Greg Costikyan has written an excellent critique of mobile games development over on his blog, Games*Design*Art*Culture. He points out that the key problem with current mobile titles is that, due to technical and security limitations, they cannot access any of the phone's key functions - voice comms, address book, camera, etc. These are, of course, precisely the elements that could make mobile phone games unique and interesting to a much larger number of users.
Sadly one of the comments attracted by Greg's post provides a succinct and convincing explanation as to why his dream will never become a reality:
"Cellular carriers fear anything that could drive up support costs. Carriers don't want to ship anything that doesn't help them 'monetize' their userbase. Carriers want unique features that lock people in to their network. Carriers worry about not making enough money to cover the acquisition and upkeep of their obscenely expensive infrastructure."
I've spoken to a couple of developers who've told me that their modest plans to include Bluetooth two-player modes were scuppered by carrier-related problems. And apparently, merely providing hidden content in games is frowned upon.
Almost certainly mobile gaming is not considered important enough to make radical changes to network interoperability. Even with the advent of 3G, it is likely we'll have to make do with laggy two player racers or shoot 'em ups, and perhaps the odd four-player game of Scrabble. Any dreams of the mobile phone becoming a unique multiplayer gaming platform, as compelling as they are, may never be realised.
