Flexion Mobile’s Gamesmondo project targets the Android segment of the mobile games market, forecast to exceed €35 billion per annum by 2017. The project, currently in TRL 6, is a major part of Flexion’s long-term strategy to build an open and fair market for Android games.

The Android operating system is open. Hundreds of potential distribution channels exist and new entrants want to get involved in games distribution. In practice Android is currently dominated by one store. This is due to Google’s dominant position and freemium games’ dependency on features provided by the distribution channel. Supporting multiple channels means developers need to create and maintain multiple builds and relationships.

In today’s market:
• Developers are locked in to Google Play which is overcrowded, with limited discovery forcing them to spend heavily on advertising
• Remaining distribution channels suffer due to a lack of content
• Developers’ payment monetisation is limited to what Google’s payments can support
• Non-Google distribution channels are effectively locked out of the market

An open market, where developers can distribute games in any channel (including Google Play) would drive overall industry growth and reduce issues for developers. Gamesmondo combines enabling technology, commercial relationships, monetisation and service management to create an aggregated network of games, distribution channels and users. This overcomes fragmentation and opens up the market without opportunity cost. Developers get routes to users otherwise unreachable. Distribution channels get access to games and revenue otherwise unavailable and new players can enter the market.

Gamesmondo will define a new set of tools, rules and methods for both developers and end users, whilst building a versatile foundation for benefiting from a growing market and successfully shrinking inequality by Google Play.