Dr. Mark Ollila: Connecting People Through Mobile Gaming
A recent Screen Digest report has estimated that the mobile gaming market will be worth $4 billion by 2012, all this with only 5% of consumers having played games on their handsets.
In recent months, we’ve seen different companies enter into the mobile phone games industry with their new offerings. This is a strong indication that the untapped potential of the industry is vast and an opportunity to get more people playing games on phones.
Big publishers like EA are showing they’re serious about making games for mobile alongside their console and PC activities and giving a strong indication that the mobile games industry is worth taking notice of.
If the appeal of mobile gaming is so great that the global gaming giants are playing ball, Nokia and the other players out there must be doing something right.
Communities Create Their Own Content
As we’ve seen with the huge success of several MMOs on PC, the ability to interact with the people you’re playing against really intensifies the enjoyment of playing games. Cross platform titles like Reset Generation allow players to play from their N-Gage enabled device or from a Web widget, against each other. We have also made available the assets of Reset Generation to the community, so that they can create their own games, experiences or mash-ups with one another.
With players in over 130 countries connected by N-Gage, the coming together of communities has never been easier and this has allowed the sharing of ideas, content and experiences.
So, for me, this poses a really interesting question: “Will the next big innovations in mobile gaming come from the developers, or from the players themselves?” It is, after all, the players who are trying to get the most from the games and want to find new ways of making their experiences more personal. Developers can do this to a certain degree but in the end, with user generated content (UGC), it is the players who can decide what they want from a game.
Our research at Nokia has shown us that players want games where they can play, share content and experiences with their friends, not to be stuck in a one dimensional game that offers little or no interaction with other players. We are exploring this significantly through our upcoming title Yamake, where the focus of the title is making your own games and sharing them. The explosion of content, that is driven by the players themselves, is mindblowing. The future is going to be very interesting!
Entertainment and New Technologies
The traditional notion that mobile games are just time fillers is now being challenged as we introduce titles that explore new directions.
With the current mobile device hardware, phones are more powerful than ever before. The processing power of a Nokia N96 makes it able to handle graphics that are ground breaking and gameplay that is the best of its kind. This means that mobile games can offer imaginative new ways of playing with fun and lively story lines which can appeal to all players. We are seeing new forms of gameplay methods being introduced to provide different ways of challenging players but improving the experience. Cell Weaver is one that has been used in Star Wars. You fight against opponents by using different key combinations – if you’re an avid texter, you’ll be great!
New technologies in mobile devices are giving players the chance to play games anytime, anywhere. This means playing games on the move and developers creating games that are specifically made for mobile. This provides, for example, the opportunity to come up with intuitive ways for players to receive and send information in-game. The only limitation to what can be achieved in mobile gaming is now the imaginations of the developers. Technology has finally caught up with ideas and game conceptualization.
Something else we are seeing is that there are more and more sensors now being built into mobile phones. Accelerometers for example are becoming an increasingly common feature of games, and we’ve seen with applications on other devices that they can generate a new scope for different movements and interaction. The potential to now include a phone’s camera also means that augmented reality games can begin to break into the mainstream and offer a completely fresh approach to gaming and, along with location based titles, could create an entirely new gaming genre. At the same time, games have the potential to link across different services such as music and maps, and bring a compelling experience which is personal in nature and to the context (where and what) of the user.
Finally with the N-Gage SDK, we’re making the creation of great gameplay easy to achieve. Our stringent testing and quality control of N-Gage titles means that all games must be of the highest quality, something that’s always been essential for us at Nokia. We believe it’s also important to encourage developers to think innovatively. Since February we’ve been running the Mobile Games Innovation Challenge (www.gamingchallenge.org) where we had over 140 entries from developers across the world. This is a wonderful opportunity for upcoming developers to show the industry what they can do and for existing developers to push the boundaries of what they’ve achieved before and come up with something truly inspiring. The three winners have been selected by an independent jury and the winners will be presented at the Nokia Game Summit in Rome later this month.
A Bright Future
With new developments and innovations coming from the developers. mobile manufacturers and now the players too, we now have a strong and solid platform to build on moving forwards. To truly be top of the pile each new game must really strive to be more entertaining than the last.
Having the backing of the big game publishers and great developers really underlines the high regard in which mobile gaming is held and their input is vital.
With recent Juniper research revealing that in North America alone, the mobile gaming industry is set to grow by 275% by 2012, it’s now up to us as an industry to stand up, take notice, build on our past performance and evolve.
At Nokia we’ve had some exciting times already but it’s the future challenges that we are really looking forward to.
