Crecente: Games on call

Cell phones' small, sophisticated screens ring up big green from casual players

Published January 20, 2006 at midnight

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About 150 million Americans carry game consoles around in their pockets every day, though most don't realize it.

Over the past five years the ubiquitous cell phone, prized possession of pre-teens, octogenarians and everyone in between, carved out a stealth gaming industry worth billions, five dollars at a time.

From Doom RPG to Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones to Marc Ecko: Contents Under Pressure, little games have become big business.

Analysts estimate that mobile games made more than $5 billion last year and estimate that micro game money will jump to more than $19 billion by 2009 when an estimated 1 billion cell phones are expected to be sold.

"It's a rapidly growing market. That's the easiest way to explain why so many people are interested in this industry," said Jason Spero, senior vice president of marketing at mobile game developer Digital Chocolate.

The universal prevalence of cell phones attracted companies to the mobile game market, but the industry has undergone a renaissance over the past three years.

In 1997 gaming on your cell phone meant moving a long black line around a green screen trying to hit or avoid black dots. But Snake and other titles of its low-res, lackluster ilk have given way to something entirely different.

Today's mobile games feature 3-D graphics, sound effects and online play. Some have even transcended their intended purpose of killing time and have evolved into vehicles of genuine entertainment.

These games "allow for a very engaging experience," said Minard Hamilton, executive vice president of sales and marketing for mobile game developer Jamdat. "There are now very clearly much more hard-core games, games that are much more immersive."

"I played (cell phone game Doom RPG) for 12 hours over a weekend sitting on my couch looking at a 1-inch-by-1-inch screen," he said.

And while more immersive, highly technical and often more rewarding mobile games are hitting cell phones weekly, Hamilton acknowledges that the bulk of the market is made up of casual gamers.

"You can play for five minutes and have a very fulfilling experience," he said. "We try to serve both types."

Mobile gamers tend to play games when they have some time to kill, usually 20 minutes or less, and they tend to play at home, according to studies.

"Mobile gaming falls more in the 'pass the five minutes' category," said Justin Kubiak, director of marketing for mobile game developer Glu.

"The key to (mobile game design) is getting in quickly, having an enjoyable satisfying experience quickly," he said. "Every time you come back to it, you have the same level of enjoyment."

That's sort of an unspoken rule for mobile games, said Avery Score, former associate editor of mobile gaming at Gamespot. "You have to be able to pick a mobile game up for 10 seconds at a time," said Avery, who now runs his own site, Averyscore.com and evaluates games before they hit the market.

"Most of the time I see people playing on a subway or on a bus, it's the in-between times," he said.

To capture the fleeting attention of commuters, line-waiters and the temporarily bored, mobile game developers say they need to be more creative then their PC and console brethren.

Fortunately, a much shorter development time and lower development costs are stimuli for creativity. While the costs to develop console and PC games have gone up and steered developers away from taking risks, the mobile game industry works with fewer constraints.

"Development cost and time on the mobile end is much less, so there still is the possibility of taking risks and being innovative," Score said

It also helps that the mobile game industry is still relatively young and small, said Sanette Chao, spokeswoman for Gameloft.

"There is always going to be room for more creativity on mobile phones," she said. "There's more room to play with."

Jamdat, which is in the process of being purchased by Electronic Arts, created a stir in the gaming world when it announced that legendary PC game developer John Carmack was working on a version of his famous shooter, Doom, for the cell phone.

Shortly after signing on to work on the minimalist project, the famously reclusive Carmack posted on a blog about the joy of game designing for cell phones.

Hamilton said he sees that reaction a lot in game designers who've spent most of their careers developing for the bigger boxes.

Mobile games "have to be fairly small," Hamilton said. Carmack "could literally make a game in a week, unlike on an Xbox 360 or PS3 game, which may take two years to build. It's almost like getting back to the early, early programming for the early Apple.

"For developers there is that sense of fun, you can see the results of your labor almost immediately."

Not so for the mobile game industry as a whole, says Score.

Despite predictions of mammoth growth over the past three years, the market hasn't hit the mark.

"It's growing, but at a much slower pace than everyone predicted a year or two years ago," he said. "There is certainly a future in mobile gaming, the question is when.

"Right now the killer (application) for phones is talking, but that's not always going to be the case."

Ringing success

Mobile games, which can run $5 to $8, come in a variety of flavors, from deep, immersive experiences to short, fun bits of entertainment. Here are some of the best:

• Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, above: This well-crafted rework of the console game of the same name features both princes, plenty of wall-running and chain-twirling. Gameloft's mobile Prince of Persia games are the few that I will actually play instead of the console versions. The key to both games' success is in their ability to offer the same mix of light action, running and jumping and puzzle solving in an easy-to-pick-up title.

• King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie: This cell title allows you to play both leads of the movie, Jack and Kong, mixing the two elements nearly as deftly as its big brother on the console. While the sidescroller action might not be as immersive as the first-person version, it's still a lot of fun to play. The only drawback is the rather repetitive levels for Kong, in which you control the great ape as he beats up a stream of dinosaurs.

• Midnight Pool: This sharp pool game is quite fun to play, but the decision to boil the game down to angle and power decisions sucks a lot of the fun out of playing pool. I enjoyed a game or two, but I don't see this as a title that's built to last.

• Marc Ecko: Getting Up: This stylistic game is a perfect title for the cell phone: light on story, but filled with plenty of fast-paced, short levels. You control Trance, a sort of Mario of the graffiti underground, collecting spray paint cans instead of coins as he colors the screen with his illegal art. The object is to throw up as many high-profile, increasingly intricate tags as possible without getting caught by The Man.

• Diner Dash: There's no way to make this game sound fun, but it is. You control a character who is the hostess, waitress and busser at a restaurant. To play, you push different buttons to seat people, pick up orders from specific tables, place orders with the cook, deliver the food, get the bill, collect the cash and clean the table. Despite the complexity of the tasks, performing them is just a matter of pushing the right buttons.

• WordKing Poker: One of the most inventive cell-phone titles around, this game is a combination of poker and Scrabble. Instead of being dealt cards you get letter tiles and need to create a word with the highest point total. The game offers up Texas Hold 'Em, five-card draw and seven-card stud variations, but little multiplayer support.

• Doom RPG: Unofficial versions of first-person-shooter Doom can be played on everything from calculators to cameras, so it makes sense that the game has finally come to the cell phone. Surprisingly, the title famous for running and gunning has been translated to a turn-based role-playing game for its trip to mobile. The end result is a fun five-hour frolic through classic Doom weapons, levels and bad guys. The first-person perspective may initially throw you, but believe me, you'll get used to it.

• SOCOM: Mobile Recon: It's a stretch to equate this action game to PlayStation 2's most popular third-person shooter, but it's still worth checking out. Most of the game is played in a side view. You control the characters with cursor movement and button selection. Things like stealth kills, a sniper mode and multiple weapons help separate this game from the pack.

Looking ahead

Three things we'll see in three years

• 3-D Graphics: Cell phones with 3-D screens are just hitting the market. Expect to see more games exploit this feature with more in-depth play and robust graphics as the screens become more mainstream.

• Multitasking: There's plenty more packed into today's cell phones than just a phone. Developers are starting to look at how to use those features in upcoming games. Imagine a game that uses your phone's camera or microphone or even the phone itself.

• Broadband: The influx of mobile phones that have access to broadband networks means more games will start to feature streaming content, true multiplayer gaming and even in-game chatting.

Brian D. Crecente covers gaming. Crecenteb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2811

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