It's all in the game - Brief Article

Electronics Times, Oct 16, 2000

Keri Allan looks beyond wapathy - to the recent rise of mobile gaming

In a relatively short period of time, wireless application protocol (WAP) has moved from being an acronym used solely by those in the know in the communications industry to one understood by the masses.

Everyone is now a self-professed expert on the subject, with the world now full of individuals who believe WAP is just a flash in the pan, with problems too numerous to name. There is even a buzzword that can be heard quite often alongside WAP - wapathy - which has been adopted because of the problems with poor connections as well as the very limited service.

But it seems that not everyone has given up on it. Excitement is growing in the games industry as many publishers and developers are dipping their toes tentatively into the WAP games pool. After the release of the first pay-as-you-go WAP phone in April, the gaming industry has considered the concept of mass market mobile gaming. Virtually every company is claiming to have a WAP game project in development - or at least have set up an R&D department to look into the technology.

Datamonitor's report entitled Wireless Gaming, which was released last month, claims that there is the potential for wireless gaming to grow into a $6bn industry by 2005. Europe will lead the sector, and the US will have a slower start due to its fragmented market.

The report claims that 200 million people will be playing Web games on mobiles in five years' time. This translates to four out of five mobile users. It also believes that the most common games will be the old favourites such as bingo, and family-oriented games such as quizzes and card games.

Frederic Diot, games consultant at Datamonitor, said: "The advent of WAP and the coming of the high-speed wireless networking technologies GPRS and UMTS promise richer content being displayed on consumers' handsets.

"Lured by the prospect of a mass-market audience and ever-improving technology, game publishers are ramping up their efforts to penetrate the wireless gaming market. Similarly, mobile phone operators and manufacturers are eager to have a head start in providing their customers with online games, which are being considered premium online content."

Already big games companies such as Codemasters, and Sci have opened up sections dedicated to mobile gaming. But these and other companies will have many hurdles to overcome, as there will have to be a total rethink of the gaming concept for things to run smoothly on the mobile phone.

Mobile phones have many shortcomings. They were not originally designed to play games - the screen size is too small and the controls (ie the keypad) are very awkward to use. Resolution and bandwidth are also problematic, making it possible to only run games that look like the classics played on the old Amiga and Atari games consoles.

RISE OF MOBILE GAMING

But as technology improves so will the quality of games. GPRS is already beginning to move in and slowly take over from GSM, and so broadband technology will also help the rise of mobile gaming. General packet radio service (GPRS) offers improved data connections of up to 115Kbit/s when compared to GSM's 9.6Kbit/s and, in addition, offers `always-on' connectivity, greatly altering the types of content that can be received by mobile devices. Universal mobile telecoms system (UMTS), which it is estimated will replace GPRS by 2002, will offer even more bandwidth, reaching 2Mbit/s.

Motorola is one of the first mobile phone manufacturers to show serious interest in mobile gaming. The first of its prototype GPRS- enabled devices comes complete with qwerty keyboard and colour screen.

Doug Goodwin, UK general manager Motorola's personal communications sector, is convinced that Motorola needs to keep on developing and spearheading market-defining technologies.

"Initially working with GPRS, subsequently migrating to third- generation, Motorola plans to team with content partners and support their transition into the mobile space," said Goodwin. "Our quest is to continue positioning Motorola as the preferred mobile partner of choice to the interactive media community."

Many companies have also started creating games that work as single- player games on a phone, and there are also some being designed which are multi-player online games. Fire International is one of these companies, and its games include a simple fruit machine game, sport games such as boxing, 3D RPG adventures as well as multi-player online RPGs.

Datamonitor's report also revealed that sponsorship and subscriptions would bring in the revenue for mobile gaming. According to the report: "Subscriptions will find a receptive audience and will prove a winner with customers willing to pay to play. This business model will only take place once GPRS, a faster wireless networking technology to be introduced in 2001, enables the creation of high-quality games."

Payment and distribution will also be possible online and digitally in the near future. Here consumers will be able to access sites where they can download new games for their phone as well as being able to pay for them then and there.