I have never worked as a professional game developer, but I've been playing
around with non-professional game projects and companies since I was 12 and,
believe me, that was a long time ago!
About three years ago, I had my first encounter with mobile game development
while writing a book on game development for A!Press. Peter Blackburn, who was
working at A!Press at that time, asked me if I was interested in writing a book
specifically focused on game development for mobile devices. Despite thinking
that such a book would have good sales, I passed on the opportunity because I
was loaded with tons of work and didn't think I would have the time.
Since then, the market for mobile games grew from a few million dollars per
year to $91.3 million last year. According to the tech consultancy firm In-Stat/MDR,
the market is projected to reach $203.8 million dollars in 2004 and $1.8 billion
by 2009 in the US alone. While the market for mobile game development is growing
fast, large companies in search of such expertise are buying up many of the
smaller companies.
About three years ago, while creating a game for a mobile device, we had to
trim down our projects to fit the device limitations and to work with the
limited graphics and sound APIs. But, hey! About 25 years ago, I was developing
games for a two-color, 16 KB RAM TK-85 computer so, in fact, the limitations on
the mobile devices didn't look too fearsome. And, nowadays, even these
limitations are disappearing at a fast pace with newer devices.
With the first versions of XNA, the next game development platform from
Microsoft probably being released sometime next year, we will have not only
powerful new toys, but also powerful new tools to play with.
Money to be made, a good support gaming SDK - what more can we ask for in a
game development platform?
Maybe it is time for the next challenge…
OK, up until now, it seems that no game has exploited the full potential of
game development for mobile devices, especially when it comes to the aspects of
mobility and connectivity of these WiFi-enabled devices. Maybe the first one to
do so will be some kind of virtual pet, aquarium or personal garden, which could
interact with similar programs on other devices. Maybe it will be a variation of
a MMORPG (Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game). Maybe it will be the
next "Sims 2", which EA is planning to release on mobile platforms
next year.
I certainly don't know what the killer mobile game is going to be and, if I
did, I would be working on it as fast as I could! But for now, there is no one
game that you can look at and say: "Hey, that game makes the most of my 'moby',
and it just wouldn't be nearly as much fun if it ran on a non-mobile
device!"
Any ideas for such a game can be sent to me - in private! :)
Next time we'll talk about porting a game to mobile devices - hopefully with
some source code!
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