When Next Gen N-Gage launches, what happens to independent S60 game developers?
So, Nokia has now revealed that their Next Gen N-Gage platform will sell games direct to people's phones (or through a PC application if they prefer) relatively cheaply and easily, and will launch in November.
However, Next Gen N-gage compatible phones already had games being made for them by independent developers, as the phones run on the Symbian S60 3rd Edition platform.
Where does the arrival of Next Gen N-gage leave the independent S60 game developer? In a pretty difficult position, to put it mildly.
S60 game developers were already having a tough time. The Symbian Signed programme, a method of preventing malware and spyware on Symbian phones by having Symbian themselves approve every third party software release, has made it far more difficult for small companies to publish Symbian software. S60 developers are also generally struggling to find a method of selling software which is easier to use than downloading pirated games from illegal websites.
Once Next Gen N-Gage comes along, with its buy-me-now way of charging games to your phone bill, its instant downloads direct to your phone, and a rock bottom price tag of just 6 to 10 euros, it may become very very difficult for independent S60 game makers to attract any customers at all.
Should we care?
There's an argument that independent games developers ought to be forgotten, that the market has spoken and rejected low-budget indie S60 games.
The problem with that argument is that "the market" has never really assessed indie S60 games at all. Most owners of S60-compatible phones who would like to buy games never actually go through with it (one recent survey by Nokia claimed that 50% of phone owners wanted to buy games but only 5% actually manage it).
Even if there's an S60 game which people would enjoy, in order to buy it they have to:
1. Know the game exists, which is unlikely given the small advertising budgets of independent developers.
2. Know where they can buy the game, which is also difficult as there are no obvious sales points for S60 games in the way there are for console or PC games.
3. Know what an IMEI number is, check their phone's IMEI number by entering a special code, write it down before the phone's backlight switches off, then enter it on the website where they're buying the game.
4. Install the game using S60 application installation tools such as the Nokia PC Suite.
Because of these and other complications, indie S60 games tend to sell in small numbers, which means the developers have to charge a higher-than-average price in order to recoup their costs, so the game is made even less attractive than it should be.
There are many smartphone game sales websites out there which in theory ought to make it easy to buy smartphone games, but they have a habit of selling games without applying any quality control procedures. If you buy a game from one of these sites, the odds are that it won't actually be S60 (it'll be compatible with S60 phones but use some inferior platform like Java or Flash) and the odds are that it won't be any good. It's made even worse by many games not having any demos available so you can't even try them.
In short, even if the best game ever written appeared as an independent S60 title, the chances are that it would sell a tiny number of copies and most people would never hear about it. This is deeply unfair as independent S60 game developers aren't being judged by the quality of their product, they're being judged by the quality of the distribution system. It's not their fault, yet they're the ones losing money.
Some examples of independent S60 3rd Edition games: K-Rally , Frozen Bubble, Return To Mysterious Island
How to successfully sell games on S60 phones
The Next Gen N-Gage platform will avoid all of these problems:
- it will be an icon on every compatible phone so all potential customers will know it exists
- it will be a single central sales point for all Next Gen N-Gage games
- it will apply a quality control procedure so that awful games never get published
- there will be free demos of every game, so you can check a game's quality yourself before buying it
- purchasing a game or installing a free demo don't require any technical knowledge, you just click on "buy" or "download demo", and you can charge purchases to your phone bill so you don't even need to own a credit card
BUT... it seems that the Next Gen N-Gage platform won't be open to independent developers, it will only be open to games published by relatively large established companies such as Nokia itself, Capcom, Electronic Arts, Vivendi etc etc.
If you have written the best mobile game ever, but you aren't represented by an established game publisher, then you have no chance of seeing your game sold on the Next Gen N-Gage platform. As far as we know, there's currently no channel for a small developer to submit a game to be considered for publication on the platform. This ought to change, there ought to be some way in, and here's why...
Why Next Gen N-Gage should sell good independent games (but not bad ones)
If you go into a games shop, all you'll see available are recent big name games from popular genres by established publishers. But that's because a physical shop doesn't have much shelf space, and they may have to pay for copies of games they don't sell, so they can only afford to display the products that are most likely to generate them a sale. Online sellers of physical products such as Amazon find it easier to offer a wider range of products, but they too only have a limited amount of warehouse space so they may only keep the most popular products permanently in stock. Shops (online and offline) can order products for you if they don't have them in stock, but this can take a long time and most potential customers never bother asking.
Next Gen N-Gage is totally different, its products are sold entirely as downloads so there is no limit on the number of different games they can stock. If they want to stock the widest possible range of games, there's absolutely no technical reason to stop them.
However, at this point you have to be very careful. Some people think that because sites which sell downloads can stock everything, they should stock everything. This is completely wrong. A download shop which stocks everything possible is a shop which stocks 99% trash with the 1% quality items hidden at random in amongst the rubbish. There are many download sales websites where they don't seem to have any quality control at all, and it's virtually impossible to find any games worth playing.
If Nokia is to sell independent games, it will have to make sure it only sells ones that someone might consider paying for, otherwise it will do more harm than good.
But, assuming Nokia can get some kind of quality control system in place, and assuming some independent developers submit decent quality games, surely it would be to everyone's advantage if there were high quality indie games available on Next Gen N-Gage:
- It would increase the number of good titles on the platform.
- It would encourage new talent to write games for the platform.
- Like music and film, indie games tend to be more diverse and unusual than big budget games, because they can take more risks on a smaller budget. This could give us whole new kinds of games, for example The Journey and TibiaME were firsts in the gaming world, and both were made by independent S60 game developers.
- Commercially successful mobile and portable games can be made on much smaller budgets than home console games. The Nintendo DS's hit Brain Training series has graphics that are so primitive that they could have been programmed on 8-bit computers from the 1980s, yet the Brain Training series has sold more copies than any other handheld game series. People who buy mobile or handheld games seem to care about graphics much less than people who buy home console games.
Of course indie games probably won't look as good as games from major publishers, but they may play as well or even better, and they may also work in such an innovative way that they attract wider interest in the N-Gage platform.
A screenshot from Brain Training, one of the biggest-selling games ever made
Allowing indie games onto Next Gen N-Gage could save S60 gaming
Doubters may point out that there aren't many S60 game developers left, and there's a lot of truth in this. My-Symbian's directory of older S60 games for S60 1st & 2nd Edition phones has 690 games listed, whereas their directory of newer S60 games for S60 3rd Edition phones has just 77 games listed, a drop of almost 90%. S60 3rd Edition hasn't been around for quite as long as 1st & 2nd, but this isn't enough to explain such a drastic difference.
Why did this exodus of indie S60 game developers occur? Probably because of the problems listed earlier in the article (difficulties in publicising, buying and selling the games), all of which could be rectified by the Next Gen N-Gage platform. If quality indie games were allowed onto the platform, the exodus could be reversed.
The Next Gen N-Gage platform could even become the default way of selling quality S60 games, and be seen by phone gamers as a seal of approval that the product is worth paying for. S60 developers could aspire to be good enough for Next Gen N-Gage, while Next Gen N-Gage would provide them with a direct line to all their potential customers. That's how a gaming eco-system should work, making it as easy as possible for gamers to find and buy good games.
Instead of Next Gen N-Gage spelling the end of indie S60 games, it could signal a whole new beginning. All it needs is for Nokia to provide some sort of way in for the indie game developer.