GDC panelists weigh in on mobile gaming
And state that it needs to evolve
At least that seemed to be the consensus among the panelists that formed the 'Publisher Under the Microscope' session at this year's GDC, so reports Next Generation.
The session moderator, Eric Goldberg of Crossover Technologies, began on a downer stating that the $2 billion mobile market is stagnating in some regions and receding slightly in others.
It seems that the main gripe is still the age old porting issue, a thorn in mobile gaming's side which the Publisher Under the Microscope panel suggested often results in a large percentage of the available resources being fed into that aspect of development, causing the actual content itself to suffer as a result.
It wasn't all doom and gloom, however, as the panel also underlined the many ways the industry is evolving in order to deal with these problems.
Seizing an opportunity, Nokia's director of Technology and Strategy for Games, Mark Ollila, was quick to mention the new N-Gage platform and how it was built in part to combat the porting and testing woes that plague the industry.
The conclusion of the session though, was a strong underlining of what most publishers should already know. If you want to be a successful mobile studio, you must "find your guru of casual," suggested Namco's Jason Ford.
Sounds like sound advice to us but we'd add that new casual licences are the key, as opposed to endlessly tweaked and re-tweaked, flogged and re-flogged games of yesteryear.
We are at GDC all week so look out for more coverage from the show floor in the coming days.