I wish I’d been able to make it to 3GSM this year, as some of the reports coming out make interesting reading, especially when read against one of my own papers/speechs on mobile games from two years ago: Cross Platform Gaming: Using Existing Markets to Create New Ones.

Eric Hobson from Mforma is saying that casual internet gaming is the model the mobile industry should be following, whilst Chris Melossinos, chief gaming officer from Sun Microsystems is saying models like those of more traditional MMO games are where mobile games should be looking.

Both sentiments are ones I talked about in a speech to a group of game developers in Helsinki, and are models I’ve been pursing for a number of years now, without much success, mostly because of lack of interest on the part of the larger developers and publishers of mobile games.

Is this a sign that we are moving towards a model where mobile games are treated as more than throwaway development efforts and towards something where the mobile handset is much more of a primary platform or access device, where games are interconnected rather than existing in what are effectively walled gardens (the device/console itself)?

Technorati Tags: mobile games, online games, games, mobile, 3gsm

The hacking of online game accounts is fairly common, with bots, scripts, viruses and trojans all being developed to steal other players’ details, typically to convert that players in-game items into real-world cash through sites that trade in virtual items. A story coming out of Korea today points to indications that the IDs of more than 53,000 Koreans have been used to sign up for Lineage and Lineage 2 accounts:

Hackers last year stole the personal details of up to 53,000 Koreans to sign up for the hugely popular online game “Lineage” at the victims’ expense. A similar security breach that became public on Tuesday is sending shockwaves through cyberspace.

The police’s Cyber Terror Response Center says it unmasked Chinese hackers trying to create “Lineage” game accounts by using the stolen resident registration numbers of 53,000 Koreans last September, apparently with the aim to sell so-called “items” that increase player’s strength in the game, which could have fetched W100 billion from enthusiasts.

The two Lineage games from NCSoft are among the most popular games in Korea, with estimates of between 1 and 2 million registered players.

I attended the recent EPG Identity Special Interest Group (more on which in another post, once I re-digest all the slides), and one of the topics discussed was the UK’s ID card proposal.

It strikes me, based on the discussion and the number of different suggestions made (not all of which were specifically about the UK ID Card mind) that what we need isn’t a national ID card. What we need is lots of them.

The big issue with the ID card seems to be a combination of overly intrusive recording of information about citizens combined with a lack of surety about what information to store (or even where to store it!) combined with a requirement that the card be a card that a third party can rely on (i.e. the Government must take liability for the veracity of the card). Without these issues being addressed, the card is almost certainly destined for failure. As one person put it: “The Government is trying to sell something it doesn’t understand to a public who don’t understand it (and therefore don’t want it.)”

I would like to propose an alternative model to the single ID card. I’d like to propose we have lots of ID cards, and we be allowed to choose the one (or more!) that we carry, obtaining each ID card from an authorised ID provider. This would place the Government in the position of regulating ID cards instead of legislating them. By allowing private corporations to become Identity Card providers, consumers will be free to choose their preferred provider of an ID card. The Government’s role in this is to ensure that the company’s that are authorised to provide nationally recognised ID cards are properly regulated, authorised and otherwise monitored to avoid abuses.

And the Government would need to ensure that any ID card provided by an authorised ID card provider would be accepted at any Government department as full and final proof of Identity.

Of course, we already have a similar system in place now - the banking industry. It’s relatively simple to set up a bank (yes, I know there are very high barriers to entry, but if you can meet these barriers then the process itself is fairly simple), and the industry as a whole is regulated.

(It’s been commented that one of the key sticking points with ID cards is whether or not the banking industry will accept a national ID card as final proof of identity. If the banks continue to require additional information, then the value of the national card is devalued, as it becomes nothing more than another card citizens have to pay for, which doesn’t provide any tangible value or benefit except when dealing with one particular industry - government. In which case it’s not a national ID card, it’s a government ID card, which is something different.)

So we have wide competition for banking services, even though the primary services provided are all pretty much the same. And of the process of accepting a debit or credit card as proof of payment for goods and services is well documented and widely available.

Why not apply the same principles to the issue of an ID card? This would serve a number of purposes, including introducing competition, ensuring consistency of data transfer, providing transparency of costs in obtaining a card, and would allow consumers to choose whether or not to use a particular ID card.

It also fits in quite nicely with the concept of transient identity, as the consumer is not forced to use a particular ID card, with information stored in a central register with little or no control over accuracy or re-use of said data. With competing ID card providers, the onus is on the ID provider to ensure accuracy of data, transparency of data release and security of operation - after all, with many ID card providers, the incentive to move to a more secure one is higher than if there is no competition at all.

And this also allows the consumer to ensure that the information held about themselves is accurate, and it also allows the consumer the freedom to move all of their personal information to another provider, as well as controlling the release of information to third parties, the Government included.

This leaves citizens in control, provides a regulated environment for ID cards (and therefore provides for the acceptance of liability on the part of the ID card provider), still manages to provide the type of authentication that seems to be required of the national ID card scheme, as well as promoting competition amongst ID providers. After all, who wants an ID card accepted at 1,000 places when a competitor can offer 2,000?