@ GDC: Glu Mobile Says Carriers Aren't To Blame For Game Industry Problems

After listening to several panels and presentations—spanning over two days at GDC Mobile—discuss how difficult it is for game publishers to survive in a carrier-dominated world, Jill Braff, the SVP of Global Publishing for Glu Mobile (NSDQ: GLUU) gave a very different perspective. "I think people like to blame carriers for all that ails us in the industry," she said in an interview.

She said once you understand where the carriers are coming from, you can't blame them for the way they operate. She compared a carrier to a Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Target store that has limited shelf-space and must find the highest quality and most-compelling products that will appeal to a largest number of people. That's why a carrier will limit the number of game publishers it works with, and promote only a select number of titles at any given time, and then insist the game runs on all of its handsets. "Carriers are trying to offer fewer, higher quality games to maximize profits and minimize customer care," she said. "As long as you understand that's their focus, you need to work in the system."

On an ad-supported mobile games business model: Braff said the concept was "muddying the waters," and "keeping people from being able to understand the value of the experience." "Today when we do have people paying for content, we should be careful before we cut off the industry at the knees."

On having to port to thousands of phones: "We believe maximum distribution is our business model," she said, adding that it's hard for a game to become popular through word of mouth when it's not available on all handsets. "You need to be where the consumers are," she said.

Braff attended GDC Mobile to give the talk: "The Top 10 Reasons Why Publishing Even Good Mobile Games isn't Easy." She said, her message is: "there's not a silver bullet for making mobile games easy, but it's much more easily understood when you know how to bring a game to mobile."