Board game gets mobile makeover

Iconic 1970s board game Mastermind is being relaunched as a mobile phone game.

Iconic 1970s board game Mastermind is being relaunched as a mobile phone game.

Glu Mobile, the mobile games developer, has teamed up with Interactive Rights Management (IRM) – which has licensed the rights from game-owner Hasbro – to reinvent the code-cracking game and launch it in more than 30 countries in Europe, south-east Asia and Australasia.

In Europe, it will be available from all major mobile operators including Vodafone, O2, 3, T-Mobile, Orange and Telefonica.

IRM creative and commercial director Valérie Bozzetto says: “Classic games like Mastermind have proven to be big sellers on mobiles.”

The board version of Mastermind was relaunched by Hasbro in December with a television campaign using the strapline: “Do you have the vision to crack the Mastermind code?”

The Mastermind for mobile launch comes as US-based ABI Research publishes a report that predicts the video game market will expand from $32.6bn (&£18.6bn) in 2005 to $65.9bn (&£37.7bn) in 2011 as a result of its fast-growing online and mobile gaming. According to ABI, mobile gaming is set to grow significantly over the same period, with a flood of new titles expected to launch.