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Games are serious business in Hong Kong, especially for dotcom boom survivor Dotlove, which started life as an Internet portal offering advice on love and sex.

Its dating game on CSL's One2Free mobile network was launched this month, in co-operation with Australian mobile content developer Softgame.

Dotlove founder Leslie Kenny said providing game content to mobile operators accounted for half of revenues, the rest coming from online subscription fees.

Games are a major emphasis for the company, with about eight ideas produced each month, Ms Kenny said.

The game used by CSL, launched as part of a multi-million-dollar campaign fronted by Taiwanese heartthrob Jay Chou, is modelled on television shows like Britain's Blind Date or the Dating Game in the US, where three women compete for the affections of one man - or vice versa.

Dotlove and Softgame call it Lovemate, while to CSL it is Find Your Love.

By whatever name, the aim is to get users to keep sending short messages.

Questions are asked to determine compatibility. In between questions, scores are posted.

'After every question, everybody is given everybody else's results, and that generates competition,' Ms Kenny said.

After six questions the top scorers are asked if they want to continue messaging the object of their affections, 'in an environment that is private, secure and anonymous,' with no phone numbers given out, she said.

Lovemate has been introduced in eight other territories by Softgame, and Dotlove is teaming up with Hong Kong-based mobile content firm Mobilemode to launch further games.

Games are increasingly important to operators' data businesses, especially in Hong Kong, where heavy competition on voice minutes means slim margins.

'From what I hear, depending on the time of year, it is the No 1 revenue generator,' said Ms Kenny.

Another trend was the emergence of a new model for mobile games, with outside companies providing specialised content and technology, she said. The operator would subscribe to, rather than develop, the content.

'There are a lot of operators out there who have tried to create the content. It's unsustainable if it's not your area of expertise,' she said.

For the region's mobile network operators, the World Cup football finals showed consumers would take up text messaging on a wide scale if it was tied to entertaining applications.

Mainland portals reaped a windfall from short messaging services tailored to the event.

A CSL spokeswoman said its Fafa World Calf football game featuring cartoon pig McDull did well during that period.

No figures were available for One2Free's newest dating game, although the company's i-Date U and U Date Me games, which allowed users to chase fictitious love objects, had more than 50,000 users at this time last year.

One2Free, the youth-oriented unit of CSL, which has more than a million subscribers, is held by Telstra of Australia.

Dotlove, founded in 1999, is backed by Venture TDF in Singapore and Leo Connor Partners in Chicago. The company now has six full-time employees, compared with about 40 during 2000.

Ms Kenny declined to comment on whether Dotlove was profitable or on how big the games business could become for the firm.

But she added the company has turned away from online advertising, while offline revenues have become very important.

'We've looked to create a new revenue stream off the Web and we found that we could do it.'

The online site, however, is still a core part of the business, because it generates content and has a database of users that can be marketed to.



Dotlove plays blind Cupid