Mobile gaming: the state of play

At Foviance we’re becoming increasingly involved with gaming clients who are capitalising on new growth technologies – such as mobile.

Some of our clients are still investigating what their users want from mobile games and how and when they will be played. Some have developed prototypes and others are a long way down the path, simply looking for assistance in improving what they have already.

The various discussions at EGR Live in London last month were a useful opportunity for our team to understand some of the challenges the industry faces around mobile and why user experience is so important. It was very interesting to hear how developers have been challenged by technology to create an experience that has to be similar or as close to online as possible – purely for familiarity and understanding of game play.

‘Mobile Update’ was one of the most popular sessions on offer during the two days. Over-subscribed on day one, a second session had to be arranged. The first topic soon challenged the technophobes within the audience with a fairly in-depth discussion around Flash games for mobile platforms. The staple technology of any gaming client, Flash is not supported by mainstream mobile platforms, notably the iPhone and Android. One opinion from the panel suggested that even if the phones were Flash-enabled, they just wouldn’t have sufficient capability to run the games. One option suggested was to develop the games using AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML).

It’s rare to hear mention of mobile or mobile applications these days without any of the Apple products cropping up in conversation. In fact for some, the iPhone and the iPad ARE mobile. As Mark Gibson of MKODO commented: “Apple is in such a strong position.” It certainly has an amazing, pioneering brand that’s captured the imagination of all generations, market leading products and an inspiring management team. Apple has just about everything… …except that 96 percent of the smart phone market is still held by the competition. Yes, that’s right! It’s hard to believe but the iPhone only commands 4 percent.

So developers should ignore other manufacturers at their peril. Developing games for the mobile remains a constant challenge; new devices, new formats, new operating systems, landscape/portrait screen formats, touch input…how do you create something today without it being out of date by the time it is launched?

There were some suggestions:

• Develop your game for one particular phone, but do it well.
• Make things easier for developers and allow them to capitalise on that platform’s features
• Keep navigation and game play simple, don’t over complicate things unnecessarily
• Keep mobile transactional betting simple and hit the mass market

It’s a really exciting time within mobile gaming, a massive opportunity but clearly there remain some big challenges particularly around technology. Mobile networks are creaking at the seams, unable to cope with the vast bandwidth utilised by the media hungry applications, not just from gamers but music and video downloads alike. The problem operators face here is that when a user cannot access a game, or is interrupted because of the network, the user immediately blames the site they are on. The user experience falls down because of the network yet the operator’s brand gets the hit.

Nevertheless, companies that develop mobile sites and games from a more informed understanding of what customers really want, will score the greatest competitive advantage.

This article was written as part of our June newsletter