Step One: Single player games will quickly disappear and all new games on all platforms will be one or more of the following:

• Multiplayer or massively multiplayer. Even competing for high scores, trash talking via chat and forums, or adding small social interaction features turns a game into a multiplayer affair.  If the game sells a million units, then it’s a massively multiplayer experience.

• Persistent or semi-persistent. Like the phenoms that are social network games, more and more console and PC games are going to offer up persistency as part of the experience.  Basically, when you stop playing, the game world you’re playing in keeps right on rolling along.  To a degree, it’s already happening now in multiplayer, achievement-based gaming – when you stop playing, others don’t.  So when you meet up again in a multiplayer session, they’ve continued to level up while you haven’t.

• Require a long-term commitment of time and investment of money. Multiple releases, patches, downloadable content, and more will be status quo for all games that want to make “hit” status.  “Franchise” is the name of the game and requiring users to commit to constantly interact with the franchise – even though not directly playing the game – is necessary to keep that property on every gamer’s radar.

• Free-to-play MMOGs on PC and Console. It’ll happen, soon.  Social network games will evolve and grow up to become real games.  Hardcore single-player action games that want larger audiences and incremental revenue will change and adapt, offering more social features.  The first Freemium, big-budget MMOG for console and PC will be huge and, when it is, the world will follow.

• Truly cross-platform. The time is quickly approaching when I can raid with my dwarf, put a beat down on the hapless Raiders, and manage a farm and crime family from my Xbox, PS3, PC, and Android.  Hell, maybe even via Netflix through my DVR.

In other words, gaming is quickly evolving to the point where all games will be some form of massively multiplayer online experience.   It’s all about increasing user engagement which, in turn, increases revenue.

Step Two: There will be a marked increase in the development of the connected mobile companion app.  At the moment, app stores are populated with a small variety of mobile games and apps that mimic, supplement or, in most cases, simply repurpose some features and content of games – primarily online games – on mobile devices.  There are several for World of Warcraft.  League of Legends from Riot Games has a few as well. These ‘companion apps’ are almost always fan-developed and comprised primarily of scraped website data and contain publicly available content in the form of high scores, maps, loot tables, and whatnot, providing users with sometimes excellent, but most often questionable, value.  None, however, actually give users access to their own game accounts nor actually connect them into the live game which must occur for even the most basic of valuable features, such as chat, to be available.

But things are slowly changing.  Blizzard’s World of Warcraft iPhone app, which was originally a non-connected information-only affair, was expanded to include Auction House, which allows WoW players to log in and access all of AH features from their iPhone (other smartphone users are outta luck.) ArenaNet announced the development of their Guildwars 2 mobile app which promises to deliver a great many in-game features from chat and email to character profile, armory, and maps.  Last year, my company, AFK Interactive, worked closely with Icarus Studios to produce and launch the Fallen Earth mobile companion app across iOS, Android and Blackberry devices.  The Fallen Earth mobile app gives users direct access to their own in-game account and lets them chat, send email with attachments, buy and sell on the auction house, and even craft items right from their mobile device just as if they’re actually in the game.  Well, that’s because they are actually in the game when they log into the Fallen Earth mobile app.

There are a few other examples, particularly non-gaming (Facebook mobile for starters) that make a tremendous case for the development of the connected mobile companion app as a way to provide access to many features of an online, PC or even console game to players from their mobile device.

Step Three: Every game goes mobile.  Steps One and Two will quickly bring about a time when all console, online and PC games will have a mobile component. Especially if they’re multiplayer, persistent in any way, or offer up an experience for user engagement outside of actual game play.  It will be expected.  Our lifestyles simply demand it.

The January 2011 issue of PC Gamer contained a review of AFK’s Fallen Earth app.  In it, the review stated, “No matter where you are, you should be able to admire, tweak and gloat over all the shiny loot you’ve amassed in your favorite MMO. PC Gamer believes this is a fundamental human right. MMOS including World of Warcraft and Aion have taken up the call with apps that let you take your game with you- but Fallen Earth’s is the best of the lot so far.”

Folks, this is the future of mobile gaming.  With all due respect to Angry Birds and such, those games will soon go back to being what we always expected them to be – time filling casual entertainment meant to be played 3 minutes at a time, 5 times per day.  They’ll compete for the same consumer eyeballs as the pit bulls and ‘nad shots from kids’ birthday parties on YouTube.  These $1.99 time wasters are no match for the hundreds of MMOGs, online games and soon-to-be-connected console games that have built-in fan bases collectively numbering in the hundreds of millions.   Here’s a very conservative estimate of mobile revenue for one of those games based upon known mobile ownership data and our own gathered usage metrics from current products:

• Assume Bob’s MMOG has 1 million users.

