In 2005, Dave Astle and I sat down with some Nokia representatives and shot a video interview in which they talked about the qualities of the N-Gage QD "gamedeck" and the possibilities it opened up for developers. We even played a wireless networked 3D fighter head to head, which was pretty cool. I even got a free QD out of it.
Fast forward to 2007 and Nokia's Antoine Doumenc, Head of Games Global Sales and Head of Nokia SNAP Mobile, admits that the N-Gage device did not see the kind of penetration Nokia was hoping for, but he counters with the fact that the people who did purchase it, the QD in particular, were very happy with its gaming abilities. The future, in Nokia's eyes, lies not in specialized gaming devices but rather in a specification of supported features and an abstraction layer that enable a wide variety of devices to take advantage of the rich experiences developers are working hard to create. Plus, he pointed out, the N-Gage QD really wasn't the sort of device you'd want to slap down on a table at a business meeting - this in reference to my having pulled out a BlackBerry earlier.
The N-Gage Platform is Nokia's initiative to address the fragmentation issue in the mobile gaming space. So far, publishing games for mobile devices has meant multiple SKUs, one per target device/manufacturer/MIDP/OS combination. The N-Gage Platform specifies a baseline feature set that all devices must provide, and is complemented by an SDK that allows developers to target this abstraction layer rather than writing directly to the hardware. The SDK includes APIs designed to provide simple access to key features for gaming and let developers focus on crafting their experience rather than resolving target-specific implementation challenges.
Shifting gears, Antoine told me next about the larger ecosystem that Nokia is trying to create around the platform. This includes an online service for game discovery and trial, including ratings by other players. "Instead of blindly picking games just based on developer or publisher brand, or advertising," he said, "your friends can send you a message saying, 'Hey, have you tried this game?' and you can go onto your N-Gage platform device and actually play it before you decide to buy it." And since games can be purchased over the air from Nokia, manufacturer or provider portals as well as in boxes at retail or via the web on your PC, these become the deciding factors in how many SKUs a publisher creates - one per retail channel, with different forms of DRM and profit sharing - rather than the target architectures.
The N-Gage is also about community, with player profiles, buddy lists and private messaging being a core part of the experience. "Discovery is being matched with participation and community, because we like to play with our friends or share the experiences our friends are having."
Peter Lykke Nielsen, Product Manager for SDK & Tools, Play New Multimedia at Nokia, took over to tell me more about the developer tools Nokia has made available. N-Gage is a closed system, for now, with tools being provided to registered developers only, because a curated environment is better for incubating a new idea. The door does seem open to expanding the N-Gage platform to other manufacturers in the future, but that remains to be seen.
Complementary to N-Gage, in a sense, is SNAP Mobile, which is a client-server architecture for Java games on mobile devices. SNAP provides developers with a simple set of interfaces for high-level communications, rather than having to worry about how to implement the plumbing. It is particularly attractive to small and medium publishers/developers because of the hosted server environment, minimizing up front infrastructure investment and allowing smaller companies to bring innovative, network-aware games to market.
Said Peter, "as game developers and people with game design backgrounds, we didn't focus so much on technology in developing N-Gage and SNAP. Rather, we though about abilities. When designing them, we though, 'it'd be cool to do this and this and this,' and we built technology to support them. However, when we put the tools in the hands of developers, we were blown away by the creative things they did with them. Basically, by creating abilities for them, they combined them in ways we couldn't foresee and created really exciting experiences."
SNAP Mobile is free, and documentation and resources can be found at Forum Nokia. N-Gage content is also on Forum Nokia, but only available to registered developers, especially right now in the pre-launch phase.
Jenny Soininen, Communications Specialist for Multimedia at Nokia, provided me with a slew of informational materials to support our interview, so watch the conference coverage portal for more information.
Southwest Gaming Expo