A recent Screen Digest report has estimated that the mobile gaming market will be worth $4 billion by 2012, all this with only 5% of consumers having played games on their handsets.
In recent months, we’ve seen different companies enter into the mobile phone games industry with their new offerings. This is a strong indication that the untapped potential of the industry is vast and an opportunity to get more people playing games on phones.
Big publishers like EA are showing they’re serious about making games for mobile alongside their console and PC activities and giving a strong indication that the mobile games industry is worth taking notice of.
If the appeal of mobile gaming is so great that the global gaming giants are playing ball, Nokia and the other players out there must be doing something right.
Communities Create Their Own Content
As we’ve seen with the huge success of several MMOs on PC, the ability to interact with the people you’re playing against really intensifies the enjoyment of playing games. Cross platform titles like Reset Generation allow players to play from their N-Gage enabled device or from a Web widget, against each other. We have also made available the assets of Reset Generation to the community, so that they can create their own games, experiences or mash-ups with one another.
With players in over 130 countries connected by N-Gage, the coming together of communities has never been easier and this has allowed the sharing of ideas, content and experiences.
So, for me, this poses a really interesting question: “Will the next big innovations in mobile gaming come from the developers, or from the players themselves?” It is, after all, the players who are trying to get the most from the games and want to find new ways of making their experiences more personal. Developers can do this to a certain degree but in the end, with user generated content (UGC), it is the players who can decide what they want from a game.
Our research at Nokia has shown us that players want games where they can play, share content and experiences with their friends, not to be stuck in a one dimensional game that offers little or no interaction with other players. We are exploring this significantly through our upcoming title Yamake, where the focus of the title is making your own games and sharing them. The explosion of content, that is driven by the players themselves, is mindblowing. The future is going to be very interesting!
Entertainment and New Technologies
The traditional notion that mobile games are just time fillers is now being challenged as we introduce titles that explore new directions.
With the current mobile device hardware, phones are more powerful than ever before. The processing power of a Nokia N96 makes it able to handle graphics that are ground breaking and gameplay that is the best of its kind. This means that mobile games can offer imaginative new ways of playing with fun and lively story lines which can appeal to all players. We are seeing new forms of gameplay methods being introduced to provide different ways of challenging players but improving the experience. Cell Weaver is one that has been used in Star Wars. You fight against opponents by using different key combinations – if you’re an avid texter, you’ll be great!
New technologies in mobile devices are giving players the chance to play games anytime, anywhere. This means playing games on the move and developers creating games that are specifically made for mobile. This provides, for example, the opportunity to come up with intuitive ways for players to receive and send information in-game. The only limitation to what can be achieved in mobile gaming is now the imaginations of the developers. Technology has finally caught up with ideas and game conceptualization.
Something else we are seeing is that there are more and more sensors now being built into mobile phones. Accelerometers for example are becoming an increasingly common feature of games, and we’ve seen with applications on other devices that they can generate a new scope for different movements and interaction. The potential to now include a phone’s camera also means that augmented reality games can begin to break into the mainstream and offer a completely fresh approach to gaming and, along with location based titles, could create an entirely new gaming genre. At the same time, games have the potential to link across different services such as music and maps, and bring a compelling experience which is personal in nature and to the context (where and what) of the user.
Finally with the N-Gage SDK, we’re making the creation of great gameplay easy to achieve. Our stringent testing and quality control of N-Gage titles means that all games must be of the highest quality, something that’s always been essential for us at Nokia. We believe it’s also important to encourage developers to think innovatively. Since February we’ve been running the Mobile Games Innovation Challenge (www.gamingchallenge.org) where we had over 140 entries from developers across the world. This is a wonderful opportunity for upcoming developers to show the industry what they can do and for existing developers to push the boundaries of what they’ve achieved before and come up with something truly inspiring. The three winners have been selected by an independent jury and the winners will be presented at the Nokia Game Summit in Rome later this month.
A Bright Future
With new developments and innovations coming from the developers. mobile manufacturers and now the players too, we now have a strong and solid platform to build on moving forwards. To truly be top of the pile each new game must really strive to be more entertaining than the last.
Having the backing of the big game publishers and great developers really underlines the high regard in which mobile gaming is held and their input is vital.
With recent Juniper research revealing that in North America alone, the mobile gaming industry is set to grow by 275% by 2012, it’s now up to us as an industry to stand up, take notice, build on our past performance and evolve.
At Nokia we’ve had some exciting times already but it’s the future challenges that we are really looking forward to.
