meeting certain quality standards.

" 'Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell,' for example, is one of the best mobile games out there; it does more on a phone than you'd ever expect. The developer set the bar high. But I know of at least three premium brands we rejected simply because the quality of the games wasn't optimal and might have disappointed the customers," Ford notes. "We felt the publishers were spending more money on their licenses than on the games' development."

Paul "The Game Master" Hyman was the editor-in-chief of CMP Media's GamePower. He's covered the games industry for over a dozen years. His columns for The Reporter run exclusively on the Web site.