Blogcritics Author: QuicklyBored

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

The Perfect Mobile Game

QuicklyBored — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 12:43:43 EDT

This is yet another slow Monday with basically nothing going on in the mobile gaming industry. Therefore it is editorial time. QuicklyBored is in the business of trying to find a mobile game that does not suck. In doing so, we’ve come across certain unbreakable rules that mobile games should currently follow and by doing so will help create the perfect game. The perfect mobile game should have the following features: Simple user interface, quick play, and multiplayer. What I mean by a simple user interface is recognizing that handsets are not built for complex gaming. That being said, designing a game around the one- or two-button game model provides for excellent gaming on a mobile phone. Track and Field had the right idea when it comes to button interface. Tony Hawk's AW is a great example of a terrible use of button interface. Puzzle games will almost always be a success in this aspect of mobile gaming and other genres can learn a lot from this game type. A user will play a mobile game for about 11 minutes. This tells us that a game level which requires any more than this to pass is simply too long. By creating a mobile game which involves quick matches, the user can progress through the game each time they play which helps in keeping the user engaged. A good example of this is Texas Hold'em games. Being able to play a few hands, win some money and then return at a later point makes Texas Hold'em a great mobile game. It also adheres to the other two rules. Tetris Marathon is a good example of a game that takes way to long. Even the game's name lets you know that it is going to be long. The levels take forever to play and the rewards you get for the amount of time played is unsatisfying. Multiplayer is such a key component of mobile games and it would be ridiculous to not take advantage of it. Not only is multiplayer good for the user but multiplayer gaming means greater revenues for game publishers as more people hear about the game through friends. And lets not forget about the money that carriers will rake in from users going online. The multiplayer in THK2 was very engaging and it serves as a good example of how to implement a multiplayer system. Although it can be slow at times, when it runs smoothly the game experience is improved tremendously. Given this, I'm curious if anybody has any games they'd like to see get developed. Here at QuicklyBored we love to spend time coming up with game after game that never gets developed and we never plan on developing ourselves. One of the games we've been talking about recently is called "Conflict of Interest" and it's a workplace dating game. It involves using a single button to roam around the virtual office trying to have sex with your coworkers. Everyone in the virtual office just wants to get down to business as fast as possible so the encounters will last no more than ten minutes. This game is entirely multiplayer with everyone trying to mate with each other in places like the boardroom while avoiding the menacing manager "Mr. Pain.” It will obviously be an instant classic.

QuicklyBored is a site dedicated to reviewing mobile games and reporting industry news. Come check us out at http://www.quicklybored.com

