I thought I would collate everything I have researched since coming across this most recent announcement and combine it all into one mega thread for those just coming across this stock or to soon come across this stock, and for those who seemingly haven't done their own proper research (of which there seems to be many commenting and just flinging completely inaccurate comments around), feel free to add any research here or offer opinions on my research.
Others seem severely confused on what exactly is being offered by MTN arena and how it will be marketed pushed.
It is important to understand, MTN arena is NOT a subscription access to these games, no, it is a subscription access to tournaments for people who are already subscribed to MTN's html5 gaming platform. (which they have recently announced with their partner gameloft, it makes sense to offer a value adding portion to this gaming arcade by the way of small fee to access tournaments, this will help user growth, retention and acquisition)
From the above articles I have hyperlinked:
"The platform, to be branded MTN Arena, brings together MTN’s 29 million mobile subscribers in South Africa and Emerge Gaming’s expertise in online gaming and tournament platform technology. Across the African continent, MTN operates in 22 countries with more than 250 million total subscribers.
Within the terms of agreement, Emerge Gaming has developed and will operate MTN Arena which will offer games that require no download and can be easily streamed to mobile devices. On the platform, users can enter tournaments with other gamers to win prizes and earn raffle tickets with the platform designed to increase ongoing engagement. To drive user adoption, MTN will help promote MTN Arena via SMS marketing to its South African subscribers, produce promotional material and offer click through traffic from other MTN portals for the first year of the 2-year agreement. "
"Emerge and MTN have collaborated to develop a corporate identity and digital platform user interface consistent with MTN’s products and other MTN branded gaming content.MTN Arena will be discoverable on MTN Play, MTN’s traffic driven subscriber portal for the distribution of gaming, music and video content, and will further be marketed on all other MTN digital channels including to its social media following."
- MTN will be doing a lot of the heavy lifting in regards to marketing, supplying of prizes for tournaments and promotion.
- This is an MTN branded product, not an arbitrary platform being hosted amongst a host of others. It is branded under MTN and will be pushed and promoted as an MTN product. This surely leads one to believe it will have priority in promotion and distribution as MTN stands to benefit most from it's own branded platform performing well.
- The platform is NOT a subscription to play games, this is a subscription to a TOURNAMENT/PRIZE platform designed to engage CURRENT users/players of HTML5 games on the already existing MTN Africa network/subscriber base of 29million mobile gamers. (also important to keep in mind that this is only one portion of MTN's subscriber base, success here opens up potential integration to the 250million other users across their entire exposure to Africa & the middle east)
- "To entice South African subscribers to pay approximately 26c per day to enter gaming competitions, MTN will offer prizes which will be distributed via MoMo, MTN’s groundbreaking Mobile Money service that lets users store, send and receive money using their mobile device."
HTML5 games:I have seen numerous comments from posters on here ignorantly suggesting things along the lines that "Playstation and Xbox are far superior why would anyone want to play HTML5 games"
The truth is Africa/Middle East are still emerging markets, these type of games are dominant in these markets. Forget what you know of our first world gaming habits/preferences, we do not share the same type of privileges and access as these markets and they simply do not care if you prefer AAA xbox/playstation games over "older" HTML5 based games.
If you look at recent HTML5 games you will likely be shocked at how far they have come and the potential for this tech to scale and improve.There are numerous advantages to HTML5 games in emerging markets such as Africa and the middle East, and upon researching you realise why these types of games are doing well and why they will continue to lead in these markets for now.
- They require little to no downloads to run.
- They can run on mobiles/tablets/minimum spec computers.
- Developers can easily produce new and exciting games for this market.
“The growing demand for mobile, hypercasual gaming has been rising dramatically across Africa as it has the rest of the world. We believe Pulse’s fast-growing audience will embrace the curated selection of gaming content our platform offers.”Derrick Horner, Chief Strategy Officer & Co-founder, added: “With improvements in web design and mobile and desktop browser functionality, leading media publishers have a major opportunity to embrace Html5 gaming experiences to grow and engage their online audiences. We expect to see explosive growth at the intersection of online media and casual games across Africa, which could ignite more activity among everyone from mobile operators to handset manufacturers.”The current gaming market in general is huge:"Gaming is a massive global industry that’s worth over $160 billion annually, and boasts a community of over 2.7 billion gamers, according to a Unity report. Right now, during a Coronavirus-inspired recession, gaming is seeing record engagement, record revenue, and record numbers of new players. Mobile game ad revenues are up 59%. “Pandemic players,” the newbies of the gaming world, are converting to paying users 24% more than than a pre-COVID baseline. Mobile gamers are installing 84% more apps than before.We’re also seeing an explosion in the number of people playing games of all sorts."
(20min delay)