Quote:Original post by amish1234
Um, why not just develop for Symbian OS then, instead of J2ME/BREW/Mophun?

You have to distinguish here between Over The Air (OTA) downloads and what Handango call 'Desktop Download.' Over the air downloads are performed over the phone via WAP, and is how the operators push most of the content to the users. Desktop downloads instead are installed to the PC, and then installed from the PC to the phone, usually by bluetooth or infra-red.

Although Series 60 does have the highest download count, most of these are J2ME games. The two main reasons for this (I'm assuming) are that most operators don't have the facilities in place at the moment to push native Symbian applications to consumers via WAP, and that they would rather push content that can be distributed across a broad range of devices. It's possible that the Nokia Preminet solution will resolve the first issue, and Symbian devices are becoming more and more mainstream. However at the moment, there is simply more money in J2ME than Symbian.

Quote:Original post by kooktroop
Series 60 phones, judging from game sales i know of, have the highest rate of game downloads. Probably making this the best market to develop for.

Series 60 is far from being superior over Series 40. I dont know which games sales you know of, but Series 40 is far the most popular download group when it comes to mobile games. Sony Ericsson T610 group comes even before Series 60.

People tend to compare Series 40 vs Series 60 as if they sold the same amount of devices around the world. Series 60 is NOT a massmarket phone, while most Series 40 is.

Series 40 has been more or less the most popular phone group when it comes to downloading games.

Nevertheless, there is only one rule that really count when it comes to which devices you should support: Support ALL the devices you are able to support. The more devices you support, the more games you sell. Though, there are of course a few devices that it is pointless to support.

When it comes to specifications on the phones, it is with this as with most other things you need to learn. Do a lot of research! Look up specifications of for the different devices on the different manufactures developer sites, search the Internet etc etc and create your own list of it. Group the devices together (like Series 40, Series 60, T610 group, K700 group, V300 group etc)...

There are many things to consider, not only the technical aspects, but also what kind of APIs are available and not avaible in the devices and other restrictions. Its a pain in the ass but its just life.. Nothings comes for free, only hard work usually pays off.

BREW vs J2ME is more a question of what kind of business model you might find better. They are quite equal, with one major difference: With J2ME, you need to contact each distributor individually (or get a contract with someone that do it for you)... With BREW, this aspect is a bit simpler where you only relate to Qualcomm and they make sure the carriers etc gets your game. Of course, Qualcomm takes a fee, but it might be worth it.

But again, if you are able to port you game either from J2ME to BREW or vica versa, why not support both?

Series 40 devices are a lot more common in the market. But you have to take into consideration that an owner of a Series 60 device is much more likely to download games and applications for his phone than the owner of a Series 40 device. He got the fancy phone because he wanted to be able to use it as more than a phone. Most Series 40 owners use their phones just to talk and send SMS messages (who would've thought?). I guess it also depends on where you market your application/game. In a market like Israel, where we do most of our business, the whole "use your phone as a lot more than a phone" mentality is a lot more developed than in other countries. So here, most Series 40 owners will probably want to try out a game or two (and hopefully get hooked on the experience). Therefore in a market like this one, a Series 40 port is a lot more valuable. kooktroop, I know you said you can't disclose your facts, but I would be interested to know at least where are they based on (geographically), if it's possible.

shmoove

Quote:Original post by kooktroop
Calvin, hard facts, that i cant provide, don't argue with them.

Please, dont make me laugh! Hard facts my ass... Your facts must be based on your local distribution channel or to a very restricted area when you state such things.

Of course, when it comes to mobile games, everything is VERY specific to the geographic area. In one country this phone is most popular and in another, that one is the most popular.

Besides, you dont need to provide any of your "hard facts" since they obviously are so wrong. I work for one of the leading mobile games developers in the world and on top of that we co-operate with 3 of the leading publisher/developers in the world. We sell our games through ALL the major carriers, operators and distributions channels along with a lot of the small ones and most of our games has been in the TOP 10 download list or hot download list. We get statistics detalied down to single devices.

So obviously, we have pretty good material to base our statistics on, so please give it a rest with this "dont argue with them" crap!

December stats are not worked out yet, however, this is the most popular phone groups for november based on ALL the major distribution channels:

1 Series 40 Group
2 T610 Group
3 Series 30 Group
4 Series 60 Group
5 K700 Group

Most popular phones for november (top 5):

1 Nokia 3200
2 Nokia 3510i
3 SonyEricsson T630
4 Nokia 6230
5 Nokia 6600

(with K700i on 8th and T610 on 10th)

Seires 60 has ONLY ONE device among the top 10 list while Series 40 5 devices (50% of the TOP 10!!).. The rest is 3510i, T630, K700i and T610.

3510i used to be the most popular device for a long time until 3200 came along... Why? Becuase it is a MASS MARKET phone!

So please, stop with this nonsence you throw around.

[Edited by - CalvinCoder on January 4, 2005 4:21:32 PM]

Quote:Original post by shmoove
He got the fancy phone because he wanted to be able to use it as more than a phone.

Believe me Shmoove, if people want to sell games based on such thoughts, they want get very far. I sence you speak out of very little experience when you state such things.

Most Series 60 phones are quite expensive phones and are more directed to a business market than an entertainment market. This does not mean of course that there are people that buy Series 60 and dont want to play games. Of course many people with Series 60 play games too.

