Mark Pierce, CEO, Super Happy Fun Fun, Inc. on Using The Camera and Other Phone Bits
Conference Notes:
Think revolutionary rather than evolutionary. Revolution has moved this mobile industry forward.
Technology in the mobile sector is finally coming to fruition with features like camera use, bigger, brighter, better and now 3D screens, voice recognition and search location.
(Unfortunately, audio speakers will always be limited. The implementation, or lack there of, to improve audio technology continues to be an embarrassment.)
Today's world is a casual audience. Take a look at those dusty shelves in your basement. Most of us will find the traditional board games: Monopoly, Life, Clue. These major brands drive the market. Translate over to computer, video and mobile gaming: people enjoy one joystick, one button - the standard controls suit most players' comfort level.
The fewer buttons, the better.
If you're not Tetris or Frogger, one of the "major food groups" in gaming, you have to be highly innovative.
Ultimately, you have to be a player to start innovating with the best in the business.
There has been some recent implementation of new technology such as the touch screen option and camera recognition, where you can take a photo of an album cover, for example, and then search for the information on the photo. Voice option is almost like a game in itself, where you can call up any name from your phone, like a music artist or song, search for the info, then apply your findings to your ring-tone, for instance. All under 10 seconds!
Or search for a pizzeria in your neighbourhood - enter pizza and your home zip code (we need postal code for Canada!) and up pops a whole menu of options, complete with address, directions, maps. Neat search stuff.
The real truth about where the industry is with phone games: a state of slow, static standstill. The next killer item will not be white-knuckle gaming, but something broader-based. It's likely something that we cannot even fathom.
Casual involvement seems to be the name of this game: interactive, entertaining communities - that's where the majority of us are hanging out, in our comfort zone. That's what developers, publishers, carriers, users alike all need to understand, and create and innovate with this aspect in the forefront.