In Search Of The Continuous Gaming Platform

Thanks to The Register for its Faultline-reprinted analysis discussing the concept of making games that are playable on multiple hardware devices. The analyst argues: "Games writers now need to move on a generation to what we shall call 'continuous immersive absorption' into a game. That means that the play should... have elements that are played on a big home based screen, have elements of play that are ideal for a mobile gaming platform or phone so that it is portable on trains and cars and even the playground, and it should have communication elements that see players interact." The piece goes on to churn out much general analysis, but is the concept that "[Game]play should be able to proceed on the home platform, and on mobile platforms, and on your PC at work or school" a viable or attractive one?

Comments

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[Mad_Fred]

So it's not bad enough when developers release games unoptimised for three home console systems at once instead of optimising for one of them, now they should spread their resources even thinner and try to cram in totally different platforms as well? Isn't it hard enough to come up with meaningful content for the GC-GBA connection to show that this won't hold up?

Great..

[Sevn]

Exactly what we need. I'll explain....

I used to work with a guy that was thrilled he could IRC from his Palm V with a nokia phone and the right cord. All he did (even after getting fired) was chat on IRC. At home. At work. On the bus to work. Even sometimes (I swear to God) while driving. So I don't like the idea of providing the same basic fantasy world IN COLOR to people. Nonstop disconnected reality. The ONLY positive spin I can possibly put on this is:

1) It will weed out the idiots that get addicted to stupid stuff so they will lose their jobs so people that actually WANT to work will have some jobs to fight over.

2) There will probably be a small cottage industry that springs up to deal with this new addiction also creating jobs.

That's all I got.

The future of gaming.

[darkmayo]

Personally I believe a world populated with Taco shaped video game consoles will be the next generation of gaming. Either that or a Lay-z boy that with a build in gaming rig all on wheels.

WTH?

[tomcio.s]

"[Game]play should be able to proceed on the home platform, and on mobile platforms, and on your PC at work or school" a viable or attractive one?

HUH? Why do we need games at work or school? Or in the car for that matter? Don't we have enought real world problems to deal with as is?

If anyone should be so bored as to need this type of game, they should instead look around them and see what can be done in the real world to improve it's environment.

I know one game that does this, sorta.

[pecosdave]

Animal Crossing. It's a completely pointless game that eats up hours and hours of time on the GameCube. Your goal is to get furniture for your house doing various things about a town. Plug in the Game Boy Advanced and you can ride a boat to an island. The island is then loaded onto your GBA and you can play Animal Island, a near tamagotchi style game, to get even more furniture and pointless crap for your house on the main island. (It's also handy for duping said pointless items). I find it an interesting way to expand the play away from the home unit, I just wished it was a better game. I lost interest in the game itself a long time ago, the only really good thing to come of it is the NES games.

People here are too dismissive

[JMZero]

There's some good ideas here. Think "Puzzle Pirates". Or imagine, for example, that you could craft items in Star Wars Galaxies while sitting on the bus with just your phone. This provides a way to buff your character without commiting as much sit-down gametime - and provides a new source of content for mobile gamers. This is certainly a marketable idea.

To those who would ask "Does the world really need this?", the answer starts off with "you're stupid and lost" and ends with "you can disable games.slashdot.org".

Re:People here are too dismissive

[cgenman]

Or imagine, for example, that you could craft items in Star Wars Galaxies while sitting on the bus with just your phone. This provides a way to buff your character without commiting as much sit-down gametime

I hate to be the one to say this, but this is exactly the part of modern gaming that should be stripped out. Sitting on a bus making items with your mobile phone? Select-select-combine-wait select-select-combine-wait. People have tried this with, for example, the Dreamcast VMU and it was about as boring as you would imagine.

There's also the tomogachi genre of VMU games, which hasn't advanced much beyond the original concept in terms of fun or replayability.

"Puzzle Pirates" would be perfect, but it is in the minority. It's the only successful commercial game that I know of that runs on Java. I'm sure you could make some sort of hack to deal with the lack of a persistent connection, but you're still talking about diverting more resources from the main project.

And that is the crux of the problem: money. I'm sure you could make an excellent version of Metal Gear Solid 3: Wacky Stuff Happens for the PSP that could connect with the PS3 version seamlessly given twice the resources and lots of time, but most developers don't have that. To take a fully immersive 3D game designed to push the latest hardware to the limits, and create a fun connected game on a miniscule platform that is connected in a form more substantive than Item Manipulation is very difficult. Final Fantasy could do a "pocket arena" type thing, but even then you would have a heck of a lot of art resources to recreate, a lot of balancing to do, and months and months of QA to make sure both platforms are perfectly synchronized. If it isn't a stand alone game, all you can hope for is a subset of those who bought the first game. If it is a stand alone game that happens to connect with the original, like Nintendo has been doing with their Zelda games, expect to invest far more than your original design would call for. And people won't consider that "Continuous Gaming" anyway.

Think of it this way, would you pay 40 dollars for a fun, full game on your cell phone? (say "yes")
Good. Now, would you pay 40 dollars for a small offshoot of another game, where you get to move your items around? Or, looked at another way, if you would pay 40 dollars for $console_game, would you pay 80 dollars for $console_game+ ." Unless the game is incredibly good, most people would say no.

There are other good games out there. Go play something else.

Not likely.

[*weasel]

Not only would the architectures have to be totally different between the various platforms, but the gameplay crafted to the input as well.

Therefore, you're essentially creating an entirely unique game for each type of platform: handheld, phone, console, and PC - and just sharing parts of the saved games in between.