• Assume 75% of those users spend money = 750,000.

• Say 80% of those users have a device that can download a free version of the Bob’s MMOG companion app.  Out of that number, assume 75% actually do.  This amounts to 450,000 downloads of the free Bob’s MMOG mobile companion app or 45% of all active users.

• Of the free users, let’s assume 50% decide to subscribe to the ‘premium’ mobile app features which include real-time access to the item store, maps, armory, crafting, and a whole lot more features that can be accessed with valuable tasks completed without actually being on the PC.

• This subscription is $1.99/mo and provides an enormous benefit to users.

• This equals 225,000 users paying $2/mo = over $450,000 per month in incremental revenue to Bob.  That’s $5 million (minus app store fees) per year.

Bottom line, a mobile companion app for Bob’s MMOG, in the fairly conservative scenario could net Bob another $4m or so per year while costing him less than 10% of that amount to build and maintain the product.  That’s a great margin.  Plus, Bob doesn’t have to advertise the way mobile games do since he’s already in touch with his current user base through world chat, news items, etc within the MMOG world itself and email.  No stressing about whether or not the Bob’s MMOG app is in the Top Download or Highest Grossing lists.  Also, as Bob’s mobile user-base grows due to his continued marketing of the app to his installed base, that 75% subscriber number could easily grow to be 80% or even 90% of his users downloading the free app with 60% or 70% paying for the premium features.  This, now, starts to become significant revenue, particularly when you take into account it’s basically icing on the cake with very low cost and huge margin.

So for the next year or so, mobile games rule the mobile gaming world.  And, inevitably, smartphones with the on-board horsepower of a PS3 and fold-out 30-inch screens will someday rule the world and then, well, you’ll see mega-blockbusters like Call of Duty: Angry Birds or Grand Theft Auto: Bejeweled’s Revenge or whatnot.  That’s when true mobile gaming will rule the world of mobile games.  But very soon, and until that day comes, those products that provide let you chat with all your online game friends, look in on your characters, prepare them for battle that night or make trades for your team that Sunday, buy virtual weapons and armor, download levels remotely to your PC or console, maybe do some long-distance cross-server traveling or make a little money crafting and working the auction house, all from your mobile phone, will be the killer mobile apps.

In addition, they actually told me so a few weeks back when I spoke to two of many Amazonians charged with rebuilding their games business into the industry Gigantor.  The message was, “We already do pretty well but we wouldn’t do this if it was only going to be several-hundred-million dollar business. We know there’s a multi-billion dollar opportunity for Amazon if we do this right.”

As an example, Amazon’s decisive move into the pre-owned games business was one clear sign they’re not messing around.  And they’ve obviously caught onto the fact that the boxed PC games business is all but ancient history.  If you’ve browsed Amazon’s games section lately, you may have noticed a recent addition to their menu entitled “Game Downloads.”  When clicked, you’re taken to a page that looks very much like every other Amazon page: the same straightforward, vanilla design that has evolved over time into undoubtedly the consumer-friendliest way to present and sell products to the mass market.  Every successful online store from WalMart to Overstock.com has mimicked that familiar style.  But for gamers who are used to spending time on sites like Steam, Amazon’s gaming pages are uninspiring.  The design just doesn’t welcome nor entice gamers to spend more than a few minutes clicking through their offerings, which are sadly lacking — for example, “Hardy Boys” and “Backyard Sports” are both offered as part of their ‘Core Games’ selection. To be honest, the majority of Amazon’s digitally distributed games cater to a casual or non-gaming crowd that is, as we speak, fleeing in droves to online casual games sites and away from boxed product.  To be fair, until recently the word “beta” was stamped next to the title at the top of the page, showing Amazon also realizes this is not a commercially viable digital distribution offering but a test run of something bigger to come.

Amazon obviously sees the writing on the wall with regard to PC boxed product.  And with the rise of internet-enable TVs and console makers bundling they’re most likely looking ahead to the time when console product is primarily distributed digitally as well.  And while the obituary for GameStop and retail boxed game product might not be written for a few years yet, the focused, determined entry of Amazon into the mix might hasten that day significantly.  Amazon’s current digital distribution service might only be just post-Beta, with the resources they have at their disposal it shouldn’t take long to see a stocked-to-the-gills digital download site.  But that’s just the first step for Amazon to become the dominant player – across all genres and platforms – in the industry.

Go For The Core

Without knowing the real numbers, Steam’s overwhelming market share leadership in PC games distribution is undisputed.  If anyone is going to compete with Steam, it’s going to be Amazon. But they need to work harder. GameStop and other retailers are retooling and going after the PC and digital distribution market in other ways, such as selling game cards for DLC but their ability to compete at the level of Amazon is virtually nil.

