Author: Dan Gendro

Mobile games are coming to WeChat

Tencent, China’s largest Internet company, has been making aggressive moves in the mobile field recently. The company has been looking to boost the revenue generated from WeChat, China’s most popular social messaging application. WeChat is used by over half of the smartphone and tablet owners in China and the application is making its way to other markets beyond the country’s borders. Tencent believes that it can boost the revenue of WeChat by making various updates to the application and adding new features, such as mobile games.

WeChat brings social elements to mobile games

The company has noticed that mobile games are quite addictive to consumers throughout China. Tencent believes that this creates an ideal environment for consumers to compete with one another on mobile games through the WeChat application, adding a social element to these games. Users of WeChat will not be charged to play the mobile games associated with the application. There are various features that are included in these games that do come at a price, however. These in-game purchases can unlock additional content for those interested in spending money on the games they are interested in.

Consumers may make in-game purchases due to competition with friends

Tencent expects that competition will be the main reason consumers spend money on mobile games. WeChat is a social platform, allowing more than 300 million users throughout China to connect with one another in real-time. Tencent believes that the allure of “one-upping” friends could be a driving force behind in-game purchases. Those that do purchase additional content or advantages in mobile games establish a slight lead over their friends and this may encourage others to follow suit so as not to be left behind.

Consumers are notoriously fickle when it comes to mobile games

While mobile games have proven to be a lucrative sector for the game industry as a whole, consumers are notoriously fickle when it comes to this type of gaming. Few mobile games have the ability to hold a consumer’s attention for prolonged periods of time. While games like “Candy Crush Saga” manage to generate a great deal of revenue, consumers tend to move quickly from game to game in order to find a better experience. WeChat may need to support a wide variety of mobile games if it wants to generate revenue  in this way.

An import ban has now been imposed on wireless products from the manufacturer by the U.S.

Samsung Electronics, from South Korea, has just lost a massive legal battle against one of its main rivals, Apple, over a case regarding a patent violation, following the order of a ban made by the International Trade Commission (ITC) against the import of its mobile gadgets into the United States.

This is only the most recent in a huge basket of patent infringement cases among the leaders in mobile.

The largest mobile gadget makers in the world have all been tied up in dozens of patent infringement suits against one another. In this particular case, Samsung was deemed to have been infringing on two patents that belonged to Apple. These patents had to do with the headphones and the technology for the touch screens.

When the final verdict was made in Apple’s favor, it meant mobile gadgets violating the patents had to stop coming into the country.

This means that Samsung mobile gadgets that use the touch screen technology and the headphones that are involved in the patent violate can no longer be imported, distributed, or sold in the United States. This doesn’t meant that all of the devices made by the company cannot be sold, but it does involve all of those found to be in violation of the patent.

At the moment, it is not yet known exactly how many gadgets from Samsung will be affected by this ban. The orders, themselves, have been sent to the desk of President Obama in order to receive his review. If he does not choose to veto the bans, then they will be put into effect and Samsung will be out of luck.

There are a number of different patent cases that remain pending between Samsung and Apple in several countries, as both of these companies work to broaden their market share in the sector of electronics and mobile devices and gadgets. These brutal battles have been going on for years and are expected to continue, if not worsen, along with the growth in popularity and complexity of the technologies.