Mobile games and standards
TR dealt with mobile gaming few weeks ago (because of the GDC). The article was about the (possibly) biggest problems in the field: a lack of standards:
“The mobile-phone environment unfortunately has been driven by the service providers, and they have different demands for what technologies can and can’t be used,” says Michael Zyda (…) “It’s a crazy era, much like the early days of computing, when each manufacturer was making their own operating system and there weren’t standards for interoperability,”
TR describes the fragmentation caused by hardware and software issues: presence of different physical controls (button placement), different software platforms… leading developers to test it on “12 platforms” (I quote it because my feeling that the correct number is 1000). The problem being that… companies do not really want to standardize stuff (”They want to lock you into the way they do things”), so it’s still about walled gardens. Game designers (like the ones at Shufflebrain) then rely on networks rather than on cell phones.
Why do I blog this? stuff for my presentation next week at Mobile Monday, Bcn, about mobile gaming (and its crux need for new metaphors).
March 26th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Hi Nicolas,
I’d love to get a copy of your presentation materials from Mobile Monday.
Please let me know if this is possible.
As someone who works in R&D for mobile games in the North American market, I’m also curious to know your thoughts on our progress in mobile (which is behind that of Europe, but therefore also would do well to take some lessons from the industry on your side of the Atlantic) and how it compares with European mobile standards.
Cheers,
JK
March 27th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Nicolas
I spoke at Mobile GDC and discussed this issue with shufflebrain. IMO there are plenty of standards in mobile and part the trouble is that many games designers have been cosseted by consoles having fixed evolutions for long periods. Many in the industry talk about need for innovation and indeed the opening keynote by Trip Hawkins echoed this but few operators are willing to take a risk. The is plenty of opportunity for innovation and in my own talk I discussed “Using Touch, Sight, and Movement to Control Mobile Games” but many of theses ideas need support from operators to give them a presence on their portals before they take hold. The situation is even worse in the US with there closed system but even in Europe unless your on the top ranks of operators portals you have little opportunity getting to a community. Sorry this has turned into a bit of a rant having been playing with mobile games since 1997 when snake was launched we still don’t seem to be learning any lessons.
May 8th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
I too need a copy of your presentation.