I have to admit, before doing the interview with Michael Chang, I didn’t spend any time actually using the GameJump platform which meant I only knew the theory about it and what I could see by browsing around.
After entering the site, I went directly to the registration area. I spent much time in the past, browsing the catalogue so I figured I could skip that part. The registration went really fast and easy. Two thumbs up for that! About two minutes after registration, I was already at the point of downloading my game Yokiyo from Orange Pixel.
The download went smooth. Since I’m based in the Netherlands, I could not select to receive the download via SMS and so I entered the wap url myself. No big problem as the url was easy to type and tiny in size. The site also gave me the option to download jad and jar files. A good option for the more experienced user I recon, though do we really want to make users this smart about how to install games manually? Well the games are free anyway…
When starting the game I downloaded, Gamejump presented me a screen telling me the game sometimes needs to connect to download ads. No problem of course. Once the game started, I played a few rounds and then closed down. A nice thing from Orange Pixel is that the game also allowed me to share my highscores. After closing down the game, I got an advert in front of me to download another game. Since I was curious if this was the only option, I declined. Next advert shown was the gamejump logo. After that I was able to fully exit the game.
So far, so good. Since I was curious to see an advert and it’s workings, I started the game again. Immediately I am shown the advert for the other game again. This time I choose the option to download it. I was pointed to the wapsite and the first question was which device I have. I recon useragent recognition would have fitted here since the brand Nokia was on page two, and when I needed to select the model ‘6670’, it took me ages of clicking around to get there. After finally getting on the right page, I got asked to accept the terms and conditions and finally… the download came in! I fired up the new game I downloaded, and got some fresh totally white ads in my screen. I quitted the game almost directly as it was the worst mobile racing game I ever played, and got presented the white ad again and a link to download Frozen Front, a game I personally like a lot.
On the developer side, GameJump clearly makes a statement about game quality. If consumers don’t play your game, you will not generate ad views and so you will generate no money from it. Quality of gameplay is vital! We asked Pascal Besteboer from Orange Pixel about his experience as a developer with the system.
A few months ago I had extensive contact with various advert-gaming companies, and although they all had some good and bad points going for them, the end decision was made fairly easy with the AdWrap system that Greystripe has developed.