Mobile Games

Seminar for the Master on Social Media and Web Technologies, Linnaeus University, Sweden, 8 May 2012

Nelson Zagalo, University of Minho, Portugal

Universidade do Minho

Video Games

Involves interaction with electronic device.

Requires receptor participation to become, the interactivity.

Genre defines the way player interact and make sense of games.

Games are made of mechanics and story, and some games only have mechanics.

Are “supposed” to be fun.

Mobile Games

Mobile games are defined by the platform. Platforms as phones, smart phones, and

tablets, which are defined by technologies and OS.

Technologies as Palm OS, Symbian, Adobe Flash Lite, Java ME, Apple iOS, Windows Phone 7 or Google Android.

Java is the most common programming language used for mobile games (for the iOS is objective-c).

Contents

1. Brief Story

2. Platforms / OS

3. Technologies

4. Usability

5. Game Design

6. Economy

Brief Story

Brief Story

NOKIA, the pioneer

Was not only part of the mobile phone rising success, but was also responsible for the introduction of games in Mobiles.

In 1997 launched Snake with Nokia 6110. Designed by Taneli Armanto, survied nine versions, and attained 400 million mobile phones.

The game design was not original, the very first Snake-type game was an arcade game called Blockade. It was created by Gremlin way back in 1976.

Snake has been adapted to almost any game platform.

Snake, 1997, Nokia

Blockade, 1976, Gremlin

Brief Story

NOKIA, the platform

In 2003 launched a platform N-Gage. A pocket-size handset, a cross between a Game Boy Advance and a Mobile Phone. Allowed single player, but also multiplayer and location-based playing via Bluetooth or via GPRS.

One of the biggest launches for N Gage was Tomb Raider (1996) port. It served to demonstrate the flop that N Gage would come to be. Game Boy Advance didn’t had yet any such fully 3D action adventure games.

Main reason to fail: trying to adapt console games to mobile platform.

Tomb Raider, 2003, Eidos

Brief Story

NOKIA, location-based

After the success of the urban chase Can You See Me Now? (2003) game developed by Blast Theory and the Mixed Reality Lab at Ars Electronica 2003. They were using GPS and PDA.

Nokia invested in the launch of location-based games that would be using Bluetooth and Cell Network technologies.

Undercover by the portuguese Y-Dreams was one of the first Massively Multiplayer Mobile games in 2005.

Main reason to fail: the prohibitive costs of internet access.

Undercover 2, 2005, Y-Dreams

Can you see me now?, 2003, Blast Theory

Brief Story

Apple, the iRevolution

In June 2007 Apple unveiled the iPhone.

Launched as a revolutionary platform for Music, Phone and Internet. Started as a true revolutionary gaming platform with the launch of the App Store in 2008.

Brief Story

Google, response to Apple

In November 2007 Google plus 86 hardware/software/telecom companies launched the initiative Open Handset Alliance.

They launched the Open Source OS, Linux based, Android.

Brief Story

Nokia unites with Microsoft

Nokia didn’t integrate Google OHA, an so continued alone to support Symbian OS. However on February 11, 2011, Nokia announced that it would migrate from Symbian to Windows Phone 7.

Nokia on Symbian OS 3 Nokia on WP7

Platforms / OS

Platforms / OS

The Past

The Present

phonephoness

tablettabletss

calculatcalculatorsors

PDAsPDAs

Platforms / OS

The 3 survivors

Today the game mobile market is dominated by two types of mobile platforms – smartphones and tablets. These are driven by 3 OS.

Being Apple the most renowned because of the quality of the App Store. On the other side Android has the biggest market audience (40%). Microsoft is only now trying to catch with the Nokia Alliance.

Apple iOSGoogle Android Windows Phone

Technologies

Technologies

Xcode is an IDE (integrated development environment) for creating apps for iPhone, and iPad. The Xcode interface seamlessly integrates code editing, UI design with Interface Builder, testing, and debugging, all within a single window.

iOS -> Xcode 4

Angry Birds, (2009), Rovio

Fruit Ninja, (2010), Halfbrick Studios

Technologies

Android -> Eclipse

Android plug-in for Eclipse. Programming language is Java.

CheeseMan, (2011), Alphanoize

Hambo, (2012), Miniclip

Technologies

Microsoft -> XNA 4.0

XNA is a high level game creation framework for Microsoft devices including Windows PCs, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Kill the Duck, (2010), Andreas Vilela

Scribble Defense+, (2012), Elbert Perez

Usability

Usability

Touch and Multitouch

Multitouch is the ability to recognize the presence of two or more points of contact with the surface. This multi-point awareness made possible complete new gestural interfaces as the Pinch to Zoom or touch keyboards.Using one finger to interact is highly limited for most functions, and so games.

Usability

Touch and Multitouch

Fingle (2011) was developed by Game Oven, two colleagues who graduated from Utrecht School of the Arts, Netherlands. Fingle was Finalist on the Nuovo Awards of IGF 2012. Made with Xcode and Photoshop in 8 months.

video

Watch - http://vimeo.com/30639604

Game Design

Game Design

Game design is the core of any game. It doesn’t matter if it is a console game, a park attraction, or a mobile tiny game. The only thing that really matter is your Design. However the design must always take into account the platform.

To do that we need to understand what Game Design is made of:

SpaceObjectsActionsRulesSkillsUncertainty

Game Design

Space - confined to one screenObjects - confined to one character at the timeActions - confined to mostly one action per timeRules - very short levelsSkills - visual cognition and hand-eye coordinationUncertainty – luck mixed with skill failure

Let’s pick 3 of the most successful Mobile Games.

Play www.cuttherope.ie

Summary: Short duration experiences in restricted space, with restricted number of characters and actions. Rewarding problem solving which are driven through physical coordination.

Economy

Economy

The Mobile Games market in 2012 is more important and powerful than ever.

Angry Birds is one of the most played Video Game in history with 700 million downloads this March 2012. Cut the Rope has made more then 100 Million, and Doodle Jump more than 15 million.

Mobile games is becoming more and more present in the video game triple A media, robbing attention from the handheld market (Nintendo 3DS, Sony PS Vita).

Economy

http://services.google.com/fh/files/blogs/AdMob%20-%20Tablet%20Survey.pdf

Economy

The number of paying players has grown 35% to 37 million Americans.

American players spend in total five times more on iOS games than on Android games.

For both Android and iOS devices, the majority of money is not spent on downloading games but within the games through Microstransactions.

http://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/News/2012/Mobile-Gaming-Grows-In-US.aspx

Economy

Apple (iPhone) is now the most valuable company in the world.

Rovio (Angry Birds) reports high profits from 2011.

Nintendo (3DS) reports the first annual loss in 30 years, in 2011.

Sony (PS Vita) reports losses of $3.2 billions in 2011.

Nelson Zagalo, nzagalo@ics.uminho.ptHomepage. http://nelsonzagalo.googlepages.com

Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/nelsonzagalo

Universidade do Minho