Returning to an old theme but with fresh eyes, Ewan approves of the new strategies for marketing N-Gage, worries a little over the FIFA 08 giveaway and then suggests a different N-Gage giveaway of his own.
Read on in the full article.
The Rights And Wrongs of Promoting N-Gage
I think it will actually surprise some people that they have to pay for Snakes Subsonic, because the original Snake and the first N-Gage remake Snakes were both giveaways.
Ewan Ithink you under estimate the power of free demo�s on your phone. Any wifi capable phone user will sooner or later be bored, looking to pass time. And there in his hand is a free game level to try. . . This is something that will sell itself.
As for the right game to promote. I concur that �snake� has a prior claims. But I think hooked is the best game to interest all ages and playertypes. Also it is very suited for �mobile� gaming. You don�t need to get into it or are time pressured to finnish a level. In many ways it is close to turnbased ad&d.
snoyt.vox.com on the N800
@"Unregistered"
I couldn't disagree more. Hooked is one of the most boring games I've ever played. Promoting that game would only attract a handful of fishermen. No offense though.
Snake on the other hand has been attached to the Nokia brand since the beginning and would therefore make a perfect promotion title.
I think if we're talking about the real mass market, it's a mistake to think there is any such thing as a "killer app".
Would anyone talk about the perfect film, or perfect book, or perfect album? No, because tastes in those things are too diverse.
Tastes in gaming are now more diverse than ever, and there's room for fast-moving games like Snake and also slower-paced things like Creatures Of The Deep (which is NOT boring by the way... 😉 ).
Success for N-Gage will come from providing a good variety of game types, with something like System Rush for the console-style action game fans, and Brain Challenge for people who want simple straightforward puzzles that anyone can understand.
N-Gage being on phones means it will reach a far wider range of people than a games console, so it's also got to provide games for a wider range of people.
my daughter has never been fishing, has the typical attention span of a child (and hence would hate 'actual' fishing) but loves this game. It's a bucketload better than snakes, and a perfect game for mobile, imo.
I like Snakes AND Creatures Of The Deep! I think they're two of the best games Nokia's ever produced. 😊
CotD is a really good example of how a well designed game with some imaginative game game play can make even a relatively boring topic (well boring for most people) into a decent game. I think a lot of it is due to the attention to detail.
@Huschke: I am waiting for starwars and 'the one' and patiently kill time with system rush. But in truth 'mobipocket' is the best 'game' on my N95. Books feed your mind, feed your soul and are hugely entertaining, compact with low battery usage. Can be closed anytime and continued anytime. If they were not so addicitive I might read more on my phone 😉 You can find me snug on the couch draining the battery with a book on the N95, the N800 or my Dell Axim X51v (which has luckily a spare 😉 ).
@world In any case N-gage is a terrific platform and I hope it actually grows beyond Nokia's scope. With virtualisation on mobile platforms gaining steadily interest it will surely become real someday. And not I am not talking java-mobile edition though, it is an excellent example. No I am talking phones supplying a virtual machine allowing the operating system of your choice to be installed on your phone hardware...
But for now, n-gage rocks even with all its minor flaws.
snoyt.vox.com
Unregistered, my take on the future is that we'll just have phones with built-in browsers. We won't install any software, it will all run online as services.
CotD is a really good example of how a well designed game with some imaginative game game play can make even a relatively boring topic (well boring for most people) into a decent game. I think a lot of it is due to the attention to detail.
Infinite Dreams (the developers) are definitely very good at getting every last bit of the game slickly polished, their previous work on K-Rally and Sky Force was proof of this. Going back to COTD, there are so many in-jokes and hidden things, it's absolutely wonderful. I didn't know about the mini-games at all until I got enough XP to start unlocking them, which was a great bonus, and some of the objects you can catch are bizarrely amusing (there's an N-Gage QD in Loch Ness for example).