Asking customers which of Marilyn Monroe's co-stars said kissing her was akin to kissing Hitler might seem like an odd way for a high-tech company to generate money. But mobile phone gaming is no trivial pursuit in China.
Wireless service provider Linktone, the market leader for phone games in the country, launched the text message-based Intelligence Quotient Quiz (IQQ) -- featuring the Monroe question -- in April.
But even Linktone's managers were surprised by the runaway success of the trivia game, which has generated growth rates for the firm of over 2000 percent a month.
Perhaps due to the Confucian culture and its emphasis on education, the game was not just a success with the original target group of white-collar workers but also working-class phone owners with only a high-school education.
Satisfied customers include one shopkeeper in Guangdong Province who spent 16 solid hours playing the quiz on his phone.
"That product took us through the roof because everybody wants to feel smart," said Jeremy Li, Linktone's chief marketing officer.
Linktone originally began life as a wireless application protocol (WAP) service provider, bringing customers the Internet via mobile phones.
But despite the initial hype, WAP services bellyflopped in China because data transmission was so slow.
"What people were expecting, what they were promised, was the Internet over their phone and what they were delivered was something much less than that," Li said.
Then Linktone struck gold with the technologically humble short-messaging service (SMS), for which mobile customers were already used to paying when text-messaging friends.
This established habit paved the way for dozens of Internet portals to focus their attention on the SMS format, one that generates piles of hard cash.
There now are around 100 Chinese SMS-service providers, including the country's biggest Internet portals, Netease, Sina.com and Sohu.com, which transmit content to mobile customers by text message.
It's now so widespread that Chinese customers are expected to send more than 10 billion messages this year.
SMS generates revenue for content providers because customers are levied a flat fee per message, collected by the mobile service providers such as China Mobile or China Unicom, whom pass some of it on.
Linktone led the way in SMS gaming and it has turned out to be the firm's biggest money-spinner.
"Gaming and entertainment in general is our highest growth area. Our entertainment products are what drive our business." said Li.
The IQQ quiz proved so popular that Linktone now offers niche versions including sport, Chinese culture and even Shanghai general knowledge. It has also spawned a host of copycat trivia games as other SMS firms scurry to get in on the act.
Linktone additionally offers other SMS games that range from digital "pets" and role-playing adventure games to the traditional rock-paper-scissors pursuit, a standard drinking game in bars and restaurants across the country.
The revenue also gives a shot in the arm to China's tiny software development industry, badly affected by rampant piracy.
The country has no major software houses, because Chinese people refuse to pay in full for software when they can buy pirated versions of games from street peddlers for a fraction of the official price.
But wireless gaming differs from the PC and console gaming sectors in one crucial respect -- it does not depend on the game's consumers for direct revenue.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his