Amazon, though, needs to embrace the concept of stealing.   Don’t try and reinvent the wheel Steam has nearly perfected.  Instead, take a long look at the comments that come back from their die-hard users and focus on making the Amazon digital distribution experience as pain free as possible.  Do what Amazon does best: you listen to your customers and make changes quickly that address their problems and concerns.  So build a site that addresses Steam’s customers’ problems and concerns.

And then build another one that’s non-core gamer friendly.  They’ve already gotten a good start with their current offering.  Don’t do away it, just separate it out a bit.  Keep it friendly and inviting while making the core games section edgy and inviting.  There are two very different customers to appeal to. Keeping them separate and happy is going to pay back dividends big-time.

Build A Destination for All Gamers

Core gamers like to visit websites about games.  In fact, all of the core gamers I know spend an inordinate amount of time on game websites.  More than, say, dog lovers spend on dog-related sites.  A lot more.  Gamers can’t get enough news, updates, behind-the-scenes, pre-release trailers, exclusive screen shots, and pretty much anything else gaming related.  We’re geeks and that spells opportunity for a company that has the resources and wherewithal to build a true destination site for core gamers.

But the bigger prize is the casual gamer.  Right now they’re spending all their time on Facebook.  So what can be done to create an online destination for those customers who couldn’t give a hoot about exclusive downloadable content for Black Ops or director’s cut footage of Assassin’s Creed?  Build a go-to destination for all things casual and social games: flash games, social games, virtual goods storefronts, forums, friend list aggregation, exclusive content and more. Maybe Amazon alone has the shear negotiating muscle, online technical horsepower and a massive installed customer base necessary to do deals with pretty much any online game site to bring access to various features, exclusives, virtual goods marketplaces, and more to a single online location.

Build these two ‘made for gamers’ online destinations, combine them with the incomparable ease of Amazon’s purchase process, their recommendation engine, and all the other online shopping bells and whistles they’ve pioneers over the last decade, and you have a gaming Mecca that will have core and casual gamers surfing to and staying glued to the site hours at a time, multiple days per week.

Amazon has the resources but do they have the ‘gaming DNA’ and the other intangibles to get it right?  Or would they be like Microsoft who (except for the Xbox) has the resources but never seems to get things right so they do them over and over again, getting them just a little less wrong each time.

Make the Game Industry Your Best Friend

The major game publishers are a powerful group and Amazon, I’m sure, already wields a lot of pull with EA, THQ, Activision and the rest through their sheer distribution power.  But, are they doing all they can to exploit that influence?  If Amazon wants to become the game industry powerhouse it seems to be driving for, they might want to spend more time wheeling and dealing directly with the publishers and the console makers.  Seriously, why don’t we see an Amazon video game exclusive every week of the year? A specially priced Xbox 360 game bundle available only on Amazon?  How about a deal where you buy a ‘gaming computer’ and receive 5 AAA PC game downloads free?  Hell, Amazon could even pre-install the games for the customer and send along the boxed product with a digital download license included!  In this cutthroat business, it would behoove Amazon to open the wallet and pony up for special content deals, after-market DLC exclusivity, exclusive demos, and more.   How many other companies, online or otherwise, can pull something like that off? Walmart maybe? A quick check of Bestbuy.com shows they have a slew of “Best Buy Exclusives” for the gamer.  Amazon, nada.  Sure, they have “Game Deals” and “Bonus Offers” and, to be fair, they give some great pricing breaks.  But they can do better.  And if they want to own this category, I mean, be the really Big Dog, they can do it by establishing top level, in-their-face contacts and relationships with everyone who matters in the games industry.

Adopt Retail’s Advantages

A lot of people like the activity of browsing store aisles.  Especially game and toy stores.  And especially people who aren’t hardcore gamers.   Nothing is as viscerally appealing as picking up a box and reading the copy, heading over to the magazines to read a review, or asking an obvious game guru with multiple body piercings what he or she would recommend.  If Amazon wants to put serious distance between them, GameStop and even Walmart in the games business, they need to bring the best of the retail, brick-and-mortar experience online.

First off, that means customer service.  I know, Amazon has the best online customer service in the world.  But when Grandma walks into GameStop, nothing beats a salesperson who breathes, eats and lives games for recommendations and suggestions.  It’s also nice to be able to pop in a disc or two for a quick demo to help out with the decision making if you’re not already positive what that $60 in your pocket is buying when you walk into a store.   Both of these things can easily be overcome with a 24/7 staff of game gurus (not the same folks answering support calls for hand lotion and sofas) who are passionate about making sure Grandma gets a great birthday present for grandson Bobby and, because of her experience, will be coming back for every gift-worthy occasion because, well, by the second purchase, Amazon is going to know everything about Granny’s grandson, his new PS3, his little sister who just inherited his DS, and so on.  The customer service disadvantages of being online are easily turned into customer service advantages that can’t be touched by any brick-and-mortar outlet.

