Archive: 19th February 2008: GDC Mobile 2008 / Games On Deck

Day 2 of GDC Mobile was a special day for me, as it formed the culmination of over half a year’s work: the IGF Mobile Awards ceremony. Of course, before I could take part in that I had to cover the morning keynote…

GDC Mobile 2008: Anssi Vanjoki’s New Paradigm Of Gameplay - Nokia get a lot of stick for their attempts to get into the gaming industry, but, you know, I don’t mind them. In many ways they’re misguided and as a company they’re a slow-moving behemoth, but people like Nokia’s Executive Vice President Anssi Vanjoki are so relentlessly positive about the industry it’s almost rather nice.

IGF Mobile Award Winners Announced - I kind of hope Vanjoki stuck around for the IGF Mobile Awards ceremony, as it did happen right after his keynote. While it was a little hard to wrangle all of the finalists, this was a great event that I was really pleased with. All of the finalists were happy just to have taken part, and the winners were ecstatic. I think it’ll go even better next year, too!

GDC Mobile 2008: The Rise and Fall of the Carrier Deck? - A major trend of GDC Mobile was definitely the struggle with the carriers as part of the growing pains of the mobile games industry. Frankly, the general feeing was that the carriers, and their demands, are choking the industry to death, and unless they loosen their grip a little the end is nigh.

GDC Mobile 2008: A Crazy Time To Start A Mobile Studio? - This kind of talk is a perfect example of both how hard it is to work with the carriers and, also, how difficult it was to run an Independent Games Festival for mobile games. It’s nearly impossible to run a small, independent mobile games studio these days, and I have a great respect for the people out there who do, and manage to produce games which are genuinely good, like the finalists of the IGF Mobile (who I really can’t talk up enough.)

February 26th, 2008 : Archive, Games On Deck, IGF Mobile