Applet power: From snakes to spiders

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Nokia's Snake laps it up

Humble beginnings
The promise of sophisticated games may seem distant right now as users continue to thumb away at the intrepid but monochrome serpent on their Nokia phones. Undoubtedly, the success of Snake and its brethren has been phenomenal. Interviews carried out by Nokia last year indicated that 85 percent of its phone users with the game Space Impact have tried it, while 45 percent play it everyday.

The popularity has given hope to gaming as a key driver of mobile revenues, especially with global sales of handsets declining in 2001. Industry players have been quick to identify the core strengths of mobile phone gaming--connectivity and human interactivity.

This is evident from the mobile games currently available. Last November, Siemens released the C45, a phone with a built-in BattleMail game. One of the first cross-platform games on the handset, BattleMail allows users to challenge others to kung-fu fighting via PC or mobile phone. Similarly, Hattrick, a game where users pit football management skills against each other, has added SMS extensions to its predominantly Web-based platform. Thus, subscribers to Swedish mobile operator Europolitan Vodafone can issue game orders by SMS. In these multiplayer games, such convergence of platforms will help create a critical mass of users.

Color my world
But SMS, despite being an unequivocal messaging success, limits the creation of compelling games. The games use mainly text commands, paling in comparison to the colorful, action-packed worlds on handheld computers and consoles.

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Color and other enabling technologies open up the possibilities for mobile game developers. This allows them to concentrate on content and makes it easier for games to be ported across platforms. For instance, the Trium Eclipse, one of the earliest GSM phones with color screens, included an excellent bowling game with vibrant environments.

One of the signs of mobile gaming emerging as big business is the licensing of popular entertainment brands. Console and PC games often borrow star names from movies and sports to drum up interest. The same trend is occurring in mobile phones today. Sony is likely to introduce mobile games linked to its big screen releases, such as the blockbuster film Spiderman. The Motorola-THQ partnership is talking about releasing a slam-bam title using the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) license.

Games for all
An evolution track in mobile gaming has been the shift from proprietary systems to open ones. Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson and Siemens came together last January to form the Mobile Games Interoperability Forum (MGIF). Among other things, the stated aim of MGIF is to reduce interoperability and compatibility issues, thereby advancing the mobile games market. The forum also defines application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow developers to produce and deploy wireless games more easily.

Will Gemdrop, a free Arcade Java game available online, get ported to the mobile platform?

Endgame
For years, wireless players have been looking for new revenue drivers. Surprisingly, games--previously a peripheral feature--could become the key to handset sales in the future. As is often the case, lessons will be learnt from Japan and i-appli, the Japanese equivalent of J2ME. According to studies quoted by i-appli provider Anfy Team, 63.4 percent of people increased data communication bills after purchasing a J2ME-enabled device, still maintaining the same level of voice call bills and Web browsing. Some 68.8 percent of users interviewed by Sony said they purchased the i-appli 503i models because of their Java capabilities, while 75 percent of Fujitsu handset buyers declared the same reason.

Amid the optimism, phone makers will do well to remember that the mobile phone is not another Gameboy. Just as Nintendo's handheld console benefits from being a dedicated gaming device, mobile phones will have their inherent advantages, too.

"I don't see mobile games developing the same way as arcade or PC games due to the three aspects that you can find in a mobile environment--connectivity, mobility and location," Mauro Montanaro, Nokia's Asia Pacific director of Digital Services, Mobile Phones, told CNETAsia last month. He described a dating game with three million subscribers, which makes use of location-based services. "It profiles the kind of people you want to meet to go out for an ice cream, then the phone recognizes and lets you know when similar-minded people are around," he said.