Seriously, when it comes to making the online game shopping experience a real pleasure, there are many options available that aren’t currently being exploited.

Make Used Games a Win, Win, Win Proposition

It’s safe to say that the game publishers don’t like the sale of used games.  GameStop just announced that nearly 50% of this latest quarter’s profit came from pre-owned games.  That’s gotta piss off all publishers and all of those developers who depend on back-end royalties to make payroll.  But for now, it’s not illegal for a kid to sell their used copy of GTA to GameStop any more than it’s illegal for them to sell an old pair of jeans at a garage sale.  People have been selling used media – games, books, and movies – for years without much of an outcry but, then again, never before has the sale of used media been done on such a massive scale as is being done now by the likes of GameStop, Play N Trade and, yes, Amazon.  So even though EA, Activision, Sony, and Nintendo can’t do anything to stop them, nor do they want to put the pressure on since they sell a ton of product, it still might to Amazon’s advantage explore ways they can they might be able to work with the publishers in this area that would benefit everyone – Amazon, the publishers, and especially the gamers.  Here are just a couple of ideas:

• Offer a coupon off of a new game from the same publisher if they buy it at the same time.
• Put together ‘New and Used’ bundles that get rid of not-so-hot used games for free when gamers buy a new game.  Include that discount coupon mentioned above.
• Use the Used Games business as a gifting machine:  Every time someone buys a used game as a gift, send along that same coupon mentioned above, or a different one.
• Establish a Game Club where users can get used games for free after a certain number of new game purchases.

Again, the ideas are there.  If Amazon were to work directly with the game publishers, even more ideas could emerge.  In the end, used game sales will never be ideal for the industry, but when a major retailer is willing to work to make it a better situation, it’s definitely worth exploring.

The Amazon Advantage

Amazon recently announced the formation of their own movie studio.  What do you think; maybe give it three months before they announce the acquisition or formation of a game developer and publisher?  Along with the Android app store announcement, it smells like a land grab to me.

Amazon has spent a decade growing into the online retail 800-pound gorilla and now has the experience, resources, and muscle to leverage a great deal of what it’s built outside to help it win inside the gaming space.  When it comes to doing deals, size matters.  Sorry if I sound like the ultimate Amazon fanboy. Being the global gaming 800-pound Gorilla is an achievement to which Amazon can aspire.  While it might not seem possible, just a few weeks ago the industry collectively wet their pants because some analyst said Zynga’s valuation was higher than EA’s.  After all the “that’s crazy talk” epithets were done flying around the Net, folks actually sat back, nodded and thought, “if not now, maybe soon…”   Let’s face it, if that can happen, Amazon can become the major force across the board.  When you’ve got the money, the infrastructure, and the installed user base of Amazon’s, (if they can just get past that coolness issue) it might happen sooner than we think.

In the mid-19th century, hundreds of thousands of people from around the world traveled great distances and endured unimaginable hardships to get to California and Alaska after hearing about “gold nuggets lying around on the ground for the taking.”

Last week, while browsing Barnes & Noble, (the actual store, not the website….that’s right, no Nook) I saw a book entitled “Make Millions Developing iPhone Apps!” Subtitles told me that “very little cost and no programming skills or technical experience” were required for me to embark on this sure path to app wealth.

Is developing apps the latest version of the Gold Rush? As I recall from elementary school history, when the world’s masses flooded to Sutter’s Mill and the Klondike, very few ever actually found anything of value. Too many people, too late to the party with too little real estate yielding up precious metal kept gold mining fortunes to a minimum and made one’s actual chances of striking it rich a massive long shot. By way of comparison, as of September 1 of this year, the iTunes App Store exceeded 250,000 iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad apps from over 50,000 unique publishers. Nearly 37,000 of them were games.

Got that? Thirty-seven thousand games. A high percentage of them could be classified as “shovelware” or products that couldn’t find shelf space at a garage sale unless they paid for it. And yet, hundreds of new apps are launched daily, making it more and more difficult to make fortunes developing games for iOS, Android and such.

And now, new data is showing that consumers’ ‘app-etites’ are quickly changing. Most downloaded apps are going completely unused on most consumers’ devices. Less and less time is being spent perusing app store shelves. Fewer free trial versions are being downloaded and consumers are now more likely to only purchase apps that have been recommended by friends or trusted reviewers. Basically, what’s happened is that apps – especially games – are now firmly entrenched as just another one of the many, many choices competing for our precious free minutes each day.

