The N-Gage platform aims to usher in a new age of high quality connected phone gaming. However if you upgrade to a new phone, you cannot transfer any of your N-Gage games from the old phone. In this feature article All About N-Gage looks at the situation, possible consequences and potential solutions.
Read on in the full article.
This week we had something rather nasty confirmed to us by Nokia: when you upgrade to a new phone, the only way to keep your N-Gage games is to buy them all over again. Read our special feature article on all the implications of this policy, why it's an awful idea, and how Nokia ought to change their policy to allow people to transfer their game libraries.
Read on in the full article.
Wow, this is very unfortunate news 😞
I seriously belived the games were linked to the N-Gage account and not the phone. Cause that would make so much more sense. Now the N-Gage suddenly got a lot less attractive to me.
Unless there's a really mindblowingly awesome single player RPG released soon (like Rifts for original N-Gage), I don't really care anymore if my next phone is a non-N-Gage phone. There are good java games out there (such as Sola Rola & Puzzle Quest) and I might just stick to those.
This is really confusing.
Nokia must realise more than anyone that people change phones often, sometimes even during contracts.
I seriously belived the games were linked to the N-Gage account and not the phone. Cause that would make so much more sense. Now the N-Gage suddenly got a lot less attractive to me.
That's exactly how I feel. The platform has so much potential, and this policy just ruins it.
It seems that Nokia did originally want to link it just to an account, because the early N-Gage demo videos from 2006 included a "game locker" feature for PCs that let you load a phone with games just like loading an iPod with music.
Hopefully Nokia will go back to their original plans when they realise how stupid the current situation is.
Nokia must realise more than anyone that people change phones often, sometimes even during contracts.
Yup, and you'd think Nokia would want to encourage people to change phones often, because they make a profit on the hardware sales.
Ive never been much into games on mobiles, but I was always keen to see some of the Ngage stuff. Sooner or later a game was going to come up that suited me, and they are reasonably cheap.
If I cant take it with me when I upgrade, (or my phone dies) which is at least once every 18 months, then Im not interested in Ngage at all.
I cant put into words what a bad move I think this is.
I really really REALLY hope Nokia change their policy about this...
krisse wrote:I really really REALLY hope Nokia change their policy about this...
This insane policy ruins N-Gage for me
I have bought a couple of Games, Tetris and Brain Challenge and was going to buy the Creatures of the Deep and Mile High Pinball games.
But if you can't swop devices what is the point, I tend to change my devices a couple of times a year.
Sorry Nokia, unless you change this policy, you won't be getting anymore of my cash.
If anyone wants to make their feelings known directly to Nokia, they might want to post on the official N-Gage forums:
or i wont buy. piracy ftw!
Oh wow, censorship! 😊
According to our site stats, someone DID post a link to our story from the official N-Gage forums, but it's now been deleted!
Here's where it would have been:
http://forums.arena.n-gage.com/nokia/board/message?board.id=3&thread.id=46192
EDIT: Ok being fair it was actually merged into another thread: http://forums.arena.n-gage.com/nokia/board/message?board.id=3&thread.id=46104&view=by_date_ascending&page=3
and by the end of the month they will be giving it away games for free. Or maybe even paying games companies to give them away for free.
and by the end of the month they will be giving it away games for free. Or maybe even paying games companies to give them away for free.
The games aren't the problem, it's the DRM system that people are complaining about.
People do want the games, but Nokia won't let them keep them after changing phones. If people didn't want the games, there wouldn't be such a fuss about this restriction.
krisse wrote:If anyone wants to make their feelings known directly to Nokia, they might want to post on the official N-Gage forums:
Have done now. Probably be better if someone made a poll and then gave a link.
Whoa, I can't even believe that this is true. It's so easy to link games to an account, not a phone.
Piracy for me then, lol.
I thought the games were locked to the account and not the phone, well for this reason I'm not buying a single game untill they fix this. Nokia, what were you thinking?
Good call, Krisse. I would go further to suggest that all feedback/comments be centralized into this one thread:
Having 15 threads about the same issue is just a mess and makes it less likely to be heard. Everyone should go in and comment on the one thread, so that the N-Gage team can see that this is a big deal.
I think Ricky is right, that's the thread people should post their feedback to Nokia in.
