On The Cutting Edge — Games, Mobile Phones and Technology

Mobile Games are gaining market presence. From the 38 million users measured across the globe in 2005, an iSuppli marketing report forecasts a threefold growth to 134 million mobile game users, each month, by 2010. Mobile gaming revenue is also expected to nearly triple by 2011, growing to $6.6 billion. An In-Stat report predicts that 9% of mobile subscribers will use their phones for games.

As the mobile device market crosses the chasm of 50% market penetration with more than 3.3 billion devices sold, the mobile developer community is recognizing the need to address its specialized needs. In the marketplace, media gaming companies are responding to fragmentation of mobile handset operating systems with a push toward open standard APIs to support the authoring and playback of rich media on a wide variety of platforms and devices. Khronos, www.khronos.org, came out with a varied set of standardized APIs like OpenGL ES, OpenKODE etc.--all useful for game development and porting across different platforms.

Most chip manufacturers today provide the APIs recommended by Khronos like OpenGL ES and OpenKODE as this allows "native' gaming" - games which use the raw power of the mobile hardware rather than running on top of the Java platform.

Most device manufacturers are also beginning to adopt these same APIs, which provide optimized results on mobile devices with respect to 2D/3D graphics and the like. Motorola in 2007 announced the Moto Z8, which has OpenGL ES enabled wherein developers can write high-resolution graphic intensive games/applications. More devices are expected to come out with these APIs enabled.

Because Mobile Phones are small, they have limited resources. In addition, there are unique traits that are emerging in the mobile environment. Some innovations in applications that make best use of limited resources and mobility features are:

  • Landscape mode, maximizing action across the screen.
  • Increased realism and audio fidelity for music and sound effects allow games to sound as good as they look.
  • Haptics (use of the vibrator), providing tactile feedback from game events. An example is a fighting game that provides vibrations when the user's figure gets hit or gets fired upon or is firing his weapon.
  • Video input from the camera for tracking movement, making the game more realistic. An example is a bowling game that allows the user to move the phone in an angle to throw the ball by which the game allows the ball to move forward towards the pins.

Mobile phones are a common household item. Technical improvements are happening in each and every handset that is being shipped and game developers are starting to take advantage of other phone features more easily. Here are some cutting-edge trends in the gaming area:

  • Location Based and LOCATION Aware Games - with the LBS feature catching up in the market, there are games that look for buddies to participate in game play, games that bring up different screens based on location, etc.
  • As fixed-mobile convergence takes off, it will have implications for mobile gaming - like being able to play simple games over the network against people playing on their PCs or over the internet.

As the gaming industry continues to mature with more consumers starting to play more games on their mobile devices, here are some of my thoughts to developers:

  • Mobile developers should continue to refine their control systems to ensure that mobile gaming can be one-thumb gaming.
  • Some things never change. Though technology trends are happening and new hardware and software are available, it's important to remember that there are still millions of mobile gamers who just want a simple, addictive game to kill time on the bus or train - some could be just puzzles or just a snake game.
  • Pricing - there are trends in the mobile industry towards mobile advertising - and we see that there will be a lot more developers, publishers, and a lot more advertisers, looking to reduce the price of mobile games through advertisements.

If you are a new game developer or thinking of creating good games, you could plan to attend the GDC Mobile Conference in Feb 2008 at San Francisco, California. More details about this conference can be found at http://www.gdconf.com/conference/gdcmobile.htm

The casual and mobile games space has exploded in 2007. In 2008, the momentum will continue and as a developer, start to watch the emerging markets that clearly present themselves as the next untapped audience for gaming. Leveraging the continual advance of technology in mobile devices with high-speed data networks will allow for the mobile games to flourish. It is for the developers to think, create and innovate.

– Asokan Thiyagarajan, Motorola Technology Evangelist

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