Up-Porting Mobile Games: Doom creator John Camarck is working on another mobile game with the intention to port it to game consoles if it’s successful. “That would upset the standard industry model in which games are developed first for consoles — sometimes at a cost of tens of millions of dollars — and then reworked, or ported, to other, less-powerful gaming devices” notes Reuters. Camarck isn’t the first person to argue that the mobile game industry offers a good opportunity for game developers to test new games before developing them for other platforms, but he is the most recognized. The arguments are that mobile games can be developed for a small fraction of the cost of console games allowing independent developers to try something creative, and Camarck argues the short development cycle is a plus by giving developers experience in developing a finished game.
Licensed vs Original IP: PocketGamer has a piece from Mobile Games Insider about the licensed content vs original IP debate. There’s nothing particularly new, but it does emphasize that both sides still back their positions. Lucy Hood, CEO of Jamba, explained the failure of a mobile game based on Mr & Mrs Smith by saying that: “It didn’t capture the essence of the brand and didn’t do anything unique for mobile, so it failed to work.” Of course, this is the main argument of the anti-licensing crowd; that companies tend to spend a lot of money on acquiring a brand and then slap it on a low-quality clone with some slightly altered graphics. If the mobile games tended to be good no-one would really mind…and that is beginning to change now. “Eric Berger, Vice President of Sony Pictures’ Mobile Division backed Ms. Hood’s argument. “We attempt to balance out portfolio of titles, but on the whole we use licences as a means to rope in gamers to play what are essentially original games,” he said.”
Mobile Game Leaders: Digital Media Wire has a series of articles consisting of 5 questions with major players in the mobile gaming area. The three that have come so far are Mike Yuen, Senior Director in Qualcomm’s Gaming Group, Mark Ollila, Director of Technology and Strategy for Games and Multimedia and David Gosen, CEO of iPlay. None of these guys say anything they haven’t said before, but they’ve all got interesting (and educated) opinions on the industry, and if you haven’t come across their views it’s worth checking out the stories. Yuen and Ollila have a broad perspective and both say they don’t want to mandate how revenue is generated from mobile games, and also that getting consumers aware of mobile games is important. Gosen comes from a developers perspective, and talks a bit about iPlay’s recent acquisition by Oberon and the way the company defines itself as a casual games company now rather than a mobile games company, because it wants to develop games across PC and TV as well.
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