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Developing Action-based Mobile GamesToday, a new dawn has emerged in game development – the mobile phone era. For the past couple of years, the media has fawned over the potential of mobile gaming, with sky-high revenue projections by analysts and a proliferation of conferences and seminars. Everyone in the industry has talked about it, either turning a cold shoulder or showing some lukewarm interest, waiting for a sign that the market is there. Well, finally, reality has caught up with the hype. The new wave of color phones released by the US carriers provide a reasonable platform for traditional game development and the business models provide correct financial incentives for developers and publishers. In addition, traditional game companies like Sega and THQ have entered the space, providing much needed credibility. During the first phase of mobile gaming, traditional game developers sat on the sidelines. The mobile gaming era starting with WAP gaming, a text based markup language similar to HTML with limited graphics. The text only displays did not stir up interest, causing consumers to avoid mobile games despite the penetration of millions of internet-enabled phones supporting WAP. The environment was slow and awkward and WAP gaming development did not exploit the strengths of Gameboy and console developers. The US carriers quickly moved to resolve these problems, in part, by the success of I-mode in Japan, which has over 30 million subscribers and drives a significant portion of its revenue from downloaded entertainment like games. The carriers introduced or have announced support for the next generation of internet capable mobile phones. These phones, compared to the old black and white text phones, are faster and more powerful, with colorful screens and limited internet browsing capabilities, with connection speeds faster than most dial-up PC modems. While the new phones are not the perfect gaming platform, it’s a solid start. The processors, memory, and color depth provide the ingredients for compelling game development. The capabilities have focused developers on pushing quality levels up to the standards gamers expect from other platforms. Problems still exist, however, but these problems will be fixed, as they were on the PC with the continuous improvements of DirectX. MarketThroughout the world, there are many implementations of application driven phones. In Europe, J2ME and Symbian are popular. In Asia and the US, J2ME and BREW have strong market penetration.
While many efforts exist for standardizing game development, effective solutions are still years away for most phones. While phones exist with incredible processors and efficient gaming APIs, it is not easy to develop rich engaging games. In the interim, developers must deal with the current realities. The GameboyIn some ways, the new generation of phones is similar to the old Gameboy Color (GBC), which is a great benchmark since most developers are familiar with it. The two share many common characteristics, like portability, limited memory, 2D graphics, and similar form factors. The wildly successful platform is the perfect model to emulate. The approach to game design with small screens allows for creative interface design and gameplay. While the Gameboy demographics and cell phone gaming market don’t overlap completely, having over 100 million units sold worldwide provides a familiar platform. While the current phones are not gaming devices, they’re powerful machines nonetheless. The processors, memory, and color depth far exceed that of the original Gameboy. However, the cell phone’s weakness in display speeds/refresh rates, sound, and input more than make up for its strengths. The raw processor speed is not as important as the system architecture and the implementation of its APIs and operating systems. In some ways, it is unfair to compare cell phones to Gameboys. Cell phones will never be highly specialized game devices. Like the PC, cell phones are multi-function devices, with generic processors and architecture to support time-consuming process like digital signal processing and modem emulation. Gameboys, on the other hand, are designed from the development environment to the hardware architecture to do one thing - provide a lighting fast graphics pipeline that allows for compelling games. That does not, however, absolve the phone manufacturers and carriers from improving the game experience. _______________________________________________________ |
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The
Market
Resource
Guide 
This
article discusses some of the high level issues for developing Gameboy
style action games for the new set of phones, focusing on the phones and
platforms supported by the major carriers, like the Motorola i95cl from
Nextel, the Samsung A500 from Sprint and the Sharp Z-800 from Verizon.
Successful developers must support the widest selection of phones. Optimizing
your game for one phone, or even for one carrier, is foolish when there
are over 30 next generation phones. While highly optimized outcomes are
nice, it is not a profitable effort.