Mobile Game Conference - Panel Report

QuicklyBored — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 00:47:00 EDT

The "Using the Camera and Other Phone Bits" roundtable at the MGC was based upon the premise that significant technological advancements lead to better games. While the console and PC segments of the gaming industry have reached a technological saturation point where development is more evolutionary than revolutionary, the immaturity of mobile means that we're set to see mobile gaming change in leaps and bounds over the next few years. Moderated by Mark Pierce of Super Happy Fun Fun Inc., the roundtable looked to focus on what new game play future technology will bring.Right now the mobile games industry is based upon a foundation of casual games with simple control schemes like Tetris and old 70s arcade games that are similar in a lot of ways to board game standards like Monopoly and Risk: games that people of all ages know and feel comfortable playing. However, there are only so many times you can sell people games they've already played, and for developers who don't have a game like Tetris in their portfolio, they need to offer something innovative and different to stand out.Luckily for the industry, the mobile phone has a lot of unique technical features that can potentially provide this innovation. For instance, Pierce demoed a game called Tilt that utilized the handset’s gyroscopic features to move a ball through a maze by tilting the phone; simple and efficient, it looked like a game that anyone could easily have a blast playing. Other handset features like voice, touch screens, location based services and constant wireless connectivity also has the potential to offer experiences unique to handsets.However, there are many roadblocks the industry has to pass before we start to see a flood of technically innovative mobile games. First and foremost are the handsets themselves: at the moment, very few phones feature things like gyroscopic controls, touch screens or location based services. Also, while we think that that the W600i is a great phone for gaming, most people want a phone that's a phone first, which means support for these features will come slowly. For those handsets that do have these features, the APIs (Application Programmer Interface -- basically what developers have to use to get the phones to utilize these features) are usually so bad that they’re considered "implemented but not supported" (which means they don't work). With no accountability on handset vendors at the moment to include better support for the features they provide on the phone, we're still some time away from them being commonly used.All of this leads publishers and carriers to be vary cautious with attempting to innovate in their mobile games. To get around this, Pierce could really only offer one solution to this problem: elbow grease. Pierce's company, Super Happy Fun Fun Inc. pays the bills by porting other studios’ games, and then spending the rest of their time on developing their innovations. Pierce seemed adamant that a developer can't sell a publisher or carrier on innovation in advance, but must put a working version in their hands and show them why it works. Pierce also added that independent developers are in the best position to do this: because they can't compete with larger companies in bidding for game licenses, they’re in an excellent position to make their name on innovation (quite similar to the film industry, where the big studios own Hollywood, while the independents own Sundance). It's a shame that we're so far away from seeing more games like Tilt, because the industry really needs it right now. However, after each developer discussed whatever technological innovation they were working on (and there was some really cool stuff like push to talk functionality during multiplayer gaming, so you can talk trash while you rake in the cash during a mobile poker game, for instance) they usually replied with a vague "sometime in 2008..." when questioned when we'll actually see it in a released game. Hopefully more developers will follow Super Happy Fun Fun's lead and start pushing for more innovation in their games. Like Pierce said during the roundtable, "You have to be a player for this to happen, you just have to start doing it. You can't wait for it to come to you."

QuicklyBored is a site dedicated to reviewing mobile games and reporting industry news. Come check us out at http://www.quicklybored.com

