Multiplayer For Mobile Games - Are We There Yet?

Thanks to GameSpot for its feature discussing whether multiplayer mobile phone gaming is genuinely an emerging trend. According to the piece: "For every mobile maven that claims that networked multiplayer is where mobile gaming must direct its energies, there are another two that point to the prohibitive costs, technical barriers, and unacceptable risks that currently stand between wide-spectrum multiplayer and reality." Isaac Babbs of Atlas Mobile frames the problems as "...device limitations and high data costs to the consumer. On many of today's networks, even a simple chess game could hit you for half an hour of airtime--and that's if you manage to make it through without the other player getting fed up and dropping or going into a tunnel and losing reception." Will mobile phone gaming ever take off in the States?

Comments

will it?

[gl4ss]

yes.

will it probalby take couple of years more after it has already picked up at 'somewhere else'? yes as well, us isn't exactly on the frontier lines when it comes to cellphone connectivity which pretty much is what makes a cellphone worthwhile to have(around here people just don't get landlines anymore for phoning, there's just no point).

look, a simple chess game doesn't take that many kbytes to play and there's absolutely no need to play for example chess(or any other turn based game) in 'real time' so a tunnel doesn't really matter(besides, that tunnel should have have a cellphone ap in it anyways if your networks were up to scratch).

the biggest problem I currently see is the lag in gprs systems(and gprs being the only affordable way to move data to a cellphone at the moment in most places), which pretty much cancels playing doom or other hardcore fast action games over the gsm network.

Re:will it?

[neglige]

gprs being the only affordable way to move data to a cellphone at the moment in most places

Interesting enough, over the last few years GPRS (or packet switched data delivery in general) was believed to be the cheapest, fastest method for data exchange. And, at least in Germany, currently this is not true.

We have calculated the costs involved for streaming a video to a mobile phone. If you use GPRS, the data transmitted (28k video + audio stream) amounted to 50-500(!) Euros for 90 minutes. HSCSD, where you pay by the minute, was a mere 9 Euros (10 Cent per minute).

As a result, you should know how the data transmission is handled by the game. For short data bursts, GPRS would be better. If more data is transmitted, HSCSD might be better.

All in all, flatrates would be the optimum ;)

Re:will it?

[gl4ss]

if you're going to move LARGE amounts of data then you should do a special contract with the provider.. firms can over here get unlimited options for fairly cheap.

for irc, instant messaging, email and such gprs is optimum however.. if nothing happens on the irc channel only the minimum keepalive pings are sent.

for 'quick'/large data transmissions paying per minute(hscd) is quite usually cheaper, can't imagine thinking that playing a game would be important enough