Using Existing Markets to Create New Ones

Introduction
Whilst mobile gaming has become incredibly popular around the world, the popularity of mobile multiplayer or online gaming has yet to take off, especially in places like Europe and the US. Typically the cost of remaining connected to the mobile network has been a big drawback to online gaming, as has the quality of connection. With most online games requiring at least a modicum of recurrent data to be passed between players, it can rapidly become very expensive to participate in an online game on a mobile.

When compared to more familiar types of online play, such as PC-based or console based, where high bandwidth is taken for granted – and in this instance, even modem speeds of up to 56k are considered fast when compared to the typical mobile connection speed of 9600bps – and the difficulty inherent in finding people to play against, mobile online gaming has a long way to go.

A report by Safety, Awareness, Facts and Tools (SAFT) claims that 9 out of 10 children play online games, and when you combine with reports that claim that extremely high proportions of European teenagers own a mobile phone (one report even claims that 100% of Norwegian teenagers owns one ), it seems obvious that – at least at this early stage in the development on online mobile games – an easy route to promoting acceptance of online mobile gaming will be not through the models already in use (such as Bluetooth multiplayer or turn-based online multiplayer), but by placing the mobile device first as a device that gives additional access to games that people are already paying to play.

This serves a number of purposes, not least of which is to get the online game playing consumers used to using the mobile handset as an interaction device. It also allows for simple implementation of the easiest method of encouraging online game playing: the speed of pick-up-and-play services as opposed to the more time consuming match arrangement needed in most peer to peer games. And once you have created a core community of people who do play online on their mobile, expanding this market to other games, and to mobile-only online games is a relatively easy task.

First, some background:

Online gaming models

Intro
There are a number of models that can be used for online gaming, on any platform. The PC, the first big online games platform has explored them all, along with various hybrids. They fall into roughly three categories:

Peer to Peer
Peer to peer online gaming is the most prevalent, because it is also the easiest to implement. Peer to peer gaming sets up a multiplayer game between two individuals, who then compete against each other. The simplicity comes from not needing a dedicated server to manage the game and handle the players, and from the network code needed to support it, something that at its most basic form can be coded in an afternoon. This makes it an extremely attractive proposition for games developers and publishers, as it allows the fast
implementation of a milestone e- multiplayer support – for little development cost and no ongoing maintenance cost.

The difficult part of peer to peer gaming comes when you present the game to the players, as all the effort needed to play an online game is shifted onto the players themselves. Potential players now have to find someone to play against, and then actually get the game started, an often frustrating and time consuming process. Some developers attempt to get around this problem by creating lobby services, something that is starting to appear in the mobile online gaming world. These lobbies are centralised servers where potential players can chat with other potential players, find and set up games, and then get the game started.

This is a good idea if you have a pre-existing community, or a network that doesn’t cost anything to use, because lobby systems make the assumption that the players can stay online long enough to find someone else to play against.

Client Server
The second most popular type of online gaming service is the client-server model. This is far more difficult to create and manage than the peer to peer model, requiring the use of centralised servers to manage all player interaction, ensuring that all players, regardless of connection speed, can compete on what is essentially a level playing field. All massively multiplayer games, and the most popular competitive team-based online games all use the client server model.

The difficult part of client server gaming comes when developing, as the network code needed to create a good client-server game can take months to develop, and requires the creation of a dedicated server, either hosted and run by the developer or publisher – which includes an ongoing maintenance feed – or by external providers of game services.

The easy part comes when players are presented with this type of service, as it brings instant gratification for people who want to play online. Client server supports something the console industry has known for a long time – pick up and play works. With client server, all the player has to do is pick a server with a spare player slot, and join the game. There is no searching for other people to play against, there is no requirement to spend long periods of time in a lobby trying to find someone to play against.

