Game Theories

In early November, mobile entertainment developer Mforma announced the launch of “IHRA Drag Race,” the first multiplayer wireless game enabling users to go head-to-head regardless of their respective network affiliations. The game will soon be available to subscribers of five of the six major wireless carriers--AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless, Sprint PCS, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless. Mforma’s new EVP of programming Robert Tercek spoke with Jason Ankeny about the game, the challenges of creating cross-carrier applications and where wireless gaming goes from here.

On the multiplayer experience:The big challenge with multiplayer gaming is player matching. That’s always been a problem on the Internet, as well as here in the mobile environment. In the current version of this game, you don’t have the ability to invite somebody into the game--what we do is randomly match you up with the first available player. The obvious benefit of being cross-carrier is that there is a much bigger pool of potential players, so player matching should happen very swiftly. That’s the right way to proceed for a number of reasons--you’re basically going to the next person in the queue, so almost instantaneously you’ll be matched with a player. Our experience in mobile is that people want instant gratification.

On “IHRA Drag Race”: The actual race is only about 15 seconds in duration, and the results are sent back to the server, where it’s calculated and then a message is sent out to both players telling you which player won. You then have the option to challenge that person to a rematch. That’s good for the carriers because it’s going to keep people playing longer. You can currently play six different cars, and there are multiple tracks to choose from. The full version that’s coming out for [Nokia’s] Series 60 phones and BREW gives you six classes of cars, and six cars in each class, so you can modify your car--you can upgrade the tires and the engine and various components. You fine-tune it to your satisfaction, and that plays off the brand association with the International Hot Rod Association. The game is either a J2ME applet or BREW, in the case of Verizon--the player will download it to their phone, and what happens is the applet sends an HTTP request to notify Mforma’s server. We effectively act as an ASP for multiple carriers, and I think that’s a good illustration of where Mforma fits in the overall value chain for mobile entertainment. We like to position ourselves as an enabler.

On cross-carrier integration: The challenge is getting the carriers to agree on launching the same product. Sometimes carriers specify a change in a product--that’s not uncommon in mobile games. So the challenge for Mforma was to encourage the carriers to all agree to release the exact same game. It wouldn’t be fair and wouldn’t work exactly quite right if there were differences on each network. But there is a great deal of receptivity to this proposition by mobile operators. They understand very, very well the benefits of cross-carrier communication of any sort. The precedent set last year with SMS established that--everyone wins when you have connectivity across networks. In that way, gaming is just another way for consumers to interact with one another over mobile networks.

On what’s next: I’m also the chairman of the Game Developer Conference’s Mobile Symposium, which is a big gathering of game developers that gets together each year to discuss the future of the medium. Mobile is a very hot topic, and one of the big themes that’s come up consistently over the last 18 months has been multiplayer over mobile networks. It’s intriguing for a bunch of reasons. First of all, it connects a group of people even when they’re away from their PCs and out roaming about, so the prospect of multiplayer interaction over wireless has captured the imagination of the gaming public. However, multiplayer gaming presents a significant hurdle to game developers, so what you have right now is that a lot of developers are developing single-player downloadable games. My sense is that the future of the market is going to go towards more networked applications, not just for gaming but for every type of mobile entertainment. Client-side download is limited--it does have the benefit of giving you immediate performance and immediate gratification, because it’s always there and there’s no lag when you turn on your phone. But over time--time being pretty short in the wireless business, which seems to evolve on a quarterly basis--you’re going to see more and more applications that utilize the network, which is great news for the carriers because you’re reinforcing the value of that network. It helps lock in consumers and builds an affinity to a particular brand.