Understanding Consumers’ Understanding of Mobile Entertainment by Karenza Moore and Jason Rutter, Proceedings of MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT: User-centred Perspectives, 25-27th March, 2004, Manchester, Uk.

This paper looks at the consumer perception to developments around mobile entertainment. After providing a brief overview of the current state of the mobile and mobile entertainment markets this paper details focus group research undertaken in the UK, Sweden, Finland and France involving actual, potential and non-users of mobile entertainment. It highlights six recurrent themes emerging from the research: ‘Clarity’, ‘Compactness and Coolness’, ‘Complexity’, ‘Convergence’ – the four Cs - and ‘Access and Affordability’, ‘Age and Context Appropriateness’ – the two A’s . Moving away from the digital optimism of commercial market analysts the authors argue that there is utility in understanding consumer perceptions of the use of current and future technologies and micro-level behaviour in order to inform planning and foresight at a macro level. Implicit throughout the paper is a belief that a particular focus of users’ understandings and practice had significant value in supporting development and implementation of mobile entertainment.

Why do I blog this because this paper is relevant in terms of understading mobile game users. I like this "it is not always clear to consumers exactly what ‘mobile entertainment’" claim :)