mobile game

Hi, thanks for dropping by. If you are interested in a lively community around mobile casual games why not register to play, score and make friends. Please go to http://www.playyoo.com/common/registration.html

It’s fun, it’s personal, it’s unique (you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who’s ever received a personalized video or mobile game). Equally as important, it’s free- and just might look like you invested months learning how to code.

Next time you’re wandering aimlessly through shops looking for that “perfect gift”, or about to spend your money on yet another sweater, think about what you could give instead:

• Tap into some sibling rivalry, turning photos of you and your brother into tic tac toe opponents
• Let your husband, or wife, hone their memory with a game of pairs that includes photos of your pets
• Let your friend blow off some steam with a classic whack-a-mole game targeting least favorite politician

Just some ideas- you could even incorporate holiday themes – Valentine’s Day, Christmas… I’m sure you can think of something far more interesting, creative, and personal. Get started with the Playyoo Game Creator and let your creativity fly.

I’ve been known to be a picky eater- not horribly so, but let’s just say that if someone were to put food in front of me at random, there’s a chance I might not eat it. Why am I mentioning this? Well, here at the office we compare the new game stream feature to a sushi boat (that carousel conveyor that circles sushi dishes around). It’s a great visual image, and people (at least those who have been to a sushi restaurant) understand the feature right away.

But, game stream is actually not your ordinary sushi boat. A more accurate comparison would be a sushi boat where you called ahead, told the chef which types of sushi rolls you like, and that’s all they sent down the line. And- it would be just like the restaurant knew your food allergies, and made sure to never send anything containing crab, for example.

So, how does this work? When you sign up for Playyoo, you can personalize your game stream settings – and create the perfect balance of card, casino, shooting, action, puzzle, etc. that will satisfy your game appetite perfectly. If your main games are puzzles, but you might play a racing game or two- you can make this happen. 

And behind the scenes, Playyoo is working hard to make you’re your game stream will only present games that are compatible with the specifications of your phone. We know how frustrating it is to go through the work of downloading or checking out a game, only to realize later that it just won’t work. So with Playyoo, you can be sure that the games you see, are games you can play.

If you haven’t set your preferences yet, you can find it here (or you can find the link on the top right of the screen once you’ve logged in). So be sure to set your game stream preferences and pick your menu.

The other day I downloaded a white paper from Juniper Research on mobile games. Juniper recently published a report predicting big things for mobile games. The research group believes today’s 5 billion mobile game market will skyrocket to 16 billion in 2012.

Here’s why Juniper has such high hopes:

Universality: There are now 2.8 billion mobile handsets (and growing), compared with just 324 million consoles (Sony PS2, PS3, Wii, etc.). [Note: the 2.8 billion is Juniper’s figure from the WP- according to a new post on Engadget Mobile, there are now 3.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions]

Low level of mobile game penetration: The total number of mobile phone owners actually playing games is still low - around 7% - meaning there’s a lot of room for growth.

Technological advances: The rollout of 3G networks around the globe offers new opportunities for connected, multi-player gaming, while more sophisticated handsets can offer more attractive graphics and a better gaming experience.

Shifting demographics: Juniper noted the growing number of female players.

Rise in casual games: Good news for casual game developers - Juniper attributes much of the growth in mobile gaming to the rise of the casual gamer.

Sure, the numbers are encouraging (and we’re definitely not going to dispute that there’s a large opportunity in mobile gaming) – but it’s going to take a lot of work to get to the promised land of 16 billion.

We’ve got to address some of the chief hurdles in today’s mobile game market: mobile games can be too expensive, too difficult to find; and, well, to quote John Carmack, “most of the games are just crap.”

At Playyoo, we’re doing what we can to bring mobile games to the masses. Free games, game creation tools, community ratings, and a game stream that will make finding cool games as easy as a trip to the sushi bar. Most importantly, we’re expecting big things from the Flash Lite developer community and we’ll keep sponsoring contests to spark everyone’s creativity and talent.

So, in short, we know there’s a big road ahead of us, but the future looks pretty good from where we are.
Read more…

We sat down with Kars Alfrink-interaction designer, teacher, and consultant for Playyoo-to learn a little about his thoughts on social participation, casual games, and the mobile platform.

What do you think is the significance of bringing the social or participatory aspect into mobile games?

Well, I’d say for one, it adds an extra dimension to play. Traditionally, if you look at games outside the digital world, most games are social by nature-like board games or playground games. It’s a weird situation with digital games: for a long time they were mostly focused on the single player. And that’s fine, but from a game design perspective, there’s nothing more interesting than playing with or against another human being. After all, they exhibit the most interesting behaviors.

