Mobile Phones used for Outdoor Games

Mobile games are the new way of getting people off the couch, out of the house and out for some fun these days. With technologies like bluetooth, GPS, GRPS, 3G, 4G, cameraphones, smartphones, Symbian, Flash Lite, etc., becoming the norm , game developers are coming up with great game ideas and implementing them.
With GPS and mobile phones paired together street games has become a reality. Check out "Come Out & Play Festival" which will take place in New York City from September 22nd to 24th for a list of mobile games that are available.
The details for the mobile games are Insider, snagu, Crossroads, Spy Text, Sleuth!, The Go Game, Conquer The Quarter, Manhattan Story Mashup.

MiniFiz - Moblog (Mobile Blogging) for girls

When you connect to www.minifizz.com or via a WAP site on your mobile, you first create your own avatar (your Popp’s) and style it as you like with actual clothes and accessories adapted to the Popp’s. Then you start sharing with other members of the community via your FizzBlog or on the Forum.

Stay connected with other MiniFizz members through your FizzBlog. Share your mood, pictures, projects, passions… And comment or answer on so many different topics. Interactivity is a must for girls!

The Community is constantly animated with games, quizzes and contests and you can win many prizes of which the actual clothing and accessories of your Popp’s !

Create a web & mobile universe of multi-facetted girls, with diverse interests, and not at all stereotyped as most services targetting girls are.

When connecting to Canal MiniFizz, a user will become a MiniFizz herself with the creation of her own avatar with her own looks (including piercing, tattoos) using « MiniFizz Popp’s » ; then she can share her life and her emotions with other members of the community in her « FizzBlog » , a web and mobile based blog. Posting an image by MMS or a live comment from wherever we are becomes so easy.

Personalized Mobile Games

You get to create your own free custom mobile Java game with images you upload from your computer. The game is a shooting game witten using Java Micro edition and the website makes it really easy to create your game using a 3 step wizard or a 5 step advanced wizard. It requires no knowledge of any kind of coding at all.
You either can download the game directly to your wap enabled phone or by email to yourself or to a friend.

Pac-Man Returns to Mobile - Bigger and Better

The old time favourite game Pac-Man is getting a face lift and even a 'Super' in front of his name by Namco to keep up with the times.
The new version has given him new moves and a lot more surprises can be expected.
He is first to be unleashed in the US then to the rest of the world.

Animated Flash Lite 2.0 Film

Still in prototype phase a Flash Lite 2.o application.
“The final project will allow the user to play games, download ringtones, graphics, get updates to the series, and perhaps even join in on a message board.... My spefic goal of the project was to see just how much content can be loaded onto a phone and bring an entertainment aspect to the medium that rivals that of the online equivelant.”

Gamevil Moves To USA

Gamevil has opened a US subsidiary in Los Angeles. These are the guys who developed Skipping Stone, which is published by iPlay and has won several awards. From the press release:
“The company’s portfolio emphasizes easily accessible casual and networked games, all of which are based on bleeding-edge technologies. One such technology is GAMEVIL LIVE, a scalable, user-friendly network gaming service that will bridge new gamers to existing carrier communities…Along with great games and novel technologies, GAMEVIL USA will also bring GAMEVIL’s winning business strategy to the United States. GAMEVIL is a marketing leader in Korea, where it has pioneered direct-to-consumer and community-based promotions.”
Gamevil plans to use the same marketing techniques in the US, which should be a good thing — many people think that distribution is one of the biggest problems with the US (and most of the world’s) mobile gaming market.

Mobile industry booming in Japan

According to an article in mobileindustry.biz (this article) mobile in Japan is booming !!

“According to the report, partially translated by GameSpot, figures released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Communication state that the mobile industry has grown to 722.4 billion Yen (4.9 billion Euro) over the past 12 months - a rise of 39 per cent.

The increase was boosted by mobile content sales, which rose by 21 per cent to reach 315 billion Yen (2.1 billion Euro). Sales of ringtones accounted for 161 billion Yen (1.09 billion Euro).”

Starbucks SMS Scavenger Hunt (With Image Recognition)

Hey everybody. Starbucks is doing some SMS marketing. Which has everyone saying that SMS is now catching on here in the States. Which could be true but I don't think Starbucks is the cataclysmic sign of all marketing truths! Especially since I went into nine Starbucks today in New York city (which is not hard to do, there is one of every other block right next to an Irish pub and a pizza parlor) ... none of which advertised for this SMS Starbucks Summer pursuit and none of the employees knew what the hell I was talking about (but agreed it sounded pretty cool). Maybe the table cards have not yet been delivered. We shall see. For now all of this depends how many people visit the Starbucks website (which I do everyday).

Anyways, though, to be fair Starbuck's campaign does seem pretty damn innovative and nifty. The Strarbucks Summer Pursuit is a fun text messaging trivia game and the first mobile phone game that can recognize a picture of the answer as well as text - their techies are calling it intelligent image recognition. Mr Pondering Primate would call it world connection and Mr Neven of Neven Vision would call it a "visual google" and shout "hey we thought of that first!"

Each week Sratbucks will text you three summer themed clues and you can text or send a picture of your answer back to us. Rack up the answers and you'll be eligible for a chance to play the Ultimate Scavenger Hunt in NYC and compete for an amazing trip to Costa Rica!

Its not so much the image recognition then the idea of a scavenger hunt that impresses me the most. Of course, the image recognition makes the scavenger hunt that much more easier to do but still.... a scavenger is the perfect kind of thing for a mobile marketing scheme to tap on a ubiquitous level.

So let the hunt begin! Text "Summer" to 66268 to start playing! I know I will. And perhaps we can share our image recognition stories on the beaches of Costa Rica.

Puzzle Phone

Telephia UK have put out the results of a new survey of mobile gaming habits amongst 3G users in the UK. The survey shows that Puzzle/Strategy games are by far the most popular type of game amongst 3G subscribers, with 61% of 3G subscribers playing such games, with Retro/Arcade games coming second with 45% of subscribers playing them. On top of this, Telephia's survey reveals that more than 70% of mobile game players play their games offline, with less than 3% participating in location-based games. With the exorbitant costs of location based queries in the UK, this extremely low figure is not surprising, as it's not economically viable at present to run an LBS game in the UK. The figure showing the number of offline players is also not surprising, with the vast majority of mobile games still being solo affairs, with very few mutliplayer or OTA games available for general use.

G-Mode Coming to the US via Namco

Japanese game developer G-Mode has announced it has selected Namco as it's US partner. The deal will see Namco distributing G-Mode's games through the US.

"With Namco Networks being a major mobile content provider in North America, offering such games as PAC-MAN(R) and Dig Dug(R), this pairing should prove to be impressive in terms of technology, development and market expansion," said Takeshi Miyaji, President and CEO of G-Mode.

Lets get stuck into it - J2ME & Symbian

At the berlinfactor you will find some very useful code samples for bluetooth, http, modplayers, w32sockets and socket engines graphics utilities not to mention game utilities. There is also a game demo and a splash screen and much more useful crazy stuff.
All have source code included. They have just added a J2ME section, so check it out.