I attended the Mobile Entertainment Awards last night where, as you can see from my blurry mobile phone photograph, Nokia was presented with its award for best handset company by a man in the least appropriate Sonic the Hedgehog costume I have ever seen - and I've seen a lot of inappropriate Sonic costumes in my time as a fervent Sega watcher. Weirdly skintight and ill-shaped it was like Sonic re-imagined by some kind of sado-masochistic avant garde theatre performer.
Anyway, the only awards really relevant to me (and by presumptuous extension, you) were Best Developer which deservedly went to Digital Chocolate, responsible for fab games like Tornado Mania, Tower Bloxx and Rollercoaster Rush, and Best Publisher, scooped by EA, which has been dipping its toe into mobile for years, but has now dived in headfirst, bringing almost all of its major console brands to the small screen, including Skate.
There was no award for Best Game - I'm not sure why.
EA was not the only veteran videogames publisher at the event. Konami was there - the company is ramping up its presence in the European mobile market via a distribution deal signed with Glu a couple of months ago. It has also set-up a new development studio in Paris, dedicated to mobile projects. Last week the company released a point-and-click version of Silent Hill and is preparing mobile versions of PES 2008 and the GBA title, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.
I was a guest of Glu at the event and spoke to Konami's head of mobile, Florian Stronk who was trying to explain the one-thumb control system employed in the company's PES translation. Apparently you can pass, shoot, chip and fake, all with one button - although a more conventional control system is offered too.
Eidos, Codemasters and Vivendi were also present and are all bringing their big titles to European mobiles, making the format a bona fide element of the multi-platform release schedule. Whether this is going to push original titles even further down the priority list for publishers and network operators remains to be seen. It would be a shame, as console conversions often fall far short of their big brothers, whereas original games from the likes of Digital Chocolate and Gameloft are really exploring what mobile phones can offer as a unique technology.
The big videogame console publishers are welcome of course, but let's hope they bring some sense of experimentation and sympathy for the format with them.
