For years, Nintendo has ruled the mobile gaming world, first with the Game Boy, then with the DS Lite. After an amazing run, though, the torch is being passed. Not to another gaming company, but to smart phone makers Google and Apple.
Over the next decade I believe smart phones will be where most gaming innovation will happen. The market for smart phone games is booming. A recent New York Times article reported that games make up more than half of the billion downloads from the Apple App Store. The App Store has about 15,000 games for the iPhone, and the Android Market has about 3,000 for Google Android devices.
Smart phone games run the gamut of genres, but here are a few interesting categories:
Location-Based Games
The newer smart phones have built-in GPS, and location-based games like “Turf Wars” (iPhone) and “Parallel Kingdom” (iPhone and Android) make this feature a core part of gameplay. In “Turf Wars,” you compete with other local “mobsters” for control of territory. “Parallel Kingdom” is a medieval role-playing game played in a virtual world based on GPS data.
Game-like social networks such as foursquare (iPhone, Android and Blackberry) and Gowalla (iPhone, with Android coming soon) are also starting to pop up. Foursquare asks players to check-in at locations they visit to earn points, acquire badges and leave tips for other visitors. Some locations, such as bars and restaurants, will give free food to the mayor (the person who checks in most frequently).
With location-based games, it’s the first time that the location of the player has had an impact on the outcome of gameplay. If you live in New York City, you are going to have a much easier time racking up points on foursquare, for instance, than somebody playing in Spokane.
Harvard University recently created a specialized version of foursquare to help students learn more about the university. It is interesting to see foursquare being repurposed as an educational tool, and I think this kind of innovation will continue in location-based gaming.
Accelerometer-Based Games
Another unique feature of the iPhone and Android phones is the inclusion of accelerometer hardware, which recognizes how the phone is being held or moved. The accelerometer is doing for smart phone games what the Wii remote did for motion-controlled console games by creating a market for games with this control style.
The accelerometer game “Abduction!” (Android) relies on the accelerometer to make a cow jump into the sky using platforms to try to reach a UFO who took the cow’s friend. This is a very polished game, and I love the art direction and style. The developer really thought about how to make the game fun for everyone from kids, who can’t “die” on the kids’ setting, to hardcore players, who must master nearly impossible movements to get to the highest levels.
Classic Games
Smart phones don’t have a lot of graphical processing power, and this makes them perfect for the classic games of yore. Games like “Pac-Man” and “Space Invaders” (iPhone and Android) have simple control schemes, allowing them to easily port to touch screens or small keypads, along with their lightweight graphics. Using Nesoid (Android), I’ve played many Nintendo games on my Android, and I get a certain delight in being able to fire up “Super Mario Bros. 2” from anywhere.
These are some other games I played on my Android-powered Motorola Droid while researching this post:
“Archipelago Demo” (Android) – This is a real-time strategy game that begins with islands with growing populations. The computer controls some, and the player controls others. The objective is to send airplanes with populations from your islands to other islands until one side has control of all islands. This is a fun game, though frustrating at times, that recalls the WWII era in the South Pacific.
“Flight Director (Lite)” (Android, with similar games on iPhone) – This is a fun game that uses actual Google Earth images of airports where the player must guide passenger planes, helicopters and fighter jets to the designated runway by drawing lines with their finger. It gets hectic quickly when the player fights to keep the airspace controlled and not crash any planes into each other.
Nesoid Lite (Nintendo emulator) (Android) – This is a fantastic app for emulating Nintendo Entertainment System games like “Contra,” “Super Mario Bros.,” “The Legend of Zelda,” etc. While the legality of emulating NES games is questionable, the app makes playing classic games fun. It has tons of great features, including screen scaling and screen rotation, though gameplay is still sort of difficult using on-screen controls and the Droid’s keypad.
“Robo Defense FREE” (Android) – A tower defense game with deep gameplay and many facets to keep players coming back for more. The graphics are good, but I’d like to see a different art direction. If you are interested in tower defense games, check this one out.
Brian Johnson is a student in the MCDM program who is pursuing a career in the video game industry. His Xbox LIVE gamertag is thepiecesfit. Brian recently started Grybo Productions to author music for the Rock Band video game. His favorite video game is “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.”
(6 votes, average: 4.17 out of 5)
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5 Comments, Comment or Ping
Jeremy
While I do think that smartphones have great potential for bringing gaming to the unwashed masses (or would that be washed masses?), I disagree that they are going to dominate gaming. I see Sony and Nintendo continuing to develop their PSP and DS lines (though with Nintendo being a more firm bet between the two). Looking at the sheer volume of hand-held game unit sales (over 113 million DS units as of Sept ’09, according to WIkipedia) and the ease of entry into that market, especially by parents, they are going to continue to be the dominant mobile gaming platforms.
Location-based gaming is certainly innovative, but tying it to the need to have a high-end cell phone with expensive data plan limits its ability to dominate the much cheaper DSi, which uses Wifi to enable its gamers to have a social experience.
Jan 24th, 2010
Brian Johnson
I’m not sure about the masses part
I totally agree that Nintendo is the current monster of mobile gaming. Their DS line is the most successful gaming platform of all time and and will continue that tradition for the next decade. But I do think we will see a shift.
Parents are going to get their kids mobile phones. Right now they get them the free “feature” phones, but it won’t be that long until we start to see smart phones being offered for free with contracts. As a parent, why buy them a Nintendo DS when you’ve already bought them a smart phone that can play tons of great games? I’m not a parent, so I don’t know all of the factors at play here, but I’d rather just buy them a phone that can game as well.
You are right that Nintendo or Sony could do something with their platforms if they start to expand their wireless coverage. Either through partnering with mobile providers or technological developments of WiFi.
