Nokia N-Gage summit: mobile gaming experts blame the big brands

Posted by Adam Bunker on Wed 29 Oct 2008

Mobile gaming is the porno mobie equivalent to console gaming's Hollywood, apparently

It's been an odd day at the Nokia N-Gage summit. Under the thinly-guised veil of trying to make things better, the whole conference seems to have been spent pointing out the many foibles that mobile gaming as a whole has to take massive iron to.

The summit culminated with a debate between two teams of mobile gaming experts from publishing, creative and media, and it was here that the heart of the medium's key problems were outlined.

Scott Foe, creator/publisher of massively popular online mobile game 'Reset Generation' began by suggesting that mobile gaming was the porno movie to console gaming's Hollywood. This was explained by both sides by an overall lack of that most important of elements: innovation.

Pocketgamer editor Stuart Dredge suggested that the "big unspoken problem" within mobile games is the market saturation by sub-standard big brand games, such as mobile versions of sports and action console games. He went on to say that the mobile incarnations of big name games are often done poorly, which is a practice that self-perpetuates bad mobile game sales.

"Building your own brands is hugely important," he said. "New brands matter much more in the long run."

Mobile Entertainment journalist Tim Green confirmed as much by informing EAs Peter Parmenter that FIFA street 08 made his "9 year old son cry". Conversely, when asked about the iTunes App store, both teams alluded that its open garden approach let the truly innovative games in, at the expense of being lost in a sea of dire ones.

Link: Nokia N-Gage