Deal between ClearSky and Cellufun will bring more ad-funded mobile gaming to millions

Rating: Free multiplayer mobile gaming is pushed across the Americas

In a further boost for ad-funded gaming, mobile gaming company Cellufun has signed a deal with ClearSky Mobile Media to carry its content in the US.

Cellufun is a games producer and publisher that concentrates on social gaming. Terming itself “the worlds mobile playground”, many of it’s games are multiplayer, and quite a lot are carefully designed so that players don’t need to be in the same country (or even speak the same language) to complete games or compete together. This is the first deal it has signed with a managed provider like Clearsky to carry Cellufun content. Up until now, they’ve mainly been operating off-deck.

ClearSky specialises in content management for wireless carriers, through their multimedia platform. They also publish quite a bit of their own multimedia content.

What’s the deal?

It’s simple. ClearSky will publish Cellufun content over their distribution network. Cellufun already claims to attract 5 million unique users per month, which is more than enough to make them an attractive proposition for ClearSky, who want as much quality content as possible. In return, ClearSky will make Cellefun hugely more available to its audience of over 2 million customers.

ClearSky has also got well-developed targeted ad placement as part of their platform, which will integrate nicely with Cellufuns ad-funded model.

From the release:

“Developing relationships with mobile data solution providers and their regional carrier partners is directly in line with our strategy to extend the reach of our mobile social games community,” said Arthur Goikhman, CEO and co-founder of Cellufun. “ClearSky gives us an opportunity to do just that, and make our games available to millions of additional customers who want easy access to our content without venturing off deck.”

“ClearSky continually strives to deploy new products and services that will increase the data revenue for our large and growing list of carrier clients,” said Tony Tagliareni, executive vice president of sales at ClearSky. “Cellufun’s award-winning catalog of ad-supported games and their proven ability to build a community and encourage social interaction generates incremental traffic on our clients’ data networks while providing unique entertainment for our carrier’s subscribers. The result is a powerful synergy that allows us to deliver even greater value to our carrier partners and their subscribers.”

What we think?

It seems that every mobile gaming story I’ve seen since I started here has been about ad-funded mobile gaming. This is really emerging as the model that everyone is pushing. Advertisers are more than happy to pay the costs to the game producers, in return for a potential gamer market of millions. And in the case of Cellefun and ClearSky, both of their consumer bases already number in the millions.