Jan 25th, 2010
Seth Foley
There is certainly room for growth for gaming applications in the smartphone market. At the same time, though, it is unlikely that smartphones will necessarily dominate the market for several reasons:
1. Input types
While an accelerometer can potentially add depth to gameplay, and even form the basis for a game itself, it is an exceptionally limited form of control. As smartphones are a mobile device designed to be used virtually everywhere, developers cannot rely on changes in device rotation or movement to reliably convey user intent.
2. Control layout
The number and configuration of buttons on smartphones is similarly limited. While most phones have between 14 and 18 buttons, they are tightly packed in a grid and typically unsuited to gameplay (users cannot use haptic feedback to locate a given button on most phones, for example.) The buttons in these phones also do not typically have the capacity to identify different levels of user feedback, which is especially important for directional input. The iPhone, currently the most popular mobile gaming platform, does not allow developers access to the physical device buttons at all — and its capacitive touchscreen does not differentiate between different levels of input pressure.
By contrast, console and PC controllers have undergone significant evolutions since the square brick of the 8-bit Nintendo system. The current XBox 360 and PS3 controllers each offer one directional pad, two analog control sticks, and ten or more other buttons. The Wii remote has a similar number of inputs, and on the PC, users have over a hundred keys with a precision pointing device at their disposal.
This obviously does not prevent games on mobile platforms from existing and flourishing, but it does preclude several game types from working correctly. Developers have tried all sorts of workarounds, but each one requires tradeoffs, and some sorts of games in particular have resisted multiple efforts in simplification. A classic example is the abject failure of Starcraft when it was ported to the Nintendo 64.
3. Size
Phones cannot grow too much larger than they already are without sacrificing weight, portability, or flexibility. This constrains the display area, at maximum, to the size of the device — and usually there is a sizable bezel surrounding the screen. In the case of touchscreen devices, the display area is also the input area, which further complicates things. Overall, mobile devices have a much harder restriction on the rate at which they can convey information to the user.
4. Economics
In the absence of a standardized platform for mobile gaming, developers need to target three or four operating systems — each with different requirements — just to hit a reasonable slice of the smartphone market. This requires more up-front development time compared to other investments with similar market numbers (consoles or the PC), and doesn’t often make financial sense for more complicated games.
Similarly, one should note that the console manufacturers control their respective ecosystems; being that these are de facto monopolies, they are also significant profit sources. They are unlikely to give up that control unless they are forced by external factors to do so (see: Sega.)
5. Content
Fans of a given franchise tend to follow it wherever it goes, but they also maintain expectations about the perceived quality of that franchise, and those expectations are often tied directly to gameplay mechanics. So, until someone figures out how to replicate the experience of Zelda, Halo, World of Warcraft, or Final Fantasy with little fuss on devices where gaming is not the primary function, it is unlikely that many of those popular games would make (or survive) the transition. Carrying that to its logical conclusion, developers aren’t likely to take chances with their most popular games.
Feb 23rd, 2010
Derek Belt
I’ve been playing video games for 20-plus years and have seen lots of changes. This one, however, is big. Game changing big. When the NES gave way to Sega Genesis, the graphics improved but really it was the same ‘ol 2D side scroller. When Playstation gave way to Xbox, three dimensional gameplay reached new heights, but it was still just platform gaming at heart. When Playstation 3 gave way to Facebook… wait, what?
Games have changed before. They’ll change again. Mulitplayer games upped the ante and online play brought people together like never before. But honestly, it was always the same games with the same stories and objectives–point, shoot, jump across the chasm. Dribble, shoot, play defense. Facebook gaming isn’t just an update to a tried and true formula, it’s a power boost for an industry that’s already more popular than ever.
In the March 2010 issue of GamePro magazine, Julian Murdoch pens “The Rise of Facebook Gaming,” a look at the future of social gaming and the slew of big-name talents lining up to change the world. Tops on that list is Sid Meier, the legendary creator of Civilization and a genius Murdoch dubs “the godfather of turn-based strategy games.” Meier’s taken a break from PC development and is now creating for Facebook. But he’s not just jumping on the Mafia or FarmVille bandwagon. He’s creating something entirely new. “Our idea is not to try and make another Facebook game but to make Civilization for this new technology,” Meier says. “This is a new arena, a new playspace, and we’re still learning. We’re trying something new and not trying to fit an existing genre of Facebook games.”
That’s big talk from a very big name. Meier’s made his career in video games, and if he thinks social gaming and Facebook in particular is the wave of the future, then by golly we should pay attention. I’m excited to see what he comes up with because it has the potential to be different from anything we’ve ever seen. It’s not just an upgrade. It’s a new way of thinking about video games, period. “Is playing FarmVille playing a game?” Meier asks. “Or is it something to do between checking your e-mail and reading the New York Times?” My guess is Meier blows our minds. Yet again.
Feb 28th, 2010
Brian
Seth,
I think you raise some very valid points. I might not have made it clear, but I don’t think smart phones are going to be encroaching on console or PC gaming. I do think they will begin to take a sizable chunk of market share from Nintendo over the coming years.
The number of input keys does have a certain impact on the kinds of games that will excel on a smart phone. As you said, RTS games are probably not a good candidate for smart phones, but turn-based games might really work well.
As far as content, I’d love to see some new IP designed specifically for smart phones because it will be difficult to port existing AAA series to smart phones while still offering the gameplay that made the series famous in the first place.
Developers could also build complimentary gaming apps. For Zelda, maybe Nintendo could build a shooting gallery app to earn rupees while you are away from the console. Or Polyphony Digital, the maker of Gran Turismo, could make a game app to manage your virtual garage by buying and selling cars while away from your console. I think there are good opportunities to expand existing series to the mobile format and not completely destroy what makes them great games.
Mar 8th, 2010
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