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"Is That a Game in Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?" Wireless gaming has huge promise, but before this new format can really take off a few more pieces of the technological puzzle must fall into place. Once they do we will have the opportunity to create entirely new entertainment experiences that can compete, in terms of both player satisfaction and profits, against the more established platforms like PCs and game consoles. Jumping the Gun Wireless application development has gotten off to a rough start. It was at one time hailed with messiah-like praise as the next big driver of Internet growth, but later demonized by many as an overhyped, underplanned boondoggle. In Sweden, frequently cited as one of the world's wireless hotbeds, venture capitalists have pumped millions into application developers with sketchy business models and few or no customers. When usable delivery channels failed to materialize on time the result was predictable - widespread collapse. Wireless entertainment, identified early on as one of the most promising application areas, has not been exempt. Several efforts to launch for-pay games have met, at best, with lukewarm response. However,
the fact is that wireless entertainment has hardly had a fair chance to
prove itself. A quick look at the history and immediate future of wireless
gaming will help to explain why. First Steps Mobile gaming is anything but new. It has been with us for decades, first in the form of specialized handheld devices like the Nintendo Gameboy and its predecessors, and more recently bundled with many cellular telephones. As soon
as cell phones began sporting reasonably large screens, manufacturers
started shipping them pre-loaded with single-player games such as Snake
and Memory. But while these simple, free-standing games are good for a
nostalgia boost or to occupy a spare minute while we're waiting for the
bus, they can hardly compete with the experiences provided by a Playstation
2. Neither do they contribute something unique to the corpus of interactive
entertainment, aside from sheer portability. Warmer, Warmer To begin realizing the true potential of wireless gaming we have to incorporate the main element that sets cell phones apart - remote communication without a fixed line - into the games themselves. Once computer games not only move out of our houses and offices but also are capable of communicating with a remote server or peer, the world becomes our playing board. The square cage of the TV or computer screen gives way to the multi-textured, poly-aromatic, splendidly fractal Real World as the context for our interactive entertainment. An entirely new generation of games, freed from the shackles of fixed location, can relate gaming experiences to a player's changing position within the city. Or so we thought. Unfortunately, the earliest technologies that have allowed us to step in this direction, Short Message Service (SMS) and first-generation Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), have nasty Achilles Heels. SMS is a convenient tool for precisely what its name implies: sending individual 'short messages'. When it comes to creating multi-turn experiences it is hopeless, thanks to its clumsy user interface, maximum message length of 160 characters, and relatively high cost per message. First-generation WAP's heroic flaw, on the other hand, is that it must initiate full-time, or 'circuit-switched', network connections whenever data is transmitted, rendering it similarly expensive and inelegant. Who wants
to pay to send ten SMS messages just to play through something as trivial
as a trivia game? Who has the patience to wait as their circuit-switched
WAP phone dials up to download each succeeding step of an adventure game
- or the pocketbook to keep the connection open full-time? ______________________________________________________ |
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Introduction
Resource
Guide 