The N-Gage people really do read that forum, not just administrators but developers and executives too. There's a good chance they're reading it right now! 😊
Here's the more general link to that same thread, rather than a specific page. Post your opinions to Nokia at this link folks!
http://forums.arena.n-gage.com/nokia/board/message?board.id=3&thread.id=46104
Thanks for cleaning up the link, Krisse. 😊
Nasty indeed - but if a good solution to allow using the game on all phones owned by a single individual, I would imagine Nokia would be willing to reconsider.
Btw, where, how and by whom was this confirmed to you by Nokia?
Nasty indeed - but if a good solution to allow using the game on all phones owned by a single individual, I would imagine Nokia would be willing to reconsider.
We already suggested two solutions at the end of the article, one of which (I'm guessing) is actually already possible with Nokia's infrastructure but Nokia doesn't use it.
However, it may be that Nokia is contractually forbidden by third party publishers from letting games be transferred, in which case the solution has to be commercial rather than technical.
Btw, where, how and by whom was this confirmed to you by Nokia?
The first thing we did was actually try to transfer the games using Nokia customer service. They told us it wasn't possible (except for repair-replaced phones).
As it says in the article, we wanted to make sure this wasn't a mistake so we contacted various people in Nokia's gaming departments and they all confirmed it to us.
To follow up, it's only natural that we at All About Symbian / N-Gage can address concerns to those people we know in Nokia, who can then address the question to the relevant department. I think it's unfair to point at one person in Nokia and say 'XXXX said it,' because of the resulting email that person is likely to get, needless to say the current policy was confirmed by more than one trusted source in Nokia that were in positions to know, and those sources are 'on the record' with us - nothing shady involved.
Just to add, we're all huge fans of N-Gage at All About N-Gage / All About Symbian, and we want to see the platform succeed. It has the potential to become the biggest gaming platform in history.
The reason we're publishing this article is because we don't think it has any chance of succeeding with the current system of locking games to one phone forever. Hopefully the response generated by this article will make Nokia understand and change the locking system before the N-Gage platform enters the mainstream by being embedded in phones.
In short, this article is "tough love". 😊
In short, this article is "tough love". 😊
Indeed, but if the the problem is commercial as is possible, then its actually doing nokia a favour by showing the third parties just how many sales will be lost by sticking to this daft method.
Indeed, but if the the problem is commercial as is possible, then its actually doing nokia a favour by showing the third parties just how many sales will be lost by sticking to this daft method.
Well, yes of course, that's the point of tough love: doing someone a favour by criticising them.
Everyone loses from the current one-phone-forever policy: Nokia, N-Gage, gamers and publishers. The policy has to change for everyone's sake.
Sorry, I did not mean that you should name the individual. It does indeed sound reliable since you had it confirmed by a number of individuals. So far N-Gage team has (IMHO) been very responsive and I would not be surprised if they were to at least try to give some kind of rationale for their decision. Bad one as it might be (well: is). I'd give them at least the benefit of doubt of there being something more than just greed behind it. At least I hope there is.
Moronic. Which doughnut thought this idea up? Christ, how to kill a brand in one easy step.
I was thinking about getting a few N-Gage games. I won't bother now I know I'll only be renting them.
So far N-Gage team has (IMHO) been very responsive and I would not be surprised if they were to at least try to give some kind of rationale for their decision. Bad one as it might be (well: is). I'd give them at least the benefit of doubt of there being something more than just greed behind it. At least I hope there is.
Well, we did try to give them the benefit of the doubt all along: we tried to transfer the games, then we tried to contact customer support to transfer the games, then we tried to contact people higher up at Nokia about transferring the games. We didn't do the article until all those methods had failed.
I agree they are clever intelligent people behind N-Gage, but they aren't necessarily powerful people. It may be that they're being forced to use this system by other people, perhaps third party publishers, perhaps other people in Nokia.
We don't know the reason they're using this DRM system, but whatever the reason, it's wrong.
It can't be greed because this system discourages both game and phone sales, so it's actually going to harm Nokia's profits. People won't buy games if they're buying an upgraded phone, and people won't buy phones if they've already bought lots of games.
By locking games to one phone forever, Nokia's distorted all the incentives so that they're actively punishing people who are loyal to their products.
Yep, I got your point and agree with it. All I was trying to say that let's wait and see what the _corporate_ response is - it will probably come in the name of the N-Gage team, but I would be willing to bet is actually a response coordinated at corporate/division level and double checked and triple checked with lawyers and PR specialists etc.