Live Blogging the Mobile Game Conference: Day Two

QuicklyBored — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 19:14:16 EDT

9:14 – Whew, just made it in time. Everyone seems a lot more relaxed than yesterday, and a lot more hung over (I guess they were partying with Trip, too). 9:15 – Here we go. Once again we have conference chair Matthew Bellows straight talkin’ about the industry. We’re starting to perk up a little bit; the first stage of the industry was based on casual adoption, the second stage on carriers dropping the price of higher-end handsets. But that’s not enough – it would just be TV before cable (i.e. not reaching our full potential). Innovation from all sides is necessary to prevent this from happening. 9:19 – Now co-chair Eric Goldberg is going to talk a bit about what’s happening today. Mmm, Microsoft’s Live Anywhere…that’s what I’m talking about. 9:20 – Chris Early has taken the stage. This keynote is all about Microsoft. For the majority of its life as a company, it has focused on productivity. But recently, a digital lifestyle has emerged to counter the typical digital workstyle. Microsoft Casual Games works across all Microsoft platforms to develop games (Xbox Live Arcade, Windows, MSN,etc). 9:24 - So where is Microsoft going? They announced at E3 they’re entering the mobile space. The thinking was that they could leverage their knowledge of communities and do something cool in the mobile space -- hence, Live Anywhere. 9:25 – The Vision: Single, common user identity. A common, universal community. A common digital object economy. Games that roam. One billing relationship (!!!). Sounds like gold, Chris! 9:27 – Now he’s demoing a smartphone with a “concept build” of Live Anywhere. Chris is talking about making sure that LA runs across all platforms: Java, Brew, Windows Mobile. LA is an application, not a WAP page; this allows them to make the application a lot more feature-rich. 9:30 – Run down some of the cool features: relevant friends list (he’s talking about trashing his son’s scores – cool), dynamic pushing of game recommendations (all try before you buy, can be based upon review scores, or what your friends are playing). 9:32 – Try before you buy stuff: downloading the game Luxor. A 60-minute demo of a mobile game is too long. They’ll let you play four to five minutes, and then interrupt the game to ask you if you want to pay to play more. Kind of lame, but it’s obvious why they have to do it. Also, buying the game goes through your carrier’s billing, which is great. 9:35 – Wow, you can send voice or text challenges to your friends if you’ve beaten their scores. Chris knows that not everyone will like push recommendations, so you can search through a full list of games (broken down by genre and other categories). 9:37 – Interesting thing about friends list: it’ll let you know what platform your friends are playing on at that time. Neato keen. 9:38 – You can set alerts for games, so LA will let you know when new maps and such are available for mobile or other platforms. You can also start the download for Xbox 360 levels from your mobile. 9:39 – Another interesting community aspect: his daughter was having a problem figuring out a word in her crossword game. She can send it to him, he can figure it out and send it back to her. The word? Hotblooded. 9:41 – What’s the business model ecosystem? Developer makes game, there’s an operator and Live Anywhere certification (more to see that it works on LA). So now we have a bunch of LA-enabled games: there will be off-deck offers to purchase, as well as the client-side stuff we’ve already discussed. No matter where the purchase is made, the operators and everyone else gets a piece of the pie (nice people, these Microsoft folks). 9:44 – Is it weird to want to stop a live blog and walk up and hug a man you don’t know? If Microsoft can actually pull this off, QuicklyBored might have to change its name to “AlwaysHappy.” 9:46 – He’s showing what full integration means: for an Xbox 360 racing game, he can tune-up and upgrade a car from his mobile, use his pc to create new skins, upload it all to the LA server, and then play it on his 360. He’s really using the best of each platform to make create an “always on” gaming experience. 9:50 – Chris is saying he’s excited about casual games and the mobile games industry (I believe him). Microsoft wants to solve the problems of the mobile games industry and connect gamers across communities through LA. Questions: Do you have to be a traditional developer to get on Live Anywhere? No. Xbox Live Arcade is the Sundance of gaming and Live Anywhere will reflect that. When will the gamer card be opened up beyond Xbox users? When Vista launches, non-Xbox gamers will be able to get their own gamer cards. Who’s going to be the top dog community of all these communities that you’re connecting? We’re going to coexist. As a custodian of the community, it has to be like that or it doesn’t work. Do you have to pay on top of your 360 service to do this stuff on your mobile phone. Will I have to pay to use both 360 Live and Live Anywhere? Right now we don’t have an answer for you. This is more of a vision presentation than a product announcement.This article was written by QuicklyBored contributors.

QuicklyBored is a site dedicated to reviewing mobile games and reporting industry news. Come check us out at http://www.quicklybored.com