However, The group of people that you aim for when you create games just cant afford buying expensive phones just for playing games.

Let me ask you a question instead. Why do you think the Nokia 3510i (a massmarket phone) was the most popular download device earlier and when Nokia 3200 came out (yet another massmarket phone) it took over?

At the current moment, as you can see from november stats I provided above, 3510i and 3200 is more or less the two most popular devices downloaded games too (in OVERALL that is!! you cannot look at one single carrier for example that only deals with a certain set of devices)...

The answer to that question tells you why your way of thinking does not fit well into the mobile games market.

I'm going to need to quote myself for this one.

Quote:Original post by shmoove
Series 40 devices are a lot more common in the market.

So is the 3510i. This is the biggest (only?) reason why these apps have the most downloads. And I mentioned that, too.

Quote:Original post by shmoove
In a market like Israel, where we do most of our business, the whole "use your phone as a lot more than a phone" mentality is a lot more developed than in other countries. So here, most Series 40 owners will probably want to try out a game or two (and hopefully get hooked on the experience). Therefore in a market like this one, a Series 40 port is a lot more valuable.

I do believe Europe (your playing ground, I presume), if very much the same. I don't think it would be that way in the USA (guessing), or South America for instance (this I know from personal, not professional - no figures, experience).

Quote:Original post by shmoove
But you have to take into consideration that an owner of a Series 60 device is much more likely to download games and applications for his phone than the owner of a Series 40 device. He got the fancy phone because he wanted to be able to use it as more than a phone.

I'm going to stand behind this one. Yes, I know that a large part of the target market is businesspeople, but not completely (N-Gage?). And who said that because you wear a tie you won't enjoy playing a quick game on the commute to work. (PS: the [downloads]/[market presence] ratio for Series 60 phones in Israel is higher than for Series 40, it's just that there are a lot less devices out there).

Quote:Original post by shmoove
So here, most Series 40 owners will probably want to try out a game or two (and hopefully get hooked on the experience). Therefore in a market like this one, a Series 40 port is a lot more valuable.

Quote:Original post by CalvinCoder
December stats are not worked out yet, however, this is the most popular phone groups for november based on ALL the major distribution channels:

1 Series 40 Group

And in the end, we are actually agreeing. So no need to get all pissed off.

shmoove

Quote:Original post by shmoove
I do believe Europe (your playing ground, I presume), if very much the same. I don't think it would be that way in the USA (guessing), or South America for instance (this I know from personal, not professional - no figures, experience).

Our playing ground is the whole world. Our games are sold throughout Europe, Russia, USA, South Africa, Asia (Thailand, China, Singapore, Corea and more), Australia and New Zeland.

We currently dont sell games in South America, however, in the overall market it wont affect much if we did or not.

We base our facts on very detalied statistics from these areas and if you are a business person you know how important such data is to do properly business.

Obviously, we sit with very detailed information about individual markets, which again makes us get a very good undertanding of the "overall" market, which of course in the end is the one you must look at when someone throws out statments like S60 is the most important group. You just cant base your statements on your friend friends mobile portal site for games that sells maybe 500 games pr month and has biggesst download on S60 phones. No, you must look at the important channels, the channels that has any affect on the statistics and the channel where you actually earn money on this.

You just cant look at an restricted area to figure out such thing. You cant claim that "well, where I live, S60 is the most important group" coz that is not very interessting in terms of that you want of course to sell your games in the "overall" market if you want to make some business out of it.

Quote:Original post by shmoove
I'm going to stand behind this one. Yes, I know that a large part of the target market is businesspeople, but not completely (N-Gage?). And who said that because you wear a tie you won't enjoy playing a quick game on the commute to work. (PS: the [downloads]/[market presence] ratio for Series 60 phones in Israel is higher than for Series 40, it's just that there are a lot less devices out there).

I find it very ridicouls to claim that someone with a S60 phone buys more often games than a person with S40 phone just becuase he has a faster phone, with bigger screen, with more memory and a bit better sound.

That a person with S60 phone might get more value for his money for _SOME_ games might be correct while that he will buy more games because he has a better phone he ridicouls to claim.

Bringing an exception like N-Gage in as an example for the S60 as a business phone or gaming phone just makes it even worse when you try to argue for yourself. Of course Series 60 phones are directed to a business market even if N-Gage is ment to be a gaming "machine". That N-Gage comes with S60 software has very little to do with it.

What you are actually in-directly claiming is that people with S60 gets so much better games and so much better gaming experience than with a person with S40 phone. Of course you often get somewhat better gaming experience on a S60 phone but not THAT much.... And it is really quite few games that create a good S60 version compared to its S40 version.... Most companies makes minor adjustments only for their S60 version.

But I wont sit argue with your opinion, it is hopeless to argue with someone about their personal opinions when it is not based on any real facts, just opinions.

Quote:Original post by shmooveAnd in the end, we are actually agreeing. So no need to get all pissed off.

Sure, I havent claimed otherwise either that we dont agree in the end when it comes to S60 vs S40. It is kooktroop that disagree in this and his statment is false.

However, you claim that people with S60 downloads games more often than S40 poeple. If it had been so, it woudl not be so big gap between S40 and S60 downloads as it is, regardless of how many more S40 it exists in the market.

Maybe it is like that in Israel, I dont know, but again, you cant look at such things into a restricted area and in the overall market it is far away from being so.