In August 2000, Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG) entered the mobile content market in Japan with an agreement with NTT DoCoMo to launch the Disney-i content service.[3] In November 2003, WDIG and Index Corporation agreed to "develop and distribute Disney-branded mobile content for the Chinese market" and that Index would, in conjunction with China Mobile, work to launch the Disney Mobile service.[4] Walt Disney Internet Group launched DisneyMobile.com in December 2003 as a portal for Disney Mobile content.[5]
Starting in January 2004, WDIG licensed Disney Mobile content to KPN, a prominent Dutch telecom firm.[6] In March 2004, WDIG agreed to a licensing deal with Vodafone to provide Disney Mobile services in 14 countries: Australia, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.[7] Also in 2004, Disney re-activated the Starwave identity as Starwave Mobile, which publishes casual games for mobile phones for non-Disney brands within Disney's conglomerate or from third parties.[8]
Sprint and Disney had previously launched a phone service for sports fans using content from Disney's sports channel, ESPN, branded Mobile ESPN.[9]
In September 2007, DMobile stopped signing up new wireless customers and discontinued the wireless service altogether on December 31, 2007. DMobile decided to shift its strategy by licensing its mobile suite, Family Center, and its content to other providers.[13] However, in November 2007, Disney Japan and Softbank announced a wireless service joint venture, Disney Mobile, to be launched in 2008.[14]
In July 2010, Disney purchased Tapulous to increase available mobile expertise. In 2011, Bart Decrem of Tapulous was appointed general manager of DMobile.[2]
Launched September 22, 2011, Where's My Water?, a mobile game, starring Swampy the alligator - the first Disney original mobile character - rivaled Angry Birds for 20 days in October 2011, even becoming the top mobile game on the iTunes bestseller charts for a short time.[citation needed] This has led to a YouTube channel with a web series for Swampy.[2]Where's My Water? has inspired several spin-offs, including “Where's My Perry?” and “Where's My Mickey?”.[15]
Also launched by DMobile in September 2011 was Puffle Launch, a mobile version of the game played on Club Penguin. In October 2011, working with Spin Master, DMobile launched the first Disney Appmates game with Cars 2 toys that interact with an iPad screen.[2]
With a decrease in venture capital flowing into game companies, Disney Interactive, including Disney Mobile, has been able to find co-development partners easier.[vague] This co-development model has lifted Disney to have 11 games among the 200 most-downloaded.[16] Disney Mobile teamed up with Imangi Studios to release a version of Temple Run based on the film Brave, titled Temple Run: Brave.[when?] DMobile teamed up with developer Hipster Whale to release Disney Crossy Road on April 6, 2016, which in two days became the top downloaded game on iOS.[17]
Wireless
In the US, Disney Mobile operated on Sprint's CDMA network. Disney handled the administrative side and marketed the service to family subscribers.[10]
Disney Mobile's offerings included Family Center suite, a multiple family-friendly applications to help parents manage their family's mobile phone experience. The innovative family monitor and call control features allowed parents to set spending limits and decide when the phone could and couldn't be used. The family locator service allowed parents to use GPS to locate their child's phone. There was also a family alert feature that let the whole family send text messages to each other.[10][13]
Disney and Sprint had hoped that Disney Mobile content and applications would help drive demand for data services.[10]
Game support
Disney Mobile is well-known for producing a myriad of games for iOS and Android, but due to the limitations of its support team, it must discontinue old games before releasing new ones. Some games, such as Where's My Water? will continue to be supported indefinitely.[citation needed]
Disney Channel is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney Entertainment division of The Walt Disney Company.
Starwave was a Seattle, Washington-based software and website company, founded in 1993 by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and led by CEO Mike Slade. The company produced original CD-ROM titles, including Muppets Inside, and titles for Clint Eastwood, Sting, and Peter Gabriel. They were the original developers of Castle Infinity, the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game for children, but Starwave's most lasting mark was in the area of web content sites. They developed ESPN.com, ABCNEWS.com, Outside Online, and Mr. Showbiz.com among other sites, setting the standard for much of the commercial Internet explosion of the late 1990s. Starwave also developed the first site and publishing system for Jim Cramer's TheStreet.com.
Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divisions Verizon Consumer and Verizon Business, and stopped using the Verizon Wireless name. Verizon is the second-largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 144.8 million subscribers as of December 31, 2023. It currently has the largest network in the United States with their LTE network covering 70% of the United States.
A mobile game is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone, tablet, PDA to handheld game console, portable media player or graphing calculator, with and without network availability. The earliest known game on a mobile phone was a Tetris variant on the Hagenuk MT-2000 device from 1994.
Disney Interactive Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher owned by The Walt Disney Company through Disney Interactive. Prior to its closure in 2016, it developed and distributed multi-platform video games and interactive entertainment worldwide.
Sprint Corporation was an American telecommunications company. Before being acquired by T-Mobile US on April 1, 2020, it was the fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United States, serving 54.3 million customers as of June 30, 2019. The company also offered wireless voice, messaging, and broadband services through its various subsidiaries under the Boost Mobile and Open Mobile brands and wholesale access to its wireless networks to mobile virtual network operators.
Mobile ESPN was a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) run by The Walt Disney Company using Sprint's EVDO wireless network from November 25, 2005, until December 2006. The service was widely considered overpriced and a failure, though in retrospect the actual data and audio-visual backbone and software behind the service would be re-adapted successfully for the smartphone age several years later, untied to a carrier.
The Zeebo is a 3G-enabled entertainment and education system from Zeebo Inc. It enabled users to play video games, and also connect to the Internet, communicate online and run educational applications. The Zeebo was targeted at developing markets such as Brazil and Mexico. Zeebo Inc. described the Zeebo as bringing "the fun and excitement of interactive entertainment and education to those who—until now—have had little or no access to such technology."
Playphone is a mobile gaming platform founded in 2003 headquartered in San Jose, California that provides direct-to-consumer mobile content distribution. It is funded by Menlo Ventures, Cardinal Venture Capital, and Coral Capital Management, and is a subsidiary of GungHo Online Entertainment.
Bart Decrem is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who, most recently, headed the Mobile Games business for The Walt Disney Company between July 2010 and the Fall of 2013. He was born and raised in Belgium.
MobiTV, Inc. operated as a provider of live and on-demand video delivery solutions, with its headquarters located in Emeryville, California. Founded in 1999 by Paul Scanlan, Phillip Alvelda, and Jeff Annison, Mobi TV was a privately held company supported by venture capital. Charlie Nooney assumed the roles of CEO and Chairman of the company on October 15, 2007.
Disney Interactive is an American video game and internet company that oversees various websites and interactive media owned by The Walt Disney Company.
Tap Tap Revenge was a music game created by Nate True, and developed and published by Tapulous for iOS in July 2008. It is the first game in Tapulous' Tap Tap series.
Tapulous, Inc. was an American software and video game developer and publisher headquartered in Palo Alto, California. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company as part of Disney Interactive's Disney Mobile unit. The company's most profitable products were the Tap Tap series of music games, which surpassed thirty-five million downloads.
Crossy Road is an arcade video game released on 20 November 2014. It was developed and published by Australian video game developer Hipster Whale, with the name and concept of the game playing on the age-old joke/anti-joke "Why did the chicken cross the road?" The game has also been described as endless runner version of Frogger.
Club Nokia was a mobile internet digital distribution portal, similar to an App Store, operated by Nokia to provide special offers, paid-for ringtones, picture messages and game content directly to members. Following resistance from its mobile operator customers, Nokia partially closed the service and the brand became solely a consumer service and loyalty portal.
The popularisation of mobile games began as early as 1997 with the introduction of Snake preloaded on Nokia feature phones, demonstrating the practicality of games on these devices. Several mobile device manufacturers included preloaded games in the wake of Snake's success. In 1999, the introduction of the i-mode service in Japan allowed a wide variety of more advanced mobile games to be downloaded onto smartphones, though the service was largely limited to Japan. By the early 2000s, the technical specifications of Western handsets had also matured to the point where downloadable applications could be supported, but mainstream adoption continued to be hampered by market fragmentation between different devices, operating environments, and distributors.
Boost Mobile is an American wireless service provider owned by Dish Wireless. It uses the Dish, AT&T and T-Mobile networks to deliver wireless services. As of Q3 2023, Boost Mobile, along with its sister brands Boost Infinite, Gen Mobile, and Ting Mobile had 7.50 million customers.
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