Now when it comes to Playyoo, we’re targeting a very broad audience. And people have very different needs and motivations-and their ideas of fun are different as well. We want to have multiple levels of engagement. So at the beginning level, users can just casually play a game, or snack on a game, where they might play a game for a few minutes and then put it away. These users just want to play a game, and have fun for a few minutes. The social aspect becomes interesting for people who want to engage with Playyoo at a more intense level. You have people who are into competing; you have people who are into socializing, etc. And we want to cater to these different interests.

Can you give us some examples of how participation is going to enter Playyoo?

Sure, I’m working on something right now that I call the meta-game-which will essentially be an umbrella for the mobile games in Playyoo and will let users compete and collaborate on a different level within the community. For example, users can submit their high scores for a game and check on how their friends are doing. We’ll also be creating rewards for various achievements, and let people team up and compete against other teams. And our game creation tool is going to let users participate in the game design experience on a whole new level. And again, if people don’t want to participate in these extra activities, that’s fine. They’ll hopefully still have an enjoyable time playing the mobile games themselves.

What does the term ‘casual game’ mean to you?

‘Casual,’ to me, says something about the level of attention and engagement that a player has (or is required to have) with the game. For me as a designer, casual games provide interesting challenges. It might seem simple to create these casual games, but they’re actually quite tricky to pull off, or pull off well, that is. From a game design perspective, I think it’s more challenging to pull off a high quality causal game than yet another first-person shooter game.

Do you think the mobile game experience needs to stay casual?

I definitely would never say that you can only do casual games on the mobile phone. Certainly, there have been efforts to replicate the experience of the console game on the mobile phone. But I don’t think that makes a whole lot of sense, because they’re such different platforms. However, you can do all kinds of games-any kind of activity can be turned into a mobile casual game. And it certainly doesn’t have to be limited to the games we already know, like parlor games or arcade classics. There can be original development on the mobile phone, and I think that’s one of the most interesting areas at the moment

You mentioned the difference between the mobile and console platform. What are some of the unique aspects of mobile gaming?

Well, for one, designers can play with the context of use with the mobile phone. Location is the most obvious example of this-and we’ve already seen this in alternate reality games, where for instance players have to be at a certain place at a certain time to get a message needed to unravel a puzzle or get to the next stage.

I’ve been teaching a class on mobile game design at the Utrecht School of Arts and I challenge my students to think of interesting things on a mobile phone that you couldn’t do anywhere else. And they come up with very interesting examples. For example, in one game, distance traveled becomes a factor. Players try to grow an exotic plant, and the food for that plant is travel. So, the distance-and direction-that players travel feeds back into the game. That might sound kind of conceptual and artsy, but it’s a nice example of what you can do with the mobile platform.

Mobile games are often defined as games you can play anywhere, and while traveling, but on another level, I’d say in mobile games, you have to be traveling and be physically in motion. That puts a whole new twist on mobile.

Photo credits: Alper Çuğun / http://alper.nl

by Alexander Smith, mobile gaming enthusiast

In the multi-billion dollar videogame industry, mobile phone games are rather misunderstood. They’re unlike the regular boxed products where people walk into a store and take the game off the shelf—mobile games have distribution through telecom channels—yet that hasn’t kept mobile games from becoming a billion dollar industry in their own right.

Electronic Arts, the world’s largest games publisher, was so convinced by the necessity of mobile that, in 2006, they purchased Jamdat (now EA Mobile) for some $680 million. French rival Ubisoft started their own mobile division—called Gameloft—in 1999, and it will post a projected $130m in consolidated revenues this year.

But a new start-up based in London, England could upset the apple-cart. This week saw the announcement of what is tantamount to a new platform—a new way to get games on your phone. And development for the platform begins now, whilst the public can start to use it in December.

“…what is tantamountto a new platform…”

Internally speaking, the company is focused on what chief executive Chris Pelly refers to as “The enormous success of user-generated content and social networking sites [which] reflects the universal needs of self-expression and identifying with others.”

And there’s a strong case for that. Personalised recommendations for users, game creation tools so that anyone can make a game in a few minutes, rich social networking… The business world of today understands the power of MySpace and YouTube. And to jumpstart this new community, Playyoo is offering $40,000 in prize money for the most successful user created titles.

But what just might put Playyoo’s new platform on the map are free games for mobile users. Most cell phone users are hesitant to rack up charges to their monthly bills—particularly when it’s a company-issued device. Without that costly barrier to entry, cell phone owners everywhere are far more likely to give games a whirl.