In Conversation with Ian Livingstone

I had the opportunity to meet and hear one of the biggest author and entrepreneur in the field of gaming - Ian Livingstone.

Ian was in Mumbai celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the world famous icon - Lara Croft, a character he and his team have been associated with since a long time. The videos of the Tomb Raider Anniversary looked really awesome!

His presentation titled "Life is a Game" spoke in depth about his life, starting right from the time he and his friends who were right out of college created fliers about games they played, to the opening of his store - Games Workshop, and then his role as an author for books like Fighting Fantasy and the extremely popular Deathtrap Dungeon.

Today he is a Creative Director at Eidos in UK and is completely involved in promoting one of their biggest IPs - Lara Croft. There were a number of points he made during his presentation about game development which he felt has made him very successful -

1. Always be original and never copy ideas. A character like Lara Croft was concieved when the gaming space was completely dominated by male character based games. The innovation lied in creating a tough, confident yet sexy character for a game that would appeal to all genders.
2. Gameplay is the most important aspect of any game. A lot of game developers give a weightage to graphics but experience has shown that if a gameplay is weak even the best looking game will fail.
3. Market analysis was not considered very important a couple of years back, but today it is a very important aspect of game development. Every game you create should go through some focus test to know its viability in the market and amongst the masses.
4. Its always best to create your own successful IP (Intellectual Property) than licence one. Lara Croft is a good example of a simple game character getting successful. There are Lara Croft games created on a variey of consoles, she represents brands in advertisements, she has made it across to the movies, she has branded merchandise....and she has made billions for her creators.
5. Sticking to conventions. Lara Croft was known to be a character who lives at exotic locales and tradional tombs, so getting her to the modern streets of Paris failed with the audiences.
6. Quality is more important than Quantity. You would never hear a person saying that the movie was bad but atleast it 10 hours long!
7. A game or any software the most important thing. Nobody will purchase a hardware or console if there is no great software.

When Ian was asked the question of who would he select from Bollywood (The Indian Film Industry) for the role of Lara Croft, his prompt reply was Shilpa Shetty because she was the only actress he knew from the Big Brother controversy in UK.

Overall it was a great experience, and I am glad I got to be a part of it.

Mariam

BlueskyNorth recounts its success story with The Journal

In this short story covered by the icNewCastle, Paul Lamonby of BlueskyNorth (a leading Flash Lite content development company) talks about the growth of his company, his team and their plans for game releases with operators across Europe.

One of their expected launches is a game called Fickle Blocks on the Orange Mobile Phone networks.

Airtel - India's largest telecom service provider launches Flash Lite

Airtel which is India's largest telecom service provider today launched Flash Lite content via their WAP portal - Airtel Live!

They have a upto 4 pages of Flash Lite games listed which are priced at the Indian Currency of Rupees 50, - a good enough rate for single A titles. Currently the games are supported on S60 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition phones. For those users holding older devices, instructions are provided to visit the Adobe website to download the player before playing the games.

The launch may see its set of teething problems but atleast it reflects the Indian community's acceptance of Flash Lite content for their Flash enabled handsets.

Flash Lite Article - Introducing Adobe Device Central CS3

With the launch of CS3, Adobe has a new article up on their Dev Centre Introducing the Adobe Device Central CS3 authored by Winston Wang, Senior Product Manager for Mobile Authoring at Adobe.

The article lists the features of the Device Central and also gives interesting points on the challenges and promises of working with mobiles.

Device Central CS3 will help simplify mobile content creation

The Creative Suite 3 will be one of the better launches by Adobe this year, especially for mobile content creators like us.

Many developers currently using the Flash Lite emulator might have thought if the code they're writing will run with the same consistency and speed on the device as it would on the PC. And 90% of the times this proved to be true.

But with the Device Central, developers will be able to preview their work and test mobile content instantly within their authoring environments. They would also be able to interact with the content in the same way as they would on a real phone.

According to an article on MacWorld, Device Central will feature a built-in library of more than 200 mobile device profiles from Nokia and Sony Ericsson, among others and operators such as Verizon, so users can view at-a-glance details on the capabilities, constraints and features of individual devices. The profiles will be continuously updated by Adobe as new phones come out.

Says Anup Murarka, Adobe’s Director for Technical Marketing, Mobile and Devices about the CS3 launch, “In many ways it’s an extension of what we are doing in the rest of the company. How do people reach their customers in print, Web and increasingly on mobile phones. It extends everything Adobe has done on other media to mobile."

Apple iPhones being sold on eBay although shipping is scheduled for June 2007

I read this crazy news today which stated that E-bay had the exclusive Apple iPhones up for sale on their website, and nearly 23 people fell for the scam by agreeing to purchase the phones for large sums. The highest bidder of this transaction agreed to pay $1125 for 1 of the 6 phones that had been put up for sale.

This is probably one of the best examples of the frenzy that the iPhone has got the people into. I can equate this sitaution to a Harry Potter book where people are willing to pay huge amounts just to get hold of the initial unedited copy....

Can't imagine what the actual phone launch will do in June!

Sony Ericsson anounces new Walkman phones at CTIA

Via biskero, Sony Ericsson announced new Walkman phone W580 at CTIA which are Flash Lite enabled - W580i and W888c.

The slim music phones are said to deliver a full walkman experience along with gaming, imaging and fitness applications.

Says Najmi Jarwala, president, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications (USA) Inc. "The W580, the latest in our extensive line of Walkman phones, is exceptionally cool looking. But most importantly it was designed first and foremost for the needs of North American consumers who want to listen to their favorite music on the go with the one device they always carry with them -- their mobile phone."

Amp'd reinvents Motorola Q with a Flash Lite UI

According to the news on GearLog

"Youth-oriented mobile carrier Amp'd got their first smartphone today in the Motorola Q - but this isn't quite the Q you know from Verizon and Sprint. Amp'd has completely redone the user interface in Adobe's Flash Lite, into an animated carnival of ... well, it looks a lot like Amp'd's animated Amp'd Live interface on their other phones. The Q also plays Amp'd TV and all of Amp'd's content - a real breath of fresh air compared to other carriers who don't have versions of their popular entertainment apps for smartphones. And it's still a Q, which means that you can send e-mail, sync with your PC, and maybe even get some work done."

The magic word is Flash Lite which makes up the phone's UI. I remember Amp'd hiring Flash Lite UI designers sometime last year...and I guess we now know why.

The phone would go on sale sometime in April for $199 on the Amp'd website.

Flash Lite games launch in APAC

Sometime back I had posted an entry talking about Iguana Mobiles launching Flash Lite content in Singapore. Well, they are finally out with the games on their website and this time the games can be puchased online in countries like Brunei Darussalam, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan.

The games are downloaded through GPRS over WAP on the users phone. It feels good to see the Flash Lite Ecosystem operating in full swing in APAC.

Link to the Iguana Mobile Flash page for Indiagames
Link to the Iguana Mobile Flash page for CELL

You can also check the list of other publishers who have a catalogue of Flash and Java games.

Adobe MAX 2007 - Call for Topics

The MAX Conference in North America is going to be held in Chicago this year during the first week of October. The good news for developers living in other regions like Europe and Japan is that they are going to be having their own MAX too.

Adobe wants developers/designers to suggest topics for this conference. Please visit http://www.adobemax2007.com/topics/ and suggest a topic.

I guess the topics suggested will apply uniformly to all regions, so take your pick and and be assured that if Adobe finds your topic convincing enough, it will definitely be a part of the MAX agenda this year.

Iguana Mobile Singapore launches Indiagames Flash Lite Content via Nokia's Flash Channel on NCD

Our working closely with the Iguana Mobile and the Nokia team to launch our Flash Lite content in APAC finally bore its fruit this week when I received a mail saying that our games for Nokia S60 and wallpapers/screensavers for Nokia S40 had launched.

The games would be available though the Nokia Content Discoverer(NCD), which is an on-device content portal displaying a catalogue of varied wireless content. The Flash Lite category is the latest addition to this mobile portal.

To be precise, we launched 9 of our games for all the Flash Lite supported handsets on Nokia S60 and around 5 wallpapers/screensavers for each sceen resolution of Nokia S40.

Currently the games are available locally in Singapore. But we are hoping that the game downloads will pick up momentum and we will see our catalogue available with more carriers worldwide.

Flash Lite article - Porting J2ME game to Flash Lite

My new article on Porting a J2ME game to Flash Lite went live on the Adobe Developer Center today.

This is the third of my articles after the ones done on Persistent Data : Shared Objects and Best Practices for Mobile Game Development.

This new article is a real view of one of our J2ME games which we ported for Flash Lite on the Nokia S60 handset. It talks of the challenges we faced during porting and what methods we adopted to ease future porting.

I have tried making it as comprehensive as possible, but it would be great if anybody who has been involved in this kind of a porting process contribute to it through this post.

FlashCast showcased at 3GSM

Adobe and Viacom's MTV Networks are showcasing the new mobile media applications on mobiles at the 3GSM event this year according to this press release.

According to Greg Clayman, Senior Vice President of MTV Networks' Mobile Media -
“The MTV, VH1, COMEDY CENTRAL and Logo FlashCast channels that we are jointly demonstrating at 3GSM are indicative of the rich experiences that can be created on the handset when the power of programming meets the power of technology. With FlashCast technology, we’re able to create innovative mobile experiences that allow our viewers to connect with the music, comedy and entertainment programming they love.”

Last year during MAX there were several partners for the Flash Lite launch on Verizon including us with the release of "The Office Games", based on NBC's sitcom The Office.

This year too Adobe as partnered and introduced a new technology of content development with FlashCast for the 3GSM.

Omega Mobile Launches Winter Themed Wallpapers and Screensavers

Omega Mobile is in news once again! Yes....but this time its for a launch of its winter themed wallapapers and screensavers called Hyper Screenz.

The content is dynamic and changes according to the time of the day, signal strength or battery level. Omega has not mentioned the handset it is targetting but says it is open for anybody who wishes to license and deploy the content. They also mention that the content can be customized to suit any brand if it wishes to.

Read more about Hyper Screenz......here


Flash Lite wallpapers and screensavers are really big on the Nokia S40 handsets. Sony Ericssons too support Flash Lite content in browser mode. Verizon too has support for Flash Lite screensavers....

Its a big open market for varied content and Omega Mobile is at it!

2007, the year of mobile widgets?

Recently I read a small brief written by Anders Borg, CEO and Consultant for Abiro and spoke about the AJAX technology and its possibility of coming on mobiles.

According to Anders "The main competitor to "AJAX" solutions is no doubt Flash Lite yet most (all?) mobile widget platforms run on top of MIDP, which is a benefit compared to Flash Lite, that's typically embedded (and hence must come with the phone)."

I wonder what the AJAX and Flash Lite developers have to say about this?

Omega Mobile Launches a Complimentary 3GSM Conference Buddy Mobile Flash Lite Application

Omega Mobile, a leading mobile content developer has launched a new Flash Lite Application specifically for the 3GSM Conference to be held in Barcelona, Spain this year.

The application is called " 3GSM Conference Buddy" and is created for the Wireless World Forum by Omega Mobile to be distributed to the conference attandees to stay connected with others at the conference. W2Forum wants to distribute this application free of cost at its booth and has also made it available for download from their website.

The application has features such as prewritten text messages, pre-programmed calls to services in Barcelona and even a message to send to a loved one on Valentine's Day.

An interesting combination of features......

Its good to know that Flash Lite will be accessed by many 3GSM attendees during the conference. While travelling to a new city for a conference, its always good to have emergency numbers on you, and the Conference Buddy will help people do just that.

Unfortunately I will not be able to make it to 3GSM this year, but for those those who do attend it, please download this application for your own utilization. And for those who will not attend it...well its available to you as well....so go ahead and download it.

Adobe's Narayen sees growth in video, mobile arena

Infoworld conducted an interview with Adobe's President and CEO talking about all the plans that have been envisioned for the worldwide developer community.

What is really interesting is Narayen's views on Flash Lite and the to be launched Flash Cast technology. What he also mentions is in the future Apollo, the runtime will also be mobile-aware.

An very interestig interview to read.

Flash Lite: Flavor of the Month

2007 started with a bang with the PocketGamer’s site listing Flash Lite as one of the trends to take off this year.

Then it was Eli Dickinson of Fierce Wireless' predictions. He figured Flash Lite as one of the foremost technologies to take off in 2007 in a big way.

And the final great news to come was the news of Flash Lite 2.0 winning the Developer.com contest in the Wireless/Mobile Development Tool or Add In Category.

Great News in every aspect!

Personally from what I foresee, Flash Lite will take off in a big way this year. Many operators in EMEA and the APAC are very keen to launch Flash Lite content. However what most of them lack is the knowledge of Flash Lite and how this technology can be established into a fluid model of delivery for the consumers. Operators do consider Flash Lite as a lucrative business option as compared to Java and the mess it has created in the mobile content space, especially gaming. But they are not confidence enough and it is developers like us who need to inform and educate them with to accept business models.

Once the ball starts rolling I am sure there will be no stopping to Flash Lite in the mobile space.

Sony Ericsson launches Developers' Guidelines for Flash Lite 1.1

Sony Ericsson had introduced Flash Lite 1.1 on many of its Walkman series and i-mode handsets. Till now it was an untapped area, but now its good to see that they are coming out with development guidelines for their handsets.

This whitepaper gives an overview of Macromedia's Flash Lite implementation on Sony Ericsson mobile phones. It also highlights the issues faced by developers and has a detailed grid of the features supported in each phone.

You can catch the news on the Sony Ericsson Developer Website and also download the document from here.

Vodafone to launch new services

Vodafone is slated launch new service at the CeBit Trade Show in Hanover which will enable users to upload videos taken from their phone cameras to a Live portal via MMS or WAP. Seems like a great news especially since the service will help the users monetize their efforts.

Another interesting service they announced to launch in March is one where users can build their own Flash mobile websites.

I will keep you posted on more about this, meanwhile you can read the complete Vodafone press release online.