With these clear obstacles facing developers, is it safe to say that we’re past the land-grab stage of the app and have now entered the time when we see a thinning of the herd, when “crap apps” stop appearing on “New and Noteworthy” release lists, and the major players outside of EA, Gameloft and a few others finally make a serious move into this space? In other words, is the App Gold Rush over? And if it is, what can smaller companies, new players, and even individuals do to reap what riches that are still out there to be mined in this still growing and evolving industry?

Remember Your Audience

The major thing that most app developers fail to remember when spitballing new ideas is that not everything they think is fun is actually fun. Always ask yourself “am I my target market?” Most game developers are gamers. Most app purchasers are not. As such, your app has to appeal to the casual gamer, the novice, the social game player. When developing game apps, the golden rule of game design – easy to play, difficult to master – is more relevant than ever:

• Make it easy as hell to start playing. There is a reason that mobile gaming was based on the principle of “pick up and play.” If it takes more than a minute to understand the basic mechanics of game play, you’re hosed.

• Make it worth the money. Several years ago, a mobile game developed by a major media company launched initially free as a promotion on Sprint. A prominent reviewer remarked, “Even though I got it for free, I still want my four bucks back.” This is the second half of the golden rule. Once you get them in, make them want to keep playing. Increase the skill level and complexity, offer rewards, hint at better things to come. Every top grossing game on iTunes right now does that expertly, particularly Cut-The-Rope, Angry Birds, and Trainyard.

Be Relevant

Back in June of this year, Scott Steinberg wrote an article about the gaming’s hottest new trends. http://gametheoryonline.com/2010/06/27/top-new-video-game-trends-2010-2011/

Relevance means being up-to-date in your development efforts and taking advantage of the latest successful trends and directions in the industry. From relevance comes inspiration which leads to pushing the envelope which leads to newer trends.

Trip Hawkins, a gaming industry founding father and icon has written multiple articles about success in game development. In his piece (http://gametheoryonline.com/2010/08/30/10-things-needed-for-mobile-games-success/) titled “Ten Things Needed For Mobile Game Success”, Mr. Hawkins pretty much lays out a blueprint for what a developer can take advantage of to help put his game in the top tier of relevance. Although not articulated at the time, AFK Interactive (www.afkinteractive.com), where I’m currently employed, was started last year upon belief in several of those ten things, particularly #10 – “Social Networks Will Be Mobile Apps but Not Mobile Portals.”

Be Original

Creating commercially successful original IP is the holy grail of game development. It’s also the most difficult thing to do in game development. There are a lot of original games up on the app stores now and by ‘original games’ I mean anything that hasn’t seen a life previously in another medium like a movie property, console title, or MMOG. But to really ‘cash in’ on this current gold rush, wouldn’t an app IP have to reach iconic status of previous franchises born in the world of interactive media? I mean, have we yet seen anything born of app that has the potential to be a Tetris, Doom, Civilization or even Grand Theft Auto? Maybe this is a discussion left to another day and probably examined by others more knowledgeable than myself but I feel that we’re not there yet and, if one is to make the absolute most of the current landscape of app mania, original IP (as opposed to licenses) is the way to go. The greater the risk, the greater the reward.

Let’s face it, having your original idea adopted by other mediums is the signal that you’ve imagined and created something enduring and noteworthy. Has that happened yet in the world of game apps? I’d love to hear opinions. Look, if a TV series can be created from a Facebook page (#@&% My Dad Says), then there is a very good chance that sometime in the near future we’ll be seeing the theatrical release of a film based on an IP originating in an app. Hell, I’m the first to admit my finger isn’t on every pulse of this industry, so there might already be one of those in the works.

Be Useful

As gamers, we all want to make great games that are downloaded by millions, become globally known and spawn an ageless, evergreen franchise upon which we can build an empire. But if your efforts aren’t working out as planned, maybe it’s time to take a different tack. Maybe it’s time to look at the app experience from a new angle.

Back in the gold rushes of the 1800s, the vast majority of would-be gold tycoons ended up making money – sometimes fortunes – in other ways: provisioning, transportation, brothel owner…”miner support services” as it were. Think “Levi Strauss” as a perfect example back then. Think OpenFeint and AdMob as today’s equivalents.

Again, an example is AFK Interactive where we’ve made the conscious decision to take an enabling role in the industry. We’re building technology and making it easy for PC, online, and console developers to take many features of their MMOGs, virtual worlds, and social network games to mobile devices via apps. While we’re not making games, we’re helping extend games to new platforms and operating systems, opening up new revenue streams, monetization opportunities and increased user engagement opportunities to non-mobile publishers and developers to. By taking this course, we’re confident that someday soon we’ll be a player in this century’s first major gold rush.

