Sony Ericsson Content Submission & Quality Guidelines

Transcription

1 Sony Ericsson Content Submission & Quality Guidelines Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications.-: Rev 1.04 November 30, 2009 Introduction Sony Ericsson provides a wide range of content to mobile phone users. The principal service platform is called PlayNow arena, which is available in 20 countries (at the time of writing) and Fun & downloads service platform which is available in 30+ countries. As a developer, you can submit content to Sony Ericsson via the website This Content Submission & Quality Guideline covers the following areas 1. Sony Ericsson Content Portals 2. Who can submit content 3. Submission procedure 4. Supported business models for deployment 5. Allowed content types for submission 6. Technical quality criteria for the allowed content types 7. Price bands and markets 8. Revenue and Billing 1. Sony Ericsson Content Portals For content distribution, Sony Ericsson has two channels; PlayNow arena and Fun & Downloads. These services allow consumers to download free and premium content. PlayNow arena ( Available in 20 markets, with over 22 countries by end of Free and premium content Premium SMS and Credit Card billing Support for 40+ phone models

2 Available in over 40 million phones Direct access from the mobile phone** Fun & Downloads ( Available in 70 markets Supports free content in all the 70 markets Premium SMS billing in 34 of the 70 markets Support for 90+ phone models Available in over 200 million phones Direct access from the mobile phone** ** Some Operator/Carrier variants of Sony Ericsson phones may have these access customized and/or removed. For more information, see the Supported pricing mechanisms below Figures correct as at 1 st July Who Can Submit Content Only legal entities, such as companies, partnerships and sole proprietorships, may submit Content. We regret that we cannot accept submissions from private individuals. You need to be a registered member of the Sony Ericsson Developer World. You can find out more and register for free at 3. Submission Procedure The procedure has four stages:

3 Submit Phase These are the steps you take to submit your application: 1. Verify that your content meets the Content Policy & Guidelines. 2. Agree to the legal terms and conditions for content submission and distribution Note: Agreeing to this online agreement does not mean that your content will be distributed; it must first be accepted by Sony Ericsson after a review. 3. Provide the content itself, its icon and screenshots. English language must be included. NOTE: The textual information and images that you enter during submission must be written for the end customer who is browsing and viewing your content when published on the Sony Ericsson channels 4. Select the price band for your content, or make it free (no cost to the user, no revenue to you) 5. Decide if your content should be submitted as a game or as an application (PlayNow arena has these as major category selections). Game is of course only appropriate for games. 6. Select the sub-category that best suits your content 7. Select the supported languages and the countries in which you want to sell your content. It is important that you provide correct information and on the supported languages. In certain markets, it is not allowed to post content which does not support local languages (e.g. menus, help text, dialogues, etc.) 8. Select the phones on which your content is supported Most applications that have been developed and working on one phone will work on multiple phones in the same platform family. For more information on the Java platform: A detail gallery information about Sony Ericsson mobile phones is available at Note: Sony Ericsson has the right to limit sales in certain markets due to local rules, policies, requirements for language support etc. Variations of submitted content If you need to submit content which has different builds/skews then you should submit the content files and the associated graphic elements as separate submission items. For example, your application has several builds for different languages: App (skew1): Support for English, French, German

4 App (skew2): Chinese App (skew3): Hindi In the example above, you will have 3 different submissions. Review Phase Sony Ericsson will now review your content. The review criteria include: Compliance with Sony Ericsson Content Policy & Guidelines. Assessment of content quality Relevance of the content Review of the supplied materials Following review, your content may be accepted or rejected. To check the status of your submission, please visit the submission portal. If your content is rejected, Sony Ericsson will provide a reason, but regrettably cannot enter in to further correspondence on the matter. You may be able to improve your content and re-submit it. Alternatively, you may wish to consider distribution via our partner Certify Phase If your content in particular applications - needs to be signed, you must now complete the signing procedure as appropriate for that content type Deploy Phase Your application is available on Sony Ericsson Portals 4. Supported Business Models for deployment Sony Ericsson supports a range of business models to suit your content. The common pay-once and free models without advertizing are covered by the standard online Submission and Distribution Agreement. Any additional models that deviate may require further discussion with Sony Ericsson. In that case, Sony Ericsson will contact you via . Free content (without advertizing) Your content is distributed free of charge. The end-user may download without charge. You will not receive any revenue. Select the free option when you submit. Your content must: Have no direct or indirect monetization models including, but not limited to, advertizing Have no direct or indirect redirection to other marketplaces incl. developers own marketplace. A link to developer s support or technical support site is allowed

5 Free content (with advertizing) Your content is distributed free of charge. The end-user may download without charge. Any submitted content that has other means of incorporating (mobile) advertisement, will require a separate distribution agreement between developer and Sony Ericsson. The advertisements associated in the submitted content need to adhere to the Sony Ericsson Content Policy & Guidelines. Pay Once / Pay-to-download For content that requires a one-time purchase fee prior to download, the content shall not have any additional up sell features including, but not limited to, direct or indirect advertisement and/or promotions Try & Buy content This is any submitted content that is free for the consumers to try out for a limited time (trial period) and will require consumers to purchase a one-time license fee after the trial period. Consumers will have to purchase the full licensed version of the content through Sony Ericsson channels. Free basic features; premium features at a cost For content that is free for the consumers to use but has additional premium features that require consumers to pay a fee to consume these premium features (often called freemium ), Sony Ericsson will evaluate the content on case by case basis. This will require a separate distribution agreement between developer and Sony Ericsson. Periodic recurring charges content For content that requires end-user to pay a periodic (monthly, quarterly, etc) service fee, Sony Ericsson will evaluate the content on case by case basis. This will require a separate distribution agreement between developer and Sony Ericsson. 5. Allowed content types for submission In the initial phase, at the time of writing, the following content types are allowed Java ME applications and games (.jar/.jad) Symbian native applications and games (.sis) S60 5 th Edition NOTE: If Sony Ericsson decides to publish the Symbian content on its Portals, then the developer needs to provide a full registered version of the content. However, the developer