Live Blogging the Mobile Game Conference: Day One Pt. 2

QuicklyBored — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:01:24 EDT

1:20 – Trip Hawkins is just taking the stage right now. Starting off by asking how we make mobile phones a first-rate platform instead of a second rate TV or Nintendo DS. Transition into talking about the DS. Nintendo could have just put Mario on the device and called it a day, but that would have been a second-rate Mario game. They didn’t do that and DS is number one. 1:23 – So how do we make mobile a first rate platform? It’s all about innovation and execution. Talking about the history of Digital Chocolate, now reaching two full years of experience; “trying to find out which way is up.” 1:25 – DC has 10,000,000 games sold and are without question the number one developer of original IPs (something which most others aren’t even attempting). They’ve moved from 1% to 11% market share – partially by convincing carriers to give deck space to unproven brands. 1:28 – Trip wants DC to be one of the leaders of pure-play mobile companies: i.e. all money that they make goes back into the mobile ecosystem, not other mediums that are competing for the attention of consumers. Now he’s showing average review scores – he’s really trying to push DC as tops in quality (top 3: DC, then Jamdat, then Gameloft). 1:31 – Now he’s showing “Pepsi Challenge” results, where an independent study shows that gamers are far more willing to play DC games, than similar versions from competitors. However, DC has had to fight a lot harder to get on carrier decks, because their competitors are licensing brands. Trips saying that you can’t have high game quality if you’re spending your resources on buying a license instead of making a good game. 1:34 – Bad games like these are only going to drive customers away (he mentions data on the recent World Cup, where the majority of people surveyed would not use mobile services for the next World Cup because it was so terrible this time). Trip wants the industry to improve their execution. 1:36 – DC doesn’t think that the mobile gamer demographic is a “one-size fits all” market. You have to develop games that cater to individual tastes. 1:38 – He’s now calling out those who hate on the mobile gaming industry (read: QuicklyBored), calling attention to growth in Europe and Asia as indicators of how the North American market will be in the next few years. He also mentions how people were also skeptical of SMS and ringtones as well. 1:40 – The mobile market is a casual market, only 5% is hardcore and everybody has a mobile phone. Even the hardcore gamers with mobile phones want casual games on their handsets because they know they can’t get the same experience as on consoles and pcs. 1:42 – Trip’s now talking about the internet. The internet has free trials and viral marketing; the mobile industry doesn’t really have either of those right now and Trip wants them. 1:43 – So what is mobile good for then? Social applications!!! Dominated by voice, but also messaging; it’s all about developing a social identity. He’s now basically making this huge metaphor about how mobile connectivity makes the world a smaller place and connects you to the people you want to, all the time. Trip calls the mobile phone the social computer (good name). 1:45 – Trip wants to help people create these “virtual villages” of all their personal connections – basically engaged user communities. That’s where DC comes in: social communities, messaging and personalization. He’s using a DC property, Mobile League Sports Net, as an example. For the youth and singles market (SMS, MySpace) they have The Hook Up: AvaFlirting. In this game, you build an avatar to communicate with others, but these avatars have their own little lives like Tamagotchis (they can go on dates and such). 1:50 – He’s now using Starbucks and McDonalds as an example of how this personalization works. In McDonalds, you go in, get your food, get out. Starbucks’ emphasis on personalization created an atmosphere where people were willing to stay and have a high consumer loyalty. Question Time: If you’re so focused on social computers and building communities, what do you need to do to keep people? Give them something, like the avatars in The Hook Up, where they’re gonna find something new and want to check back all the time, but only in small increments. An addiction in small doses: hence the name Digital Chocolate. Why can’t products like MLSN and The Hook Up work as a website? What does them being mobile games add? Ubiquity and constant connection. Everyone has watched sports in the past few years, but few participate in Internet fantasy leagues. But everyone has a phone on them, so it’s right there for you – you don’t have to go to it. Also, people are busy and have other things to do, so the ability to check in on it whenever you get the time from wherever you are is great. What can publishers do to promote interoperability across carriers? We’re too early for that yet. Publishers need to grow their own communities and make them successful first, then worry about that later. How do we become successful without paying 50% of our revenue for licensed games? Have something worth playing, first. Word of mouth is also important – EA built their own brands for the first 15 years on quality and word of mouth. Also, as I mentioned before, free trials and viral marketing can make a big difference.This article was written by QuicklyBored contributors.

QuicklyBored is a site dedicated to reviewing mobile games and reporting industry news. Come check us out at http://www.quicklybored.com

