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 The Game Developer Conference China included a mobile track, highlighting the importance of the mobile games industry within China. Kim Daniel Arthur, CTO of Glu Mobile's Asia-Pacific operations discussed "The Future of Mobile Gaming" on stage in Shanghai.
Glu Mobile is a company with offices in US, Europe and China in cities including Hong Kong and Beijing, where they have had a studio since May 2007, as discussed with Glu Mobile's CEO Greg Ballard in a recent interview that also touched on Glu's portfolio of titles, which includes brands such as Sonic, PGR and Transformers along with casual titles (Diner Dash, Zuma) and original IP such as Stranded.
In his presentation, Kim Daniel Arthur took the tact that the first mobile games were like the first computer games: they used a small amount of memory, had a small footprint and low performance. They needed a short development cycle and there was little fragmentation in the market, as with fewer devices, it was easy to support them, and Arthur described the market as being filled with opportunistic games, in most cases based on retro titles and addressed to a hardcore gamers audience. Arthur then went on to describe the ways in which the situation has changed:
- There is a push towards 3D, first through software solutions and lately using hardware acceleration.
- Increased fragmentation with the need to support lots of handsets.
- Network operators control the distribution environment. This gives less possibilities, but is a very stable platform for growth.
- Big brands have entered the market and casual games dominate.
- Multiple platforms (Java, BREW, etc.), multiple software, multiple levels of performance and a wide range of footprint, with some games using as little as 64Kb while others range in the megabytes.
Now, Arthur argued, there are two different levels of concern for publishers: the end users and the mobile operators, with current trends indicating:
- Connectivity is gaining momentum.
- Downloadable content, or even uploadable is on the way.
- Real time MMOs and multiplayer is in its early stages (there are problem here with the restrictions of the current distribution environment).
- A casual games breakthrough is coming.
And that the future will bring:
- 3D,
- Flash,
- Alternative input methods ("Wii opened the way for this," said Arthur)
- And the need for middleware in the development of games.
Next: Future trends in detail
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