Future and words

Last month I had the opportunity to attend, as a student, the "Go Go Games" convention. It was about mobile gaming, a growing market which must be of some interest for everyone involved in the industry. Actually, mobile gaming is still far behind, for revenues, compared to the console and PC market, despite the incredible number of applications and different types of devices to exploit. Such figures were introduced by Renate Nyborg, the head of business development in a London-based multimedia company. We also found out that the U.S. are the main market for mobile applications and that the usual difference between number of female and male users is narrowing over time.

But, more than this, the part of the convention which got my attention was the last one. First, there was a presentation from the so-called "chief Wonka", an amiable guy who owns a small startup which produces iOS applications. His motto was trapped into a single word: "succailure" which means "success + failure". He showed the audience his personal journey into the mobile gaming market, started with some fun applications like a cartoonesque mouth that moves according to the users voice. The income from this kind of tools was around 0. To try and avoid "laying eggs", he tried with a game called ".", in which the player must guide a point inside side-scrolling levels towards the end. ".." followed "...", which was eventullay followed by ".....". 5 dots, don't ask where the fourth game ended up.
Anyway, chief Wonka wasn't earning a penny out of it, even if production times were narrowed to 48 hours in order to avoid wasting time/money into the programming phase. He finally found a way to pay the bills by publishing a collection of interactive children tales on iPad, a still growing application since he has so far received a lot of requests from users. Parents will be able to tell their children stories remotely.


That's what the mobile market is right now. It's like the Klondike for Scrooge McDuck. You go there, you try your best, you might come up with a great idea (luck) or you might be back home without nothing to show off. Anyone can dig in this first phase. There is no advantage for who is already in the business, as "Angry birds" shows very well.

The following lecturer was Mark Rein, one of the pioneers of the FPS revolution before founding his own AAA studio called Epic Games, which would eventually dominate the market, even thanks to its own engine, the Unreal Engine. Rein is a celebrity in the videogaming sector, and the possibility to attend one of his rare talks is something really precious.

Obviously, he is the exact opposite of chief Wonka, his company takes a lot of time to publish the next "Gears of War" and makes seven (eight) 0s revenues out of it. But Epic Games cannot stay out of the mobile market, it has to cover the possibility that consoles and PCs will fail in a couple of decades. With the growing capabilities of mobile devices, which will eventually reach consoles (*), Rein assumes that AAA developers will be the only ones to be able to publish compelling games, leaving people like Wonka behind. Rein's talk was broad, covered technical as well as marketing aspects, and was very interesting, but the real essence was that AAA, and his quality titles, will keep on staying on top of the selling charts.

But, as usual, a doubt popped up in my mind: if the difference between handhelds and consoles is going to get really fleeting, will we end up playing "Uncharted" in the metro instead of in our living rooms? Is the videogaming experience going to change in what seems to me as a complete abomination?

Uncharted on the NGP.
You'll be playing it on the metro or on the aircraft, with people chatting or children screaming around you. Not exactly the experience you wanted when you bought it.

Of course, I approached Rein after the conference, to speak with him about a series of topics. When I asked: "Do you think the new empowered way of mobile gaming suits the AAA usual titles, like Gears of War or adventure games like Uncharted or others?", he answered that we will be playing such titles on a tablet at the university bar. This vision scares me, as well as it should scare anyone aiming to get into the industry. The reason is that if I invent a videogame, I set a target, and a possibile environment for it to be played in. With markets colliding each other, one target melting one into the other and unpredictable ways in which a game will be played, the risk is to totally lose any artistic direction, with AAA titles, that now stand for "quality titles", losing a big part of their appeal.

(*) This is actually not true, mobile devices capabilities will NEVER reach PCs or consoles ones, but we can be confident they'll reach comparable standards in 5-10 years.