Author: Stephen

Mobile gaming survey sheds light on problems that gamers have

| January 26, 2013

Mobile Gaming surveySurvey highlights the issues that gamers have with mobile gaming

Mobile gaming has become a fun and important pastime for a wide variety of consumers all over the world. Like other consumers, gamers are a very picky bunch, and anything they perceive as a significant challenge to their gaming experience could have major consequences for mobile gaming. A new survey from Ebuyer, an e-commerce retailer based in the United Kingdom, highlights the challenges that face mobile gaming, and what gamers consider to be one of the most significant problems with most of today’s popular mobile games.

Poor controls cause irritation for gamers

According to the Ebuyer survey poor controls are one of the most problematic issue facing mobile gaming today. Given that the vast majority of these games are developed with a touch screen in mind, creating a control interface that can be both accurate and effective has been a serious challenge for nearly all developers of mobile games. Touch screens are not designed specifically for games, thus have limited functionality when it comes to gaming. According to the survey, 23% of gamers said that controls were often so irritating that they refused to play mobile games.

Micro-transactions and bugs are also a top issue

Controls are not the only problems gamers have with the mobile space, of course. The survey shows that 20% of gamers claim that micro-transactions are problematic in some regard. These gamers suggest that micro-transactions are either completely unjustified or that they are too difficult to use. In some cases, a poorly implemented micro-transaction system has led gamers to spend significantly more money than they had initially intended because of their repeated efforts to get the system to work properly. Bugs and glitches were also a problem for gamers. Approximately 17% of the survey’s respondents claimed that bugs were irritating enough to stop them from playing games.

Advertising proves to be the most problematic issue

The chief issue that gamers have with the mobile gaming space, however, is in-game advertisements. More than 40% of the survey’s respondents claimed that these advertisements were a very problematic issue and that they would be willing to pay significant fees in order to not have to see these advertisements at all. While these problems represent aspects of mobile gaming that are well on their way to becoming infamous, finding solutions to these problems is likely to be a difficult task for developers.

Fixmo receives support from Samsung Ventures

| January 24, 2013

Fixmo gets support from SamsungSamsung Ventures announces backing of Fixmo

Samsung Ventures, the investment branch of the massive South Korean Samsung Group, has thrown its support behind Fixmo, a developer of mobile software. Fixmo has a very acute focus on the realm of mobile security. The company typically caters to enterprises and government clients, offering a variety of risk management and security tools for mobile devices. Samsung Ventures believes that the company holds a great deal of promise, especially as the world becomes more reliant on mobile technology.

Mobile security continues to attract attention of large companies

Mobile security has become a very serious issue across a variety of industries and channels. Consumers are becoming more reliant on their smart phones and tablets to function in their daily lives. Phenomena like mobile commerce are great examples as to how mobile technology is beginning to play a more important role throughout the world. Because consumers have a tendency to share or store very valuable information on their smart phones and tablets, these devices have also become prime targets for hackers and anyone interested in exploiting this information for some form of gain.

Investments will help Fixmo with research and development

Fixmo notes that the investments coming from Samsung Ventures will help the company continue its research and development projects. Samsung has been working to get more involved in the mobile security space recently, especially where it concerns enterprise. The company is not the only one showing interest in Fixmo, however. Last year, Motorola also partnered with Fixmo in order to get more involved with mobile security and help make progress in this particular field.

Samsung may be looking to compete with RIM for enterprises

Samsung may be strategically positioning itself to compete with one of the largest companies that has made several breakthroughs in the field of mobile security: Research In Motion (RIM). RIM is gearing up for the release of the BlackBerry 10, which is expected to be one of the most popular mobile devices for enterprises around the world. The BlackBerry platform has long catered to enterprise clients and offers a variety of security features that make it more viable than mobile devices coming from other companies.