A great example of how creative industries are changing is the upcoming life cycle of ‘Best Fiends’, a new games to be launched in October by Seriously, a company created by former executives of Rovio, who brought you Angry Birds.

The key thing to understand is that for years, it used to be that a content creation company, such as 20th Century Fox or Universal, would create a movie, and if it were successful they would create a game from it, with any revenue being seen as ‘found money’, particularly if it was a mobile game. Now, the model has changed somewhat, with games being created, and if THEY are successful a movie might be created from it. The point being that if you want to build an all consuming entertainment brand, you are far better advised to do so using a mobile game than by creating a movie franchise.

How this works is explained in an article by Andrew Stalbow, who worked at both 20th century Fox and Rovio, and was responsible for the ground breaking deal that saw Angry Birds Rio launched three week before the film of “Rio”, spawning 20 million downloads and leading to a very successful movie release. Stalbow pointed out that in market research, the game had been found to be the most powerful marketing tool of all for the movie among key demographics.

Since then, he and others in the mobile industry have become convinced that mobile is the most fertile media platform for building an entertainment brand. Stalbow gives the following reasons:

1 The Power of Touch: The fact that you can directly connect and interact with the content gives it’s creators a ‘sensory advantage’ over other media platforms

2 Time spent consuming games and other content on mobile: Research shows the average US consumer spends 2 hours 42 minutes a day on their mobile, and 51 minutes playing games. This is going to be very difficult for other media platforms to keep up with.

3 Content and distribution are merging: App stores gives even the smallest content creator in the most remote geographical location a direct potential link to a global audience. TV and Movie creators have to distribute through third parties. So mobile content creators can see exactly how their users interact and engage with their project and hone and innovate the experience they offer. This is an extremely powerful tool.

4 The App as a platform Game studios can treat their content as a service. They can refresh content with new levels, feature, characters and worlds