AUSTIN, Texas – This year’s South by Southwest Gaming Expo hosted several panels about the world of mobile gaming. One of the aspects of this is the push to offer console-quality gaming experiences for mobile users. Representatives from industry giants EA Mobile, Sega of America and others weighed in on the increase in mobile graphics, the free-to-play business model and other pertinent topics.
The panel first explained the considerations that go into porting a console game to mobile. Graphics aren’t the issue — today’s top smartphones have processors and graphics cards not too dissimilar from those in dedicated gaming machines. Ethan Einhorn, director of online Ooperations for Sega of America, explained that next year an Android smartphone would feature “Unreal 4″ technology, which is the cutting edge of game graphics and is, “just like having a [Sony] PS4 in your pocket.”
The most obvious drawback to the console to mobile transition is the lack of buttons. For this reason the developers suggest certain genres of games lend themselves easier to the mobile platform, especially racing games. Aaron Loeb, VP and group manager for EA Mobile, said they have people in a lab testing every possible type of game to make the transition to mobile, but so far several haven’t translated well and remain in testing only until something changes.
Free-to-play is the pricing model that won out in the mobile space, with micro-transactions being the primary source of revenue in this space. All panelists agreed that developers needed to figure how to give players the best experience they can on this model, and that the answer is breaking up the games into easily playable bite-sized experiences.
“In the beginning companies designed free-to-play mobile games with the intention of making this play experience as painful as possible if you’re not paying, but most don’t do that anymore,” said Einhorn.
Mobile gaming’s focus on micro-transactions begs the question whether it’s possible to “buy/play it all” for a flat fee, and the answer from the panel was a resounding no. This business model isn’t designed for that style of purchase and the games aren’t designed that way. “We tried that in the beginning but found it just didn’t work,” said Loeb.
Another mobile gaming concern that was addressed was whether the typical application store’s 100 megabyte cap was prohibitive for creating a quality experience. Panel members did not seem to think so, but noted that size has always been a concern and always will be. Callum Crowley, marketing manager for Gameloft, cited an old PC game, remarking, “Back in the day I played a game that required 18 floppy discs,” so size concerns are never going to change. Again, this is where the “bite-sized experiences” were emphasized.
Despite quickly improving graphics, hardware concerns are still present. While designers want to make games that look beautiful on the top 10% of smartphones, they stressed the importance of giving the other 90% of phones a smooth, enjoyable experience. Battery life was also a huge concern, as the panel lamented that processor technology was outpacing battery life by a long shot and all said they hope there are people out there working on it.
The panel ended on a prosaic note of their hope for the future of game developers becoming increasingly platform agnostic, noting great ideas should translate very easily. When an idea translates easily, mobile games have the potential to join people together across the world in ways not possible before. “At the foot of ancient Peruvian ruins I saw natives selling hand-knitted Angry Birds caps; that’s the power and reach of mobile gaming,” said Loeb.