Live Blogging the Mobile Game Conference: Day One

QuicklyBored — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 18:15:02 EDT

Mobile Game Conference Day One KeynoteSeattle, Washington 9:11 – Just getting started here. One of the conference chairs, Eric Goldberg, is introducing the conference as one for insiders. Playing up the industry speakers that we’ll see in the next two days as well as the metrics will get on the mobile industry. 9:13 – He’s turned it over to Matthew Bellows, another conference co-chair. Repeating what Eric said: that this is a conference for people in the industry who want to dig deeper. The purpose of the conference is to help change the industry from a “we exist” into a valid and creative medium. 9:16 – They’ve just now introduced Daishiro Okada, President and COO of Square Enix, who is obviously going to talk about difference between Japan and North America. Keynote title: “Growing the mobile business in North America.” He’s talking about how he’s on the business side, not the creative side (we’ll probably hear a lot of that in the next two days). Right now he’s giving a history of both Square and Enix before they merged (hint: Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest sold a lot of copies). 9:20 – Aha, the point: history teaches us what we should do next. I guess that means mobile versions of FF and DQ. He’s talking about the Asian mobile market: 50% is music, gaming is 15% -- still a lot of potential for growth. 23% of North American consumers want game-capable handsets. So, the question for the industry is how we stimulate this desire and improve the quality of games. 9:23 – Now he’s talking about his teenage daughters, and how they always have a mobile handset with them at all times. Okada is basically saying that the mobile market is a youth market, because of its focus on communication. The market is even getting younger as we’re starting to see grade schoolers receiving their own handsets. 9:25 – So if mobile is focused on communication and communities, how do we build and maintain these communities for gamers? Aha, mobile versions of DQ and FF. Interestingly, Okada is saying that they were a partnership between NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic/NEC and Square Enix. He’s saying that the mobile game industry is very influenced by close relationships with carriers. Interesting perspective, considering here its more of a fight against carriers for developers. 9:28 – The future for Square Enix: cross platform development. He’s using the multitude of Final Fantasy VII games (don’t forget the movie, too) as a way to leverage interest across the board, but for our purposes games like Final Fantasy VII: Before Crisis. 9:30 – A way to continue this leveraged interest is subscriber-based gameplay, where they’re looking to constantly provide new episodes of their games, so people always want to know what happens next. 9:32 – Capturing the casual gamer: Okada things you need a well-balanced portfolio of games, that are focused on the youth market, that are distributed with the phones (!) as demos, so the kids have something to play right off the bat. An easy purchasing environment is also very important. 9:35 – Talking about the difference between Asian and North American gamers; the stereotype is that NA gamers want action games and that Asian gamers want RPGs. But Okada thinks that the casual market extends beyond ethnicity and that if you have a solid mobile game that’s easy to play, every one will enjoy. He’s drawing a parallel to the arcade industry of the 80’s and 90’s, where, although people had their favorite games, anyone could walk in and play any game (he’s talking a lot about Bust A Move – great game). 9:38 – Apparently there was a lot of internal conflict within Square Enix as to whether or not to bring the Final Fantasy brand to mobile because of quality concerns. But Okada is confident now that mobile technology is strong enough now that mobile FFs can be AAA titles (if you’ve ever seen any screenshots of Before Crisis, you’re likely to believe him). Although, this confidence is based on the fact that the Japanese mobile market is about a year or two ahead of North America (in terms of both technology and infrastructure). He’s talking about having to wait 6 to 12 months before he can bring a high-end 3D game like FFVII: Dirge of Cerberus to North America. 9:42 – Sharing information and expertise between companies is necessary to help grow the industry. Now he’s giving a shout out to upcoming Square Enix products: Brave Shot 2 and some form of mobile games marketplace. And we’re done! 9:45 – Oh, question period. Question: will you bring camera play functionality (i.e. in Before Crisis, you take a picture, and the colors in the picture create material) to North America? Answer: Yes, once things like this become more standardized within the North American market. Right now it’s easy to do things like this in Japan; in NA, not so much (I’m assuming he’s talking about standard device APIs and such to make porting easier). Didn’t get the question, but the answer speaks for itself: there’s a bunch of talented developers and programmers in this industry, so let’s get together and share information to make it better. Question: How d2o small companies get the attention of carriers and this kind of help? Answer: The carrier is the person in charge, so they have to be pro-active and ignore the size of the company to grow the market. Question: What do you think about 3G? Answer: TV, movies and broadcasting will be available to people with 3G. The wait times are still too long, but the technology to shorten wait times are rapidly coming to Japan and will eventually come to North America. Stay tuned for more coverage!

QuicklyBored is a site dedicated to reviewing mobile games and reporting industry news. Come check us out at http://www.quicklybored.com