So to answer the question as to whether the App Gold Rush is over or not, I say, “Not by a long shot.”

Like every revolutionary discovery, technology, or product that seems to appear out of nowhere and take the world by storm, apps and the industry they’ve spawned are just evolving and maturing. We’ve reached that stage in the growth of an industry where the bars are being set and expectations continually raise them. We’re at that point where a true landscape has gelled from the chaos and the players are defining their roles within that landscape’s ecosystem. There are tons of gold still to be mined out there, you just have to work harder and smarter to get to it.

Having been a fixture in the mobile games space since the late ’90s, that would present a problem, and I felt relieved that I wasn’t currently seeking employment.  I still make my living in mobile gaming and, while I understand why there might be some mild aversion to the term “mobile,” particularly outside pure mobile-centric gaming companies, I still have the same passion and optimism that I did back when I got into this industry. But it did get me thinking about the brief and bumpy history of mobile games in the West – its decade-long highway littered with mobile game company roadkill – and what seems to be a resurgence of optimism about the industry. Mostly I thought about whether I’d actually have to make those suggested changes should that time come or whether this new decade will finally bring to fruition the promise and optimism about mobile gaming that was so prevalent in the last.

A Quick Look Back
When you think about early mobile gaming in the Western world, what comes to mind? Is it side scrolling sprites gunning and jumping through ten levels of simple brain-dead enemies, or endless blocks, gems and androids dropping out of the sky? Back in 2000, these were the .jars that ushered in a new millennium of anytime, anywhere gaming. “Cell phone” games were the 3-by-5 (three minutes at a time, five times a day) entertainment fix that would be embraced by the masses and raised up to the level of game deification occupied only by set-top boxes and the Game Boy. Every research firm worldwide couldn’t wait to out-forecast the next, spouting about the double-digit billions mobile gaming would be generating by, well, 2010.

What happened to the amazing promise of ‘mobile’ gaming that so proliferated the last decade and has, almost suddenly, become a dirty word?  The full answer encompasses many reasons and takes up pages. The simple answer, in my opinion, is “Discovery.” From the very beginning, finding good mobile games has been a major pain in the ass.  Carrier ‘decks’ – those mini, pre-app store WAP destinations accessed through the phone – have generally been a mess with little information about the games offered there. In most cases, the only information upon which a user has been able to base a buying decision has been a few sentences and a couple of screenshots. Few reviews and even fewer free demo downloads or try-before-you-buy capabilities have been offered. As a result, users almost always ended up buying a game based upon a brand or license with which they were familiar: Jamdat Bowling, Tetris, Bejeweled, UNO, and so on. Even original games with great licenses attached were generally passed-over in favor of the tried-and-true. If Pac-Man and an original adventure game carrying the Harry Potter license were featured products on a carrier deck, you can bet Pac-Man won 9 out of 10 times. So how was a truly original game, something with absolutely no familiar license or brand or life-before-mobile expected to compete and sell? It wasn’t and it didn’t.

Lack of adequate discovery led to lack of innovation. Because developers couldn’t effectively describe their new, cool, innovative mobile games, no one would buy them. Because no one would buy them, the carriers decided that they would stop selling original games and soon you couldn’t get a carrier to take your call unless you had a game based on a game show, a board game, a Hollywood film (even those were iffy), or a classic arcade license. It wasn’t worth trying to come up with something cool or unique in mobile gaming. (There were tremendous exceptions like Surviving High School, but those were very few and far between.) All of this led to the core gamer staying away in droves. And because the true casual gaming market had yet to really emerge and take root, the mobile gaming business suffered.  And mobile games, for the most part, suffered, too.

Evolution and Opportunity
Is mobile gaming finally poised to meet the levels of revenue expectation and promise it so valiantly worked towards? Are the games getting good enough to rope in the core gamers? Or is this medium of entertainment destined to remain an impulse buy for loosely-supervised executives, bored housewives and tween girls? The answer is a resounding “yes” to the first two questions if things continue to move in the current direction and some of the problems inherent in the ‘old days’ can be fixed. And, again, the issue of discovery heads that list.

App stores are great. They’re a virtual swap meet o’ gaming fun. For the gamer, casual or core, the App Store is a great place to troll for your next bite-sized entertainment purchase. Loads of descriptions, screenshots, links to videos and free trials abound. Basically, if you buy a game that sucks, it’s your bad. The buying process is not hit-or-miss anymore. Not surprisingly, this has encouraged innovation and sparked creativity from a new generation of game developers not faced by obstacles like needing direct carrier deals, porting to hundreds of devices or spending thousands of dollars on certification fees.

