Mobile gaming Boom

Mobile gaming is a getting higher in India's fast-growing wireless business. Gaming is a key element in operators' and content developers' strategies to develop new, high-value wireless revenue streams, beyond basic voice services and simple text messaging. Propelled by end-user demand, gaming is growing quickly as an increasing number of Indian consumers take advantage of wireless mobility to enjoy entertainment on the go.

The growth of this market sector has attracted publishers, developers, animators, musicians, and content providers, and is also stimulating the development of innovative business models.

The Indian mobile-game business currently makes up about 5 per cent of the global wireless market. Market researcher In-Stat/MDR expects that the Indian mobile gaming market will generate $26 million (US$) in revenue in 2004, and will increase to $336 million in annual revenue by 2009.

Software services are a booming business in India, it emerging as a key market in the next big wave of mobile multimedia-- both for software developers and consumers.

India currently has about 43 million mobile-phone subscribers, and a number of service providers are offering value-added services. Mobile phones are also emerging as a leading entertainment device.

It is also projected that as many as 78.6 million people will be playing mobile games by 2009, and game downloads will have increased more than tenfold from 2004 levels.

Mobile Gaming Evolution

"Mobile gaming has come a long way since 'Snake' was first deployed on wireless handsets in 1997," said In-Stat/MDR's director of wireless research, Clint Wheelock. In-Stat/MDR's recent study revealed that, at present, 6.5 percent of U.S. wireless subscribers are extremely or very interested in purchasing mobile gaming services. According to Wheelock, "This level of interest clearly identifies mobile gaming as a niche opportunity for wireless carriers, application developers and content producers."

In-Stat/MDR also found that unlike with other emerging mobile multimedia services, such as video and music, consumers interested in mobile gaming do not necessarily match the classic early-adopter profile.

Games implemented for Mobile Phones

There a number of different technologies, listed below, are used for games on mobile phones.

Embedded Games

Some games are programmed to run natively on a phone's chipset, installed on the phone at the factory, and shipped with it. Snake, available on many Nokia phones for more than four years, is the most famous example. New embedded games cannot be installed by the consumer, and they are becoming less prevalent.

SMS Games

Short Message Service (SMS) is used to deliver short text messages from one phone to another. SMS games are played by sending a message to a phone number that corresponds to the game provider's server, which receives the messages, performs some processing, and returns a message to the player with the results.

SMS is not a particularly good technology for games, because it is dependent on text entry by the user, and thus is, in essence, a command-line environment. Although the deployment of Multimedia Message Service (MMS) technology makes message-based games more appealing, this is still not a great gameplay.

Browsing Games

Every phone includes a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) browser. WAP is, in essence, a static browsing medium, much like a vastly simplified form of the Web, optimized for the small form factors and low bandwidth of mobile phones. WAP games are played by going to the game provider's URL (usually through a link on the carrier's portal), downloading and viewing one or more pages, making a menu selection or entering text, submitting that data to the server, and then viewing more pages. One version of WAP (1.x) uses a unique markup language called WML and allows users to download collections of pages called decks. The new version of WAP (2.x) uses a subset of XHTML, delivers one page at a time, and allows better control over display formatting.

Either version of WAP offers a friendlier interface than SMS, and is generally less expensive for consumers who pay for airtime only, rather than by the message. But it is a static browsing medium; little or no processing can be done on the phone itself, and all gameplay must be over the network, with all processing performed by a remote server.

Phones will continue to contain WAP browsers, and developers may find WAP useful to deliver more detailed help or rules to players than can be contained in a game application, since most games are still subject to strict memory limits. However, WAP has failed to achieve high levels of usage (in both Europe and North America, about 6% of phone owners use WAP), and both carriers and game developers are moving away from WAP technology.

J2ME and Other Interpreted Languages

Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) is a form of the Java language that is optimized for small devices such as mobile phones and PDAs. Many phone manufacturers have made a strong commitment to Java phone deployment. Tens of millions of Java-enabled phones are already in consumers' hands.