Which of course assumes there is some sort of common, user-friendly, data link between these platforms -- which of course does not currently exist.

The only place where this is remotely feasible is with online persistent worlds - because most devices (PCs, consoles, PDAs, phones) have an existing mechanism for internet communications.

In those cases, sure, it could be neat. But its more a plan for leveraging an already-profitable license to new platforms than a concept applicable to the average next-gen title.

And until a user-friendly common data interconnect is widely available for these platforms, publishers will be much better off crafting unique, disconnected games for each platform.

Animal Crossing

[10101001 10101001]

Animal Crossing does just this. You play on the GC, can play another expansion on the GBA called Animal Island. And finally, you can trade stuff with people online with passwords. You can even travel between towns if your friend brings their game cart over. Of course, real online play might be interesting, but where Animal Crossing really excels is independent and unique development where friends only get short glimpses into what makes your town (or your house decor).

I don't know of any other GC-GBA linkup that's worth it. More platforms will probably just mean buying more games with cheesy tie-ins (the Metroid Prime/Fusion link was hardly worth it just to play the original Metroid again..especially since they could have just given you playing Metroid for free..there was no real integration). So, the theory is nice, but in reality independent RPG development on a handheld probably won't mean a lot unless there's a sweet bundle (GC-GBA cable + gba cart + gc game + broadband adapter (since the online factor is really what can suck people in)) to make it actually work, and I don't see people jumping over themselves to spend $80+ on such a bundle. Maybe if the PSP's media is dirt cheap and PSP allows free connection to PS2...

Continuous gaming

[Vexware]

Being able to play a game on your computer, then to continue to play exactly the same game miniaturized on your mobile phone while going to school is a very nice idea said as such, but the author seems to completely forego the real problem of making the same game playable on multiple formats. For this kind of feat to be possible, you would need all the systems which are being aimed at (most probably computer, console, portable gaming systems and mobile phone) to use the same format for games, which in my opinion is just impossible for several reasons. If that stage is passed, you then have to pose the problem of the game being able to adapt itself to all these different systems, without having it too underopzimized proportionally in each form it is usable as.

As I have said, I beleive the problem of each system using the same format for games is most probablyy impossible to solve. I cannot conceive how it can be possible to create a format which is both usable on each system and powerful enough for the variety of systems it has to face. You just have to take a look at the diversity of the gaming platforms the author wishes the ideal game to aim for to see that this imaginative idea will have to stay just that, an imaginative idea. Personal computers are continually evolving, gaining megahertz by the second, and it is a platform which can harness incredible power; computers are out-of-date in three to six months, and it is just about the same thing for their games' graphics. Whereas computers are getting more and more powerful as time goes along, consoles are only released every few years and do not benefit of the same continual evolution that computers do, and as home consoles have to keep price reasonable not to push consumers away, they are virtually out-of-date when they leave the production factory. As for portable gaming systems, they obivously cannot boast too much power as they have to stay portable. This may change a bit as minituarization of material goes on, but not to the point of havinh the power of a computer in a pocket. Finally, mobile phones are primarily communation tools and not gaming tools, but as the emphasis is put on the phones having better support for games, one can notice the abundance of the latter growing quickly; but mobile phones have to stay portable phones, and overhauling the power of the integrated graphics for gaming would surely mean producing heavier phones aimed at a more special sector of the market and not at the everyday user.

I cannot see how one could actually think it is possible to create a game which could expand over so many systems. You would need a format which would be compatible with machines from the size of a pocket calculator to that of a television, and that would be able to support information compatible with everyone of these systems. If you were able to solve that problem, which is very unlikely, then you would surely be halted when it comes to developing a same game which would have to run on both systems with enormous power and systems with less than a hundredth of the power of the latter. It is just unconceivable, as you would need a common format, the tools to develop the same software on all these systems and for it to be able to harness enough power of each system to be up-to-date when it comes to graphics and gameplay.

Though the author's idea is just pure fantasy, I think we can certainly approach a level of interactivity and interoptability between the currently available gaming platforms which have a lot of possibilities. Of course, I am talking about Nintendo's GameCube/GBA connectivity features (me, biased? No way! :o), which I think have the potential to allow a satisfying level of interactivity between games on both format if the usage is pertinent enough. You do not need to stretch your mind much to find a lot of possible features with this, though it still means having to develop a game separately for each system. By the way, Nintendo were not the first to throw themselves into the 'connectivity' ide

Re:Animal Crossing RE: GC-GBA link

[curtisk]

I don't know of any other GC-GBA linkup that's worth it.

Well the relative worth is negliable, but in Legend of Zelda : Wind Waker you can use(or have someone else use) Tingle, who is called from the GC game and interfaced on the GBA, aside from giving you power ups, it also allows you to find hidden items and areas and hints.

Also, the Pac Man vs. game is pretty cool as well

But that being said, I'll agree that the potential is far from being fully used.

sounds like content and delivery franchising

[liminality]

this sounds like a great way to make money of course ("Buy cellphone X and serive provider Y to unlock more SW: Galaxies content and exciting gameplay!!"), but i'm not sure the gamer benefits as much as do the corporations. how does this add to the gameplay experience, other than simply multiplying a beloved franchise's content? Animal Crossing was neat, and i havnt yet played FinalFantasy Crystal Chronicles, but as far as i can tell not even Nintendo has answered this question despite a sustained effort for a few years. people want a new experience, not new variations on a theme.

Solitare

[Pvt_Waldo]

Available in many forms, including a real deck of cards you can play anywhere and any time, even when the power's out.

What you mean like Majestic?

[Kwil]

And we all know how well that went over.