App stores are also not so great.  They’re crowded and, no matter how many review, recommendation, or search features are available, the prospect of working through that sheer mass of apps can be daunting if you’re looking for that singular gem of gaming innovation and creativity. Developers face the same problem. That unshackled freedom from carrier walled gardens has created the Wild West of game development. No matter how creative and innovative your new tower defense game is, you’re up against a whole truckload of competition, way more than you would be on the comparatively bare virtual shelves of AT&T, Vodafone or O2 decks. So now not only do you need to make a killer app, you need to have the killer marketing to go along with it if you’re going to rise above the morass and get your game on the all important ‘best’ lists.

But these issues and others will eventually be worked out. The important thing though, is that the industry has evolved to where original game ideas can thrive. Where small developers can create break-out hits and get rich being gobbled up by large publishers. Where design meetings centered on creating the ‘killer app’ are scheduled regularly. Sound familiar?

Past Optimism – Future Reality
When I received that response about removing the word “mobile” from my background, I asked around to see what others thought.  I got back replies ranging from “strongly disagree” to “change ‘mobile’ to ‘handheld’” to “I told you it was a mistake to get out of console!” No matter what though, I’m pretty confident that this form of interactive entertainment isn’t going away anytime soon and will, in fact, thrive through the next decade to reach those optimistic forecasts of the distant past. Some predictions why:

• Discovery will continue to improve; innovation and creativity will be rewarded.
• Convergence will occur and “mobile” will become the new handheld. Whether it’s referred to as “mobile” or “handheld” gaming doesn’t matter because there won’t be any difference. Soon, the processors in the phones will equal and exceed what’s available in the dedicated handheld gaming devices and the distinction between each will blur. In fact, the dedicated handhelds need to work hard or they’ll get surpassed by the mobile phones.
• Because of the above, the core gamer will finally embrace the mobile platform.
• Finally, the Holy Grail, the Killer App, the ultimate game will be developed with mobile as a key component. Let’s face it, there are a lot of arrows in the game designer’s quiver for those brave creatives willing to venture outside the (X)box. Location, augmented reality, even real-time connectivity from a mobile device into an online world are all pieces that could play a role in expanding a console or PC game beyond the current norm.

There are other predictions both good and bad, but I’m excited about what’s happening now as it’s within this environment that mobile gaming will thrive and the term ‘mobile’ can once again bring on that optimism and excitement from the ‘old days.’ And the best part is, I won’t have to change a word in my resume to enjoy it.

originally posted on Game Theory

Okay, he really didn’t call me sir. No one does yet, thankfully. But his point was made, and while I’m admittedly at the age where my geek-cred could be waning, I still keep somewhat on top of the wide world of techno activity. I drew obvious parallels between life inside our favorite virtual worlds and the real one we wake up to every morning. What I soon realized was that there are many such parallels, many more on the horizon and that the old cliché “Life is a Game” is getting truer everyday. And the next step in the process was thinking just how this could affect the very industry in which I make my living.

If you think I’m reaching here, take a look at all of ways we now have to stay connected, how they’re ‘game like’ and how they’re similar to the various tasks and features we know and love in our favorite online pastimes. And then let’s see how this affects our own personal and professional gaming lives. I’m going to miss a lot, but there are enough parallels here to get the point.

You as Avatar
Well over a billion people are members of Facebook, Linked-in, MySpace, or one of countless other smaller or bespoke social networks catering to niche communities. When someone creates a profile, they’re really building an avatar; rolling a character if you will. It might not be a dwarf mage or warrior elf, but in most cases there’s enough fiction (or at least carefully chosen fact) to go along with the profile, updates and posts that what’s outward facing to the world isn’t nearly a fully factual representation of oneself.  Let’s face it, most of us only update the good stuff, the great achievements, and the cute moments with our kids. The photos rarely show the dark side, the idiocy or the “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” moments. And let’s not forget how much time many spend on these profiles: Updating, reviewing privacy settings, looking through just the right photos to post or people to ‘tag.’  It’s eerily similar to the time spent on in-game characters, outfitting them with just the right gear, armor, and weapons to get through that next quest or raid.

Your Guild
Once this online persona, so carefully crafted and honed and seen by more people who barely know you than by those who really know you, is out there, well, that’s who you actually become to most of your friends, links,  or in other words – your real-life Guild. To them, you’re the everyday yoga-going, charity-giving, golfing workaholic, not the guy walking out to get the mail in his underwear that the neighbors see.

