Mpowerplayer, a Washington, DC-based startup that provides mobile game demos, has secured $2.5 million in Series A funding from investors New Atlantic Ventures, the Center for Innovative Technology GAP Fund, and LaunchBox Digital.

The company plans to use the funding to expand their presence and their widget-based mobile game catalog on more social networking sites.

In light of Apple’s success with the iPhone App Store, more people are focusing on mobile gaming. Mpowerplayer allows mobile game publishers to let people try out their games online before purchasing them. Joe Ariganello, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at Mpowerplayer, explains that the company works with each game’s publisher to determine the length of the demo (which averages 5 minutes) in order to “make sure that customers can learn enough about the game to make an informed buying decision.”

The game publishers and wireless carriers can also opt to white-label Mpowerplayer’s technology to create their sites with the demos to maintain their company’s look and feel as customers browse the games.

Demos play an incredibly important role in expanding the gaming industry. The average consumer does not browse gaming websites to read preview coverage of games. Either way, reading a summary of the game or an in-depth preview/review still fails to address the most important aspect: is the game fun for the consumer? Mobile games, in particular, do not generally receive much coverage on gaming sites, and so recede into obscurity.

“70 percent of online consumers play games in their web browser, but less than 5 percent play games on their mobile phones,” said Mpowerplayer CEO Michael Powers in a statement. “Casual web gamers are a hugely under-served market for mobile content and we are uniquely positioned to bridge that gap.”

Offering games through a web browser rather than through a phone’s service allows the games to reach a wider audience.

And, because tastes vary, having the consumer try the game out for himself or herself is oftentimes the best way to secure a sale or a purchase (so long as the game is a good one). More publishers need to take note and follow suit with their own demos.