No more Tetris clones, Sprint says

Wireless carrier Sprint Corp. is growing more selective about the video games it accepts for its platform, one of its top gaming executives said Monday.

"We don't need any more Tetris clones, we don't need any more football titles," said Kris Davis, marketing manager for its games and entertainment unit, in an interview on the sidelines of the Game Developers Conference here.

While precise figures are unavailable, industry watchers generally estimate the global mobile games business at about $2 billion, making it one of the fastest-growing segments of the $20-billion-plus games business.

Sprint already offers about 250 different games, Davis said, and for the last year or so it has been closely reviewing game proposals via a board made up of people from various segments of the company.

"We can pretty much say 'we're not going to take it' and it doesn't cost us anything," he said.

While the level of rejections can vary from week to week, Davis said, it can run as high as 25 percent to 50 percent of proposals.

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As the industry grows, though, the appeal of the games on offer has broadened, taking in the kind of person who might not ordinarily be considered a "gamer."

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"Now we're seeing more accessible, casual games," Davis said.

Sprint is on track for 1 million game downloads a month, but because the industry changes so fast he said the company can not make any long-term commitments to publishers as far as what it will want and when.

"It doesn't really matter because the road map could change six to nine months from now," he said.