Are Blackberry Casinos Headed for the Mobile Graveyard?
December 23, 2011
The world of mobile gambling is still in its infancy, but many are speculating that for at least one platform – Blackberry – the game may be over before it even begins.
Those who follow the mobile phone industry at large are no doubt familiar with the stunning fall from grace experienced over the last few years by Research In Motion, the parent company of Blackberry. RIM once controlled nearly half of the mobile market with their Blackberry devices, known affectionately to some as “Crackberry” due to the addicting nature of the phones.
What was once a name nearly synonymous with mobile phones has become a second-tier operator than accounts for less than 10% of the market. What’s even more amazing is that the drop in market share took place in a mere three years.
Was it the iPhone? The Android? The answer is a combination of those two and more; the internal stumbles at RIM and frequent outages certainly haven’t helped much. So, what does this mean for mobile casinos on the Blackberry? Nothing much besides bad news, unfortunately.
The Blackberry operates on a proprietary OS, meaning that people who want to develop apps for the phone must write them in a specific language that can’t easily be ported to, say, an iPhone. Developing apps is expensive in general, but developing mobile casino apps is even more so thanks to the extensive security concerns that need to be addressed and the complex graphical demands of casino games.
While there are a few Blackberry casinos (source: http://www.rtgonlinecasinos.com/games/blackberry/) offering both free and real money play, the economics of app development are simple and brutal: If a platform doesn’t have enough market share, app developers start to ignore it. Once app developers start to ignore it, a vicious cycle is set into motion whereby fewer apps mean fewer users, and fewer users mean fewer apps, and so on.
Unfortunately for casino lovers of the Blackberry stripe, your options – already few– may dwindle to none in the years ahead.