The most obvious success of the client server model is Quake. Quake essentially defined online gaming for an entire generation, and even today games derived directly from the Quake engine are played all over the world, in competitions, and for money. CounterStrike is perhaps the worlds most popular client-server based online game, with more than 6 billion minutes of CounterStrike played every single day. Right now, there are probably 30 to 40,000 people playing CounterStrike somewhere in the world.

Physical Connection
The Game Boy and Game Boy Advance use a type of physical connection to enable multiplayer, however the idea goes back many years. In the early 90’s it was possible to play certain home computer games against other people by physically connecting two computers together. This even resulted in the perhaps unintended consequence of introducing cross-platform multiplayer. Geoff Crammond’s ‘Stunt Car Racer’ was one of these games, allowing two people to compete against each other by physically connection two computers together – with two televisions of course. The nice thing was you could connect an Atari and an Amiga, to two Atari’s, or two Amiga’s. It didn’t seem like much at the time, just a lot of fun, if very difficult to organise.

Mobile phones are using a similar ‘physical connection’ model for some multiplayer games, making use of Bluetooth and wireless to allow two or more people to compete. However like the Game Boy games, and like ‘Stunt Car Racer’, there is a presupposition that the people you are going to play against are nearby, and interested in playing. It takes time and effort to set up a game.

Hybrids
More and more hybrid implementations are being created, where the actual game itself runs as a peer to peer game, but the ‘lobby’ system is designed to look and act like a client-server based system. Xbox Live does this very well, allowing any player to create an instance of a game, which is automatically listed in a ‘server browser’ available to anyone. This makes finding a game simple, and finding other players simple. Simply choose a game, join, and play.

Casual Gaming
So why the analysis of online gaming models? In speaking to a lot of portable developers – both mobile handset and Game Boy/Game Boy Advance/PSP developers - one thing keeps coming to the fore: Players typically only play for between 15 and 20 minutes. The games are played in a casual fashion, to pass the time, perhaps on a train journey, or whilst waiting for a bus. The formats don’t lend themselves to extended periods of gaming, nor do the game themselves. If it takes longer than this to play the game, then something else will be chosen.

And when setting up a peer to peer PC game can take 15 to 20 minutes before even beginning to play, the peer to peer lobby system – the simple one to develop – becomes your biggest barrier to mass market acceptance of your multiplayer game. When you combine access and data packet charges, the time necessary to set up a game, and then the time needed to play such a game to its conclusion, it’s very unlikely that someone waiting for their bus to work will grab their phone to play an online game – more likely they’ll play solitaire or
Space Invaders.

Existing Online Gaming Markets
It’s already common knowledge that online multiplayer games are big business, especially subscription-based games. A recent report by the Themis Group estimates that PC-based Massively Multiplayer games will generate around $1.3 billion in revenue this year alone, whilst another claims that online games are the most popular form of entertainment for European kids, outstripping both email and music. When coupled with claims of more than 320,000,000 mobile handsets in Europe, it makes you wonder why there aren’t more mobile online games.

There have been attempts in the past, and multiplayer only games like Cannons Tournament have proven reasonably popular, with more than 200,000 downloads in the past six months. Global developer and publisher Sega has even stepped up to the plate with games like Pocket Kingdom for the NGage. There’s even a mobile-only version of popular MMO game Ultima Online for your mobile , aimed at the Japanese market.

New Markets: The Mobile Handset as Access Device
One new area that is now being explored is using the mobile handset as an additional access route for existing games, moving mobile multiplayer away from the mobile environment, and into the more accepted – and larger – PC and console game multiplayer arenas.

More than 3 years ago we worked on an initial game concept where a major portion of the game experience relied on the use of SMS messages, even though the entire game was PC-based, could only be played online, and didn’t require the use of SMS to play. This was just an additional method of gaining information. Unfortunately the project fizzled when the developers decided to lock out all non-subscribers from finding out any information at all about the game (you had to register to read the ‘about’ page!). The game was eventually released as a single-player, PC-only game, a couple of years later.

