Monty's Gaming and Wireless Outlook - Issue 165

One of the most unlikely viral marketing coups of the last 15 years was behind the 1992 movie The Crying Game.

Audiences, prompted by distributor Miramax, were urged not to reveal THAT one-second scene when the lay-dee showed herself to be so much more. Incredibly, a whole world of filmgoers kept quiet and the film consequently made a fortune at the Box Office.

Nowadays, such secrecy in the internet age is impossible. The secret would be out before filming was over and the movie would flop (an inappropriate verb in the circumstances). Still, those who enjoy that type of film will be pleased to know there are rumours that several remakes are in production. Prepare for Queen Kong, Womb With A View, Tranny McPhee and that old classic, The Ladyboy Vanishes.

Viral marketing has naturally moved on since Neil Jordan’s ground-breaking movie and the mobile phone is a perfect instrument for such campaigns. While such activity can be intrusive, Asian operators have no qualms in spamming their subscribers. China Mobile and China Unicom now employ SMS-poets to create saccharine messages that these operators then send anonymously to their customers.

While popular phrases such as ‘A kettle of wine is soft, fragrant and rich’ and ‘A harvest moon is long in the sky and broad on the ground’ would probably send most Western users into apoplexy-churn, Chinese users apparently love them.

The figures bear this out. On the eve of the last Chinese New Year, more than 11 BILLION messages were sent to bring in the Year of the Rooster, of which a high percentage were written by the SMS-poets. Personally, I prefer more personalised messages on New Year’s Eve such as ‘I ****ing love you, mate’ or ‘Hope you’re as wasted as me’, but that’s the decadent West for you.

Finally this week, a warm welcome back to the mobile gaming world to Alan Welsman, the man who would receive so many more emails if people realised he wasn’t from Wales. Alan has re-emerged at Infospace Mobile, a move that could be the first of many across a rapidly converging sector. Who's next? Some of us know, but some of us can still keep a secret.