GDC Europe is kicking off today with notable keynote speeches from Sony's Executive Vice President of Development, Phil Harrison and Keita Takahashi, creator of Katamari Damacy. I was there yesterday, though, for the dedicated mobile gaming sessions, where once again a series of industry luminaries fretted over how to capture the mainstream audience. Two candidates – 3D graphics and online community elements - were put forward time and time again, as they have been for the last three years.
I disagree. Sort of. 3D graphics and multiplayer options are methods, they're not solutions, and thinking like this is fundamentally at odds with how casual users view games. What the industry should be asking itself is "how do we create compelling experiences that are absolutely unique to mobile phones?" Endless console conversions and retro ports are not significantly widening the audience at the moment and neither will 3D console conversions, or retro ports with online high score tables and two-player options. And you can quote me on that.
Games industry people love to think of themselves as pioneers and innovators – the phrase 'thinking outside the box' is so over-used, it should be translated into Latin* and worked into a coat-of-arms to be hung above the GDC stage. But I encountered little in the way of innovative game design thought at the event. Indeed, during a group session entitled, 'Mastering The Mutable Mobile Platform' Robert Tercek, the founding chairman of GDC Mobile, brought up an oft-referenced Korean Tamagotchi game that lets you photograph differently coloured objects to feed your virtual pet (if it wants a banana you have to take a photo of something yellow) – not an amazing game, but an interesting use of unique mobile technology. Well, there was an awkward pause, some brief references to another camera game, Mosquitoes, and then the subject was quickly changed. Back to 3D graphics then, eh?
There were several highlights, though, including a chat with EA's CTO of Worldwide Mobile Gaming, Lincoln Wallen, who revealed a little more about the company's wireless agenda. So here goes…
*Actually if anyone CAN translate this into Latin, I'd be interested to know what it is
Things I learned at Mobile GDC
1. US developer Floodgate Entertainment is working on a massively multiplayer online pirate game (that's MMOPG) for mobile phones, named Swashbuckler. It definitely contains boat fights, but no word yet on grog. Or parrots. The company's founder, Matthew Bellows, told us that 3G networks now allow for ping times of less that 500 milliseconds, fascilitating the transition from turn-based to real-time play.
2. The new mobile game version of Need For Speed Underground 2, developed by Ideaworks3D and recently released on Verizon's Vcast gaming service in the states keeps loads of the game content on a dedicated server. When players open up a new car or upgrade, it is downloaded on the fly from server to phone. This keeps the size of the initial download relatively small and will also allow developers to keep adding new content to their games. An interesting development.
3. In May, Motorola announced the development of the first ever Nano Emissive Flat Screen Display (NED), which could produce mobile phone screens of 40x the current highest resolution by 2010. You know those photos you take of your mates/partner/pets when you're very drunk? Image them in 40 times more detail…
4. Vodafone's head of games Tim Harrison recognised that operators still have a way to go in terms of designing "the ultimate gaming handset". He also argued that "there's room for fully immersive games, but the biggest success will be short, episodic games used to fill dead time". He reckons that the reason video calling has failed is that it demands too much of the mobile users' attention – we've become comfortable with texting and talking while we're doing other things, so applications that demand 100% of our attention are doomed to failure. This goes for games as well.
Vodafone is also looking at introducing a channel-style games subscription model into Europe. In other words, customers pay a flat monthly fee and then download all the titles they want.
5. According to Roberto Saracco of Telecom Italia Lab, the University of Genoa is conducting research into mixed reality games – i.e. games that somehow employ elements of the player's real-world surroundings. Saracco reckons that this is the future of mobile gaming, as cellphones are such an intrinsic part of our personal environment. I think he has a point.
6. EA is looking at building community elements into its mobile titles. The Sims Mobile for example will feature some online components, although Lincoln Wallen, EA's Worldwide Mobile Gaming CTO didn't specify. He also said that they're broadening the range of EA brands coming over to mobile. At the moment it's Tiger Woods, FIFA, NBA, Madden, The Sims and Need For Speed, but more announcements are due by the end of the year…
Finally, he told me that EA has definite ambitions to link the mobile and PC/console versions of its games so that, for example, you'll be able to manage squad data in a mobile version of FIFA before uploading that data to the console version. He also discussed linking the PC and mobile Sims communities, possibly so that they can share downloadable accessories. I asked for a timeframe and Wallen stated that interplay between mobile and console versions of EA titles will be in place for the next iterations of the key titles – i.e. FIFA 2007, etc. This could be a really interesting development.
7. John Cahill, Director of Games Operations at Yahoo! gave a talk on connected communities, centring around Yahoo's new gaming service which allows cellphone owners to play simple parlour games against PC owners. It's currently only available on the Sprint network in the states, but we're likely to see similar services operating in Europe soon.
Meanwhile, EA is looking at making its Pogo titles playable between mobile and PC participants. This kind of multi-platform connectivity makes a lot of sense – casual users are familiar with services like Yahoo Games, so feel more confident and enthusiastic about downloading the games to their phones, plus they have a ready made community of hundreds of thousands of people to play against…
Notes from Mobile GDC part two coming later today!
