Archive for the ‘Industry’ Category

Hey all, we’re working on getting our vodcast posted. In the mean time here are a bunch of new articles about Nokia and N-Gage stemming from our presence at the Game Developer’s Conference:

* The BBC has put up a video interview with Jaakko Kaidesoja, heads of Nokia’s Games unit

* Gamasutra has an interesting write-up of Anssi Vanjoki’s keynote address

* Another good take on Anssi’s talk comes from Mobile Entertainment

* All About N-Gage has put up videos (by way of Project Next) showing off Creebies gameplay footage and a mini-documentary on the Making of ONE

* MoDoJo has posted a quick talk with N-Gage head of production Dan Scott; so does Joystiq

* Pocket Gamer talks to Jaakko Kaidesoja about First Access

* Pocket Gamer also gives its take on Anssi Vanjoki’s keynote address

* One more from Pocket Gamer: a hands-on preview of Bounce Boing Voyage

If you have more links, drop them in the comments!

The second and final day of GDC Mobile was kicked off in style this morning by Nokia’s own Anssi Vanjoki, the executive vice president of the markets unit. He gave an interesting and informative keynote address entitled “Play with Anybody Everywhere: Context, the New Paradigm for Game Play.”

Speaking before several hundred game developers and other industry figures, he sketched out Nokia’s vision of a connected world, reminding everyone that an astounding one billion of our mobile devices are in people’s hands today.

He went on to say about 200 million of those device owners are technology leaders, for whom voice usage is only part of their overall interaction with the device. Technology leaders want and do more with their devices, things Nokia is working hard to innovate and provide.

Among some of the tools we can use in the future to create a more personal, pervasive connected experience with your gaming device are maps and GPS, TV out, motion sensors, metadata attached to user-generated content, and more.

And finally, regarding the First Access program, he said, “The feedback we are getting is music to my ears.” So keep up the good work everyone!

Footage of Vanjoki’s talk should be available through the official GDC website within a week or so; we will post a link when it’s up.

One additional programming note: we did record a video podcast today featuring members of our games management team, answering your questions from the Forums. We should have the link to it here on this blog some time tomorrow.

In a talk this afternoon, Nokia’s Peter Lykke Nielsen — with an assist from the guys at Digital Legends Entertainment — showed interested game developers how the OpenGL ES 1.1 standard will be incorporated into the N-Gage Software Development Kit (SDK) in the near future. Nielsen is the product manager of the N-Gage SDK.

As many of our more technical-savvy readers already know, a number of N-Gage compatible devices that are also OpenGL ES 1.1 compliant are already in the market. The good news is that Nokia plans to offer hardware-acceleration of select N-Gage games going forward, as well as a software rendered version for those devices that lack hardware acceleration.

The bad news is that I can’t tell you which games will feature 3D hardware support or when they will be available. But considering we were shown a sweet-looking demo of ONE running under OpenGL and that the Digital Legends team gave an overview of their experience developing, one can probably draw one’s own conclusions about at least one game.

* For more detailed information on creating games for N-Gage, visit http://developer.n-gage.com/.

Dan Scott, Nokia’s Head of Global Production took this stage this afternoon to present to the Game Developer’s Conference some of the things that Nokia is doing as a first party games publisher on the N-Gage platform.

He said that the mission of Nokia Games was to drive innovation on the platform, demonstrate best practices in terms of development, and of course, bring revenue to Nokia.

While mentioning there were many more first-party games in development than have been announced, he held back from showing anything new. Instead he used the examples of ONE, Creatures of the Deep, and Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol to make his points.

Among the things Nokia games could do to innovate were introduce micro-transactions, episodic content (which he suggested would roll out with Dirk Dagger), games that used pervasive real-world elements, and even games that used different things such as the camera or the motion sensor for input controls.

Another possibility was something called a “cross-genre” game. In this instance, the events in one game, such as a strategy game could affect what happens in another game, perhaps an action or roleplaying game, sharing metadata across the N-Gage Arena service.

Scott also mentioned games such as Project White Rock in terms of a game with both a PC and mobile presence and Yamake for its community of user-generated content. Even a massively multiplayer game for mobile was given as a possibility for N-Gage, but not defined as anything specifically under development.

Above all, one came away with a sense of excitement and a desire to innovate on the part of Nokia’s first party game efforts: the best is yet to come.