J2ME is limited by comparison to desktop Java, but it vastly improves the ability of mobile phones to support games. It allows far better control over interface than either SMS or WAP, allows sprite animation, and can connect over the air network to a remote server.

Because of its capabilities and the widespread and growing deployment of Java-enabled phones, it is a natural for mobile game development today, and we will examine J2ME game development in detail here and in subsequent documents. J2ME is not the only interpreted language deployed on phones, but it is an industry standard backed by many manufacturers and therefore offers a large and growing installed base. Some proprietary interpreted languages have significant regional presence, including Qualcomm's Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) in North American and a standard called GVM supported by some Korean carriers. Games initially developed for the large J2ME installed base can be recoded in these proprietary languages if a sound business case presents itself.

C++ Applications

Mobile games can also be developed in C++, a language that compiles to native machine code. Compiled languages in general offer better control over UI, direct access to the phone's hardware, and greater speed for the same processing power when compared to an interpreted language. Development in C++ enables rich, high-performance games. C++ developers can target Series 60 Platform devices. Series 60 Platform is a multi-vendor standard for one-handed smart phones that supports application development in Java MIDP, C++, and browsing environments.

How Mobile Game Development Differs from Conventional Game Development

Mobile game development differs from conventional game development in a number of ways.

Team Size

Conventional PC and console games typically require teams of 12 to 30 people. Because most mobile games are less extensive than their console counterparts, they are typically developed by teams of 3 to 5 people, and often by lone programmers/designers.

Budget

Conventional games have budgets in the $1.5 million to $5 million range. Most mobile games are implemented on budgets of less than $100,000. Essentially, the limited display capabilities of mobile phones, coupled with limitations on application size, make it difficult to spend the huge amounts devoted to conventional games. This is, in a way, a strong advantage.

Development Cycle

Conventional games typically take 2 to 3 years to develop. Most mobile games are developed in a few months.

In other words, with a small team, and a small budget, you can develop and deploy a professional-quality mobile game. For many developers, frustrated by the conditions of the conventional game market, it is one of mobile game development's strongest appeals.

Networked Devices

Mobile games can be unlike any games we've seen before: limited in terms of media, but networked and multiplayer. Modems for PCs have been widely deployed only for the last eight years or so; consoles are only now going online. Mobile phones are networked devices by their very nature. Even though their processing capabilities are reminiscent of older computing technologies, their network capabilities are far superior.

Open Standards

Console development requires authorization and support from console game manufacturers, who use their control to require high "platform royalties" from game publishers, and to control what sorts of games get developed for their hardware. In the world of wireless (as in PC game development), you are free to develop whatever sorts of games you like, without paying Nokia, Sun, or anyone else, a dime. Moreover, the standards underlying mobile game development are published, open, and available for review by developers.

Deployment

Conventional games are (mostly) purchased in software outlets. Mobile games are (mostly) downloaded and installed by the user. In some cases, they are downloaded over the air network; some phones allow you to download an application to a computer, then hotsynch it to the phone.

Consequently, the distribution channels for mobile games are quite different. Users typically find mobile games through a carrier's game menu, a game menu pre-installed on the phone by a manufacturer, or a wireless portal.

In the conventional games industry, spiraling budgets make publishers increasingly conservative about what they'll fund. In wireless gaming, budgets are low -- and nobody has really figured out yet what types of games are going to do best in this environment. Thus, innovation is far easier. If, like many developers, you're frustrated with the restrictions of conventional game development, mobile games are an arena where you still have an opportunity to innovate and show what you can really do.

Since we're still at the early stages of a new gaming medium. Nowadays, it's impossible to succeed with a game like that in the conventional game industry, but it's more than possible in this new game arena.

Experts reckon that 220m people across the world will be playing games on their mobiles by 2009. It is being tipped as one of the big developments in the mobile phones market.