Grinding In Actual Time
“Checking In” is the real life equivalent of grinding. Remember those simpler times when you only had Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt and a few other “check in” location-based (LBS) apps from which to choose? Back then the extent of the time requirement was minimal and all you really needed to do to satisfy that grinding requirement was to go simply go somewhere, check in and post. Who knew that this was something fun to do? And while the vast majority of people still have never even heard about these services, there are enough people on board and checking in that the venture capital money is piling on en masse and the industry gorillas (Facebook, Google, et al) are tripping over themselves to catch up to these upstarts (sorry, start-ups). Not only does there seem to be a new check-in dedicated service popping up weekly, but every established shopping, mapping, and LBS app company and their sister is adding that functionality to their current apps. And while I’m not (yet) fully on the check-in bandwagon, I know a lot of people who are and who, bless their hearts, never tire of letting me know they’ve eaten at this truck stop or become empress of that car wash.

The (Real) Virtual Economy
And now that the advertisers have jumped on board the Check-In Express, this real-life game is going to get even more engaging.  Virtual coupons, unsolicited text advertising, targeted geo-centric special offers, two-for-one deals in exchange for a check-in, recommendation and tweet… you get the picture. Plus, if you’re a fan of the auction sites – Swoopo, uBid and such – you have just that much more time and actual money invested into your new real, virtual, gaming life. The next thing coming down the techno-pike? Real goods for virtual currency.  Companies like Bodega might just be the start of something that makes your non-gaming life much more connected to your gaming one.

And On And On And On
Leveling Up – MMOs are inherently designed to make players spend a lot of time leveling up. Time equals leveling equals reward. Like every good MMO, in life you never actually win, you just keep grinding away, leveling up and collecting stuff until you’re at that point where your time is spent raiding. Now, if you raid enough in real life you become Mayor or Queen of something.

Picking Up Loot Drops – You’ve just earned a massive achievement and now have a cool badge to taunt all your friends with. Was this from slaying a monster? Completing a quest? No, this was from drinking every beer on tap at the Draft House. Or maybe working your way through every hand roll at Sushi Roku. Or catching David Hasselhoff in concert at the Wiltern. OK, maybe these aren’t actual achievements (or are they?), but if they’re not, they’re bound to be and each one will be a little badge of honor with which you can outfit and update your profile/avatar.

Communication – MMOs, like life, are social games meant to be played in groups. Not a lot of difference here except that instead of chatting to your guild during a raid, you’re basically texting, emailing, Skyping, posting, writing on wall’s, tagging photos, private messaging, and so on to anyone and everyone that cares…or not.

Life Always On the Grid
I could go on (what are the quests, raids, and dungeons of everyday life?) but you get the picture. I guess my point of all this is, just look at all of the stuff there is to do in a day now compared to even a year or two ago: Check in, update, recommend, like, tweet, gift, become king/queen of, own, and so on and so forth. Way back in 2007, who would’ve thought this stuff would be fun? Aggregating all of the above into a single life is not as hard as it would have seemed back then either. Like any good drug worth it’s weight in rehab checks, these things start as a simple daily action and slowly become a multi-day and, in many cases, multi-hour activity that seems essential to the very lifeblood of one’s now nearly virtual existence.

The upshot of all this peripheral activity is that now our gaming lives have become intertwined with our non-gaming ones. And, in my opinion, it’s going to get even more so. From the leading edge shops and studios like OpenFeint, Booyah and Zynga to the big boys like Apple, Google, and Facebook, we’ll continue to see software and hardware that will blur that line between real world and online fantasy.

Good or Bad?
On the surface, it might seem that all of these other real-life, game-like activities have the potential to adversely affect the core and even casual gaming industry. Just as it is with other entertainment options, the gaming industry is competing for the same free hours, disposable income and advertising dollars as these non-gaming app developers and service providers.  While there is a chance this could have a real effect, I think the jury’s still out.  I do believe that there are some potential benefits though such as:

• Opening up gaming or game-like activities to a whole new market. These simple tasks could actually become a gateway to casual gaming which leads to social gaming and so on.
• Innovations of any kind – social, mobile, LBS, etc – can eventually lead to new features and innovations within the core gaming industry itself.
• Works to legitimize social and mobile gaming within the core gamer community.
• The potential of using these now-tested features to expand core games to new markets, devices and revenue streams.

Most of us are neck deep in both the creative and consumer sides of this fascinating evolution in our daily lives. As for me, I can’t wait to see what’s next. While writing about this got me a little crazed as I tried to sort through what this meant and where it was all going I came to the conclusion that this was damn cool and I should hop fully on board lest I’m required to turn in my nerd card when I hit fifty.

I guess the final question remains: Is this real-life MMO we’re all helping to build free-2-play or subscription?

originally posted on Game Theory