Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and Siemens Launch the Mobile Games Interoperability Forum - Brief Article

Wireless Internet, Sept, 2001

Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and the Siemens Information and Communication Mobile Group (IC Mobile) launched the Mobile Games Interoperability (MGI) Forum, which will work to define a mobile games interoperability specification for network-based servers.

The specification will enable game developers to produce and deploy mobile games that can be distributed across multiple game servers and wireless networks, and played over different mobile devices.

The MGI Forum has evolved out of the Universal Mobile Games Platform initiative, which was announced in March by Ericsson, Motorola, and Siemens IC Mobile.

With the formation of the MGI Forum, the four founding members reinforce a joint commitment to the mobile games industry as a whole and will continue their work to define application programming interfaces (APIs), which will allow game developers to produce and deploy mobile games over wireless networks in a client/server model.

The aim of the initiative is to specify a global standard and to develop certification procedures to encourage a wide adoption of the standard. The MGI Forum will work with and provide recommendations to the appropriate stands bodies and for a to ensure an open environment for developing mobile games.

The MGI Forum will also work closely with tool developing companies to develop software development kits (SDKs) and other necessary tools for game developers. One initial company is Metrowerks, with whom work has already begun.

To ensure that the specification meets the needs of all the stakeholders in the mobile games community, game publishers and developers, game platform vendors, game service providers, mobile network operators, additional device and infrastructure vendors, and service integrators are encouraged to join the forum.