*For another take on this story, see this Pocket Gamer write-up.

The first session at GDC Mobile this morning to feature a Nokia presence was called “Publishers Under the Microscope.” It was a panel discussion featuring representatives from several mobile game publishers, including Namco, Vivendi Games, and I-Play. Representing Nokia was Dr. Mark Ollila, director of Technology & Strategy, Games.

Speaking directly to the US-based mobile game developers, the panel offered a gloomy assessment of their prospects, since so many other mobile developers around the world, such as those in Eastern Europe or Asia, were equally competent but offered much lower costs to publishers. The panel did suggest US-based developers could leverage their knowledge of the US market and its tastes to develop games that more directly appealed to the North American market.

 However Dr. Ollila did point out a game developer’s location was less a factor for Nokia’s first party game publishing efforts, due to our desire to push innovation and demonstrate best practices on the N-Gage platform.

The panel then went onto emphasize that sixty to seventy percent of any mobile game’s development budget still has to be dedicated to porting and quality assurance for all the different devices a mobile game has to support.

A ray of light in that equation is the N-Gage platform, as Dr. Ollila pointed out. As you likely know, N-Gage is designed to offer developers a single platform to develop for, which will then work across many different Nokia devices, as each becomes N-Gage certified. This frees up developer resources and allows them to work on more innovative, interesting games.

This was just a general overview of the panel. For more, be sure to check out the conference proceedings which are published after the conference, and for detailed information on creating games for N-Gage, visit http://developer.n-gage.com/.

We’ve just announced three new games for the next generation of the N-Gage from Glu Mobile — SPEED RACER, The Dark Knight, and Super Slam Ping Pong!

The Dark Knight and SPEED RACER are based on two upcoming movies from Warner Brothers, while Super Slam Ping Poing! is “a new original Glu title in the spirit of Glu’s runaway hit, Super K.O. Boxing!” according to the press release.

Here are more details about the games from the releases:

The Dark Knight
Play as Batman in The Dark Knight, the thrilling action game based on Warner Bros. Pictures’ upcoming blockbuster film. Batman fights to eradicate street crime in Gotham City using his advanced combat skills and an array of unique gadgets. However, things take a darker turn when a new reign of chaos is unleashed on the terrified citizens of Gotham by a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker.

SPEED RACER
In this mobile game inspired by the upcoming movie, SPEED RACER players become the ultimate grand prix champion in the Mach 6. They must conquer the art of drifting, sliding, jumping and defensive driving in order to stay ahead of the pack while racing on extreme tracks with the dirtiest of competitors.
 
Super Slam Ping Pong!
In the spirit of Glu’s runaway hit, Super K.O. Boxing, Super Slam Ping Pong is a hilarious, over-the-top game that features a cast of wacky opponents such as Master Wu-Pong and the Gnarly Gnome. Players must keep an eye out for each opponent’s tell and weakness as they fill their Super Slam meter to unleash powerful slams.

No word on any release date, but we’ll have more information on these games on N-Gage.com soon.

Hello N-Gage Fans!  It’s a lovely morning here in San Francisco and time for another Game Developer’s Conference to begin.

New Games 

Fresh off the wires are the latest announcements from Nokia regarding the N-Gage platform, including three new titles from Glu Mobile and three from Digital Chocolate.

There is a write-up of the Glu titles in this post; the three new games from Digital Chocolate are called DChoc Cafe™ Solitaire 12-Pack, DChoc Cafe™ Sudoku and DChoc Cafe™ Hold’ Em Poker. And don’t forget, we also announced Worms World Party last week.

Nokia Games Publishing is also bringing new games to the table, including Yamake and Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol. And our friends at SNAP Mobile have also announced a customized, multiplayer mobile version of the puzzle game Chuzzle by PopCap Games for their service. Check the release for more.

Keynotes and Podcast

In addition to these announcements, we’ll have a wide array of Nokia and N-Gage-related talks over the next two days, including a keynote address by Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Markets, Nokia.

Other talks will touch on key pieces of N-Gage and mobile gaming, from 3D acceleration to user experience. Check back on this blog for selected write-ups on those talks.  Get a complete breakdown of GDC Mobile sessions here.

Plus, we hope to be able to bring you a “vodcast” — or video podcast — with some key people in our games group in the next couple days.  They will be answering questions you guys submitted in the N-Gage forums.

Visit the Booth

And if you happen to be in town for the show, drop by our booth at #5628 in the North Hall of the Moscone Convention Center from 20 — 22th February. There will be live demonstrations of our mobile games, including First Access.

–ikona out

This year’s DICE Summit was held at the Las Vegas Red Rock Spa and Casino, and the N-Gage team was there, rolling twenties.

What is DICE you ask? DICE stands for Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain. It’s another games industry conference, but unlike some of its larger brethren, it is by invitation only, limited to game industry insiders who get together to talk about the future of the industry.

Or in the words of Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences President Joseph Olin, “DICE is about great speakers.” And what a great speaker they had in Dr. Mark Ollila, Nokia’s Director of Technology & Strategy for Games & Multimedia, who gave this thought-provoking talk:

“Nokia is a company with a market capitalization that’s bigger than the entire games industry: How do you foster innovation from within a beast so large?”

One answer to that question is: “At Nokia, we challenge our producers to ‘Fail Fast Forward’ — don’t be afraid to fail, learn from it, and keep moving.”

Speaking of ‘Fail Fast Forward’, Mark also gave an on-stage challenge to Scott Foe, one of Nokia’s “ace game producers“, to win the Interactive Achievement Award next year with Project White Rock – suggesting the game will be released this year. While Foe hasn’t mastered that challenge yet, he did master the annual DICE poker tournament as co-champion.

DICE is also the where the annnual Interactive Achievement Awards are handed out, considered by many to be the most prestigious in the industry, since they are voted on by a jury of your peers. Nokia did not win any awards there, but our interprid, poker-playing producer did co-present the award for Cellular Game of the Year with 8 Bit Weapon’s Seth Sternberger.

The winning game in the mobile category was Electronic Art’s ‘skate‘, the overall game of the year was Activision’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. You can see a whole list of DICE award winners here.

Speaking of game conferences, get ready for more news and posts like the Worms World Party and Yamake announcements, as the 2008 Game Developer’s Conference is only a few days away…

We’re pleased to announce that two N-Gage games have received International Mobile Gaming Awards.

ONE by Digital Legends was recognized as the winner in the “Excellence in 3D” category, beating out such contenders as Metal Gear Solid and Prey mobile, a well-deserved achievement for the stunning visuals of this silky-smooth fighting game.

Another next generation N-Gage game, Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol, was announced of the winner of the “Excellence in Gameplay” category, beating out Championship Manager, Ghost in the Machine, and even Creatures of the Deep.

ABOUT ONE

ONE breaks the boundaries of mobile gaming. Experience amazing 3D fighting with stunning motion captured animations. Customize your character to make it truly yours. And with the Online World Ranking System, everyone will know who truly is the ONE. Look for a link to the official game site, coming soon. Meanwhile here’s the official game page with screens and videos.

ABOUT DIRK DAGGER

The core game-play of Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol is a classic point and click adventure game. The humorous story driven game combines simple minigames and harder puzzles in a very unique way. Innovative camera control provides the player an intuitive way of exploring the world.

We hope to add a game page for Dirk Dagger to N-Gage.com very soon.

ABOUT THE IMGA
The International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGA) is a yearly contest for the most innovative and creative mobile games in the world. The objective of the IMG Awards is to create a new and exciting set of awards to recognise the world’s most talented mobile game developers.

If you own our Nokia N81 device, then visit the First Access forums to download the pre-release version of the N-Gage application, start playing games, and have fun!

What is N-Gage First Access?
N-Gage First Access allows Nokia N81 owners to download the pre-release version of the N-Gage application, try and buy N-Gage games, and provide feedback on the experience. It’s a great opportunity to be the first to join the new wave of mobile play.

The features available through this pre-release version of the N-Gage application are constantly evolving, so keep in mind that this offering is only the beginning, and our feature set, game catalog and device portfolio will continue to grow in the weeks and months ahead.

Useful Links
We have set up an entire series of forums for you to ask questions, post feedback, get help, and find others to add to your Friends List. Please use these links to get started:

First Access main forum
Application Download
Frequently Asked Questions
Feedback
Getting Help

Feel free to comment and discuss on this post, but for detailed instructions and discussions, you’ll want to visit the First Access forums.

–ikona