Submitted by Mike Grenville on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:55

Ad-funded mobile games can be downloaded onto mobiles by sending an SMS in a tie in to free newspaper Metro UK.

Ad-funded mobile games specialist 123play.com has partnered with Metro UK to offer daily readers the chance to download mobile games for free by sending an SMS. The offer will be included in the print, online and mobile editions of the paper.

Free To Pay

The 50 games come from well known publishers such as RealArcade, Digital Chocolate, Hands-On Mobile, PlayerX, In-Fusio, Fishlabs, Indiagames and Progressive Media. The games have advertising ‘wrapped’ before and after the game.

However although described as 'free', each text to request a game costs 50p plus usual network charges. To download one text 'games' to 65400. Alternatively consumers can get games via the web or directly on their mobile from m.123play.com.

Ad Wrapped

Each time a game is launched on the handset, adverts are dynamically inserted around the game, meaning that consumers can either wait and watch for a few seconds before the game starts, or they can click on adverts they like to be taken through to more information. Once the advertising has been displayed, the game will start and run in exactly the same way as if it was a normal retail version. Advertisers are said to include brands such as eBay, Britvic, NME and Pot Noodle.

As well as showing consumers how to download free games to their mobiles, the partnership with Metro will see adverts for Metro and associated services included in the advertising inventory already offered by 123play.com.

With an average reader age of 36, 1.3 million copies of The Metro newspaper are distributed in ten UK cities which is estimated to be read by three million people every day. Its website receives 1.2 million unique visitors, 61% of which live outside of London.

Launched in the UK a year ago, www.123play.com is a consumer-focused website operated by Mobile Advertising Solution, with its headquarters in Helsinki and an office in London.