6 may restrict the content installation package (.sis) to install only on a specific device or range of devices. Windows mobile 6.5 applications including Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 compatible panels. Xperia Panels put applications directly at users fingertips. Sony Eriicsson provides simple Panelizer tools to convert content including Flash, Java, HTML and also native. For more information about panels, see Flash content (wrapped in.jar,.sis or.cab files) o Wrapped in.jar using the Project Capuchin kit or SWF2Jar tool (see o Symbian.sis file o Xperia Panel (.cab file) using the Flash Panelizer (see If you content is available for more than one of the supported platforms, please make a separate submission for each platform. During submission, you are allowed to submit your content irrelevant of the business models mentioned above. You can submit Submit content that will be distributed to any of the possible business models content that contains advertisement an unsigned version of the content submit a demo version of the content The demo content should contain enough information that will enable a fair understanding of the submitted content.submit a content that is free, freemium or/and based on recurring periodic fee 6. Technical quality criteria for the allowed content types If your application is accepted but not signed, the following applies; For Java ME applications* A) That does not use any permissions no signing needed B) That uses permissions Signing through JavaVerified or with VeriSign or Thawte certificates. For Flash applications

7 A) Swf files that are packaged using CapuchinKit or Swf2Jar does not require signing B) For SWF files that are used as a resource in a Java ME application, the same signing rules applies as for any other Java ME application. For Symbian applications Signing through Express Signed or Certified Signed For Windows Mobile Microsoft Application Certification Program or XPERIA Panel certification. *Please note that all Java ME applications shall pass the Unified Testing Criteria. It is the responsibility of the submitter to assure this, either through self-testing or via a test house. 7. Price Bands and Markets Sony Ericsson supports distribution of content in 70 countries, including carrier billing (premium SMS) in over 30 countries and Credit Card billing in over 20 countries. In most markets, premium SMS is the widely adopted payment method because of consumers confidence in paying through their phone bills rather than providing Credit Card information. Many consumers especially in emerging markets and consumers below the age of 18 do not have a credit card. The only way for them to buy and consume mobile content is via premium SMS. To simplify a very complicated situation across markets, currencies, and mobile operators, Sony Ericsson uses category-based pricing. PlayNow arena has 20 price categories; 1 to 20. Price categories one to four support premium SMS billing. Fun & Downloads has three price categories with payment by premium SMS only. Premium SMS billings vary from market to market. These prices are determined by the market regulation bodies and do not necessarily have to be same in every country. Factors like consumer purchasing power, regulatory requirements, carrier billing elements, etc. define the market price. PlayNow arena supports credit card billing for all price categories. In general, Credit Card prices are lower than premium SMS prices. Premium SMS have higher transaction cost compared to Credit Cards. The credit card price for categories one to four is therefore typically lower than the premium SMS price. Today, Credit Card payment in the Sony Ericsson content channels constitutes less than 1% of total global content purchase. So when choosing the price category for your content, keep in mind: a) the pricing level of your content if you want to make it available to consumers worldwide. You can only go to certain price points when charging through premium SMS. b) high value content can only be sold via Credit Card c) volume versus value; you will most likely sell more content (volume) if the price is lower compared to if you have a higher price which can only be purchased via Credit Card Pre-defined price categories

8 When you submit your content, you are asked to choose one of the pre-defined end-user price categories that suit your content, including the targeted market(s) and channel(s). We provide you with the current retail price of each category by country to help you understand the retail cost of your content in each market. 8. Revenue and Billing Retail pice The retail price of each price category is fixed per country. Tax and service charges of various types are deducted from the retail price income. The scope and level of these charges varies by country, payment method and mobile operator. It is difficult to make any general statement about the relationship between retail price and net revenue. Whatever the amount of net revenue, the share is 30% to Sony Ericsson and 70% to the developer. Payment Payment by Sony Ericsson to you is based on your 70% of the net revenue for downloads during the accounting period, which is normally one month. The payment will be made only if Sony Ericsson owes you a royalty fee that is equal to, or greater than EUR 500. Otherwise the royalty fee will be withheld until the next payment period. For example, if your share of the net revenue is EUR 300 in

9 month one and EUR 400 in month two, you will receive no payment in respect of month one, and receive EUR 700 when month two payments are processed. Sony Ericsson will pay your royalty fee in EURO. You must pay any exchange fee to your local currency including banking fees. Disclaimer: Sony Ericsson reserves the right to add, modify or delete any content type or rules in the future including, but not limited to the business models, submission fee(s) and content certification policy/policies that apply to the respective content types. Sony Ericsson reserves the right to remove/reject any submitted content that is tagged inappropriately (intentional or unintentional) or is accompanied by a misleading content description. Developer acknowledges that the end user price for any Content distributed hereunder by Sony Ericsson is set by Sony Ericsson, at its sole discretion. Without limiting the aforesaid, You may provide recommended prices for Your Content based on the pre-defined price categories that are available in different regions/territories.