Case Story
This time last year we were working with another developer on a theoretical interface for their existing massively multiplayer game. The game is a real time strategy game set in a persistent universe. While playing you performed all the usual tasks associated with RTS games – mining resources, setting up remote bases and factories, building units, exploring new areas and so on. You could even attack your neighbours, if you felt inclined.

The really interesting part of this game was the real persistence it afforded. You could spend literally hours building up you empire, setting up trading routes to move resources around, set up build orders in your factories, log off to get some sleep, and wake up to find your empire decimated by a stronger neighbour.

The game was truly persistent – when you logged off, all your units remained where they were, doing the things they’d been told to do. Which meant you could also be attacked when you weren’t online – an obvious tactic when you think about it.

The next step was to provide alerts of attacks or incursions into your sphere of control, a function that was initially implemented using email. However given the 24 hour nature of the game, and the sheer length of games (up to a month at a time), there was a great desire to remain logged in and playing the game as long as possible to ensure that your empire was properly defended.

Making use of mobile telephony was a logical step, since the game afforded a control scheme that lent itself quite well to the small physical size of the mobile handset, despite the game itself being a full 3D game. The initial design documents focussed on creating a proxy for the game, very similar to the services provided by companies like Kayak Interactive , effectively creating a server-based client emulation tool that provided the interface between the mobile handset and the game itself.

So if you were away from your PC and were attacked, the game itself would contact you via an SMS message to your mobile, which you could then use to log in and set up your defences, or actively control a counterattack.

This particular concept was never developed, although the PC game is still running, and the design documents still exist.

Online Massively Multiplayer Games
Another area that is just starting to be explored fully, especially by UK developers, is using the next generation of mobile handsets and PDAs as additional access tools for subscription-based semi-persistent massively multiplayer games. With the coming generation of phones including 3D graphics chips, the technology and processing power of these portable devices is starting to rival some of the early home computer consoles and early home computers.

At least one UK developer is currently evaluating whether or not to create a concurrent game client for their own massively multiplayer game that runs exclusively on 3D-enabled portable devices such as PDAs and mobiles, to allow existing subscribers to continue playing the game – albeit in a graphically inferior mode – whilst they are on the move, away from their PCs.

Web-based Games
Over the past few years a number of browser-based games have been developed that have proven to be extremely popular, such as Planetarion , AstroNest and Netropolis , and more are being developed. These games are very interesting from a cross platform point of view, as they are designed to be used in an effectively simple interface, from anywhere. A lot of these games also rely on a measure of persistence in their design, adding an element of risk and requiring forethought when designing defences.

So this style of game lends itself quite readily to allowing multiple routes to access, from browser to mobile to PDA. Perhaps the hardest part is that most of these games are not subscription-based games, but are free or advertising-driven games.

Conclusion
The mobile games industry is still in its infancy, especially when compared with how long the console games industry has been around. Developers and distributors – there are still very few mobile game publishers – are still figuring out the best way to distribute games, and more developers are entering the field.

Making use of existing markets when launching new products has always been a good strategy. After all, you are simply providing a new service to a market that is already interested in that type of service. By making use of the existing PC and console game online market to promote access to subscription-based games via mobile, you open up a huge potential audience who are already familiar with and used to online game playing, and who often have such activities as their primary leisure activity.

End Notes

http://www.saftonline.org/presse/1566/
http://www.smartmobs.com/archives/002910.html (http://www.ssb.no/emner/07/02/30/medie/sa63/medietilgang.pdf page 80)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3403605.stm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/19/euro_kids_prefer_online_games/
http://www.macrospace.com/games/cannons_tournament.shtml
http://web.n-gage.com/R1/en/games/games_pocket_kingdom.html
http://www.dwango.co.jp/kamone/uo/
http://www.kayakinteractive.com/
http://www.planetarion.com/
http://www.astronest.com/
http://netropolis.lineone.net/