The handset’s gaming experience
A computer games guru says the next big thing will be tiny, simple and played on your mobile phone
Trip Hawkins has a big idea for online games: think small and cheap.
As the founder of Electronic Arts, now the world's biggest games publisher, Mr Hawkins once set out to bring movie-quality visual effects to video games, while modelling his distribution on the music industry's method of selling its products direct to retail stores.
In the two decades since then, advances in desktop computing technology and the development of 3D graphics have come a long way to making that a reality.
Now, says Mr Hawkins, the rules of the game are changing. The internet particularly on mobile phones is opening up a big new market for entertainment. But it is verydifferent from the one that gave rise to the current $17bn games industry. According to this view, technology should no longer be directed towards producing ever-higher fidelity, delivering visual effects that come closer and closer to life. Other considerations have become more important.
“What people want is interactivity and control,” says Mr Hawkins. “They're totally willing to give up fidelity to get it.”
They also want to socialise. With an estimated 30m participants around the world, he says, fantasy sports leagues are proof that playing online is often more about hooking into a bigger community than finding an immersive experience.
The arrival in the mass market of “feature phones” handsets with colour screens and a modicum of computing power has produced a platform that can meet these needs in new ways.
“Most of daily life is this mad rush and now you have this accidental computer you're carrying around with you,” says Mr Hawkins.
One of the games industry's visionaries, Mr Hawkins has never shied away from taking risks in his pursuit of the next big idea. After leaving Electronic Arts in 1991, he launched an ambitious effort to try to change the economics of the games console business. The company he created, 3DO, aspired to emulate Microsoft's success in the PC world by licensing its console technology to other hardware manufacturers. After that failed, an attempt to turn 3DO into a game developer also foundered.
For his latest venture, Digital Chocolate, Mr Hawkins has switched his focus to the mobile phone. It is, he says, the perfect “disruptive technology” a cheap and simple product that can undercut older, more sophisticated and expensive ones, creating a new way of doing business that does not fit the business models of established industry leaders.
The mobile handset is disparaged as second-rate by the forces that dominate the games industry, he says. To Hollywood, it is “a tiny TV”, while Silicon Valley sees it as “a PC in your pocket” and the games industry views it as a “gimpy Gameboy”.
Viewed from these perspectives, the gaming experiences it can deliver look rudimentary. Yet feature phones are going mass market. Of the 1.5bn mobile phones in use today, around 200m fall into this category, according to Mr Hawkins. Five years from now, that will have jumped to 2bn.
Creating games that work on this new platform, while drawing on its strengths as a communications tool, means starting afresh. “It forces us to think small and think simple,” says Mr Hawkins.
For an idea of just how small and simple, consider Bubble Ducky, a game launched by Digital Chocolate earlier this year. Players use a cartoon rubber duck to burst matching bubbles, and can then post their scores on an online message board.
The appeal of the game lies partly in its extreme simplicity, says Mr Hawkins: it takes no time to learn and can be played in very little time. It also draws on the ability to connect to a wider social group. Half of the game's 20,000 paying customers post their scores online and compare themselves with other players.
Such games cost virtually nothing to develop but, thanks to the viral nature of online gaming, can reach a moderate audience if they catch on. The inexpensive nature of these games also allows for frequent experimentation and a high degree of market segmentation one of Digital Chocolate's games is aimed at children as young as two or three.
It all seems a far cry from the escalating development costs and high-powered technology of the console gaming world.
手机的游戏体验
希普?霍金斯(Trip Hawkins) 对在线游戏有个大胆理念：从小处着手，从低廉价格着手。
作为全球最大游戏开发商“电子艺术公司”(Electronic Arts)的创始人，霍金斯先生曾经要让视频游戏具备电影般的视觉效果，并参照音乐界直接把产品卖给零售商店的做法，建立了他的分销模式。
在此后的20年里，桌面电脑的技术进步以及3D图象的发展，已使这一理想与现实大为接近。
但霍金斯先生认为，如今的游戏规则正在改变。互联网，尤其是手机上网，为娱乐业开辟了新的大市场。但这个市场与目前170亿美元的游戏业非常不同。从这种观点来看，游戏技术不应再以提高逼真度为主旨，使视觉效果越来越接近现实生活。其它方面的考虑已经变得更为重要。
“人们想要的是互动和控制，”霍金斯先生说，“为此，他们完全愿意放弃逼真度。”
他们还希望交际。他表示，据估计全球“梦幻竞技联赛”（fantasy sports leagues）参加者高达3000万，证明人们玩在线游戏与其说是在寻找一种沉浸其中的体验，不如说是希望加入一个更大的圈子。
随着带有彩屏和少量计算功能的“特色手机”进入大众市场，这些手机已成为一种平台，让提供商以新的方式迎合人们对在线游戏的需求。
“日常生活大多就是这样匆匆忙忙，而现在你恰好有个小电脑随时带在身边，”霍金斯先生说。
作为游戏业最有远见的人士之一，霍金斯先生在为追求下一个大胆设想而进行冒险方面，从不缩手缩脚。他在1991年离开电子艺术公司后，曾雄心勃勃地试图改变游戏控制台业务的经营模式。由他创建的3DO公司希望效仿微软(Microsoft)在个人电脑领域的成功经验，将其控制台技术通过许可证形式，销售给其它硬件制造商。在这一尝试失败后，他试图将3DO公司转变为一家游戏开发商的努力，也以失利告终。
对于他最新的企业“数字巧克力公司”(Digital Chocolate)，他将重点移向了手机。他认为，这是一种完美的“突破性技术”，既一种便宜而简单的产品从更为成熟、精湛和昂贵的产品那里抢走生意，开创一种全新的经营方式，这种方式与老牌业界领先者的商业模式不相符。
他说，游戏业的主流势力将手机贬为次等平台。好莱坞把手机看作“迷你电视机”，硅谷视之为“衣袋里的PC”，而游戏界却把手机看作“瘸腿的GameBoy”。
从这些角度来看，手机所能带给人们的游戏体验看起来很原始。不过“特色手机”正走向大众市场。霍金斯先生表示，目前人们在使用的15亿部手机中，大约有2亿部属于这一类型。而在5年后，这一数字将跃升到20亿。
设计能在这种新型平台上运行的游戏，同时利用其作为通讯工具的长处，意味着一个全新的开始。“它迫使我们从小处构思，以简单为原则，”霍金斯先生说。
至于小到什么程度、简单到什么程度，看看泡泡鸭(Bubble Ducky)就明白了。这是由数字巧克力公司于今年年初推出的一个游戏。游戏者用一个卡通的橡皮鸭子来刺破匹配的泡泡，并能将他们的成绩公布在一个在线公告栏上。
霍金斯先生认为，这一游戏吸引人的原因，部分在于它极其简单：人们无需花时间学习，并能在极短的时间里玩。它还因为能够连接到一个更广阔的社交圈子而具有吸引力。这一游戏的2万名付费用户中，有一半将他们的分数公布在网上，与其他用户比较。
就开发而言，这种游戏几乎没有任何开发成本，但得益于在线游戏的传播特性，一旦它们流行起来，就能达到相当大规模的观众。而且，这些游戏的廉价性，还使开发商能够进行经常性的实验和高度的市场细分，“数字巧克力”就有一种游戏以2至3岁的幼儿为目标。
相比控制台游戏领域节节攀升的开发费用和强大功能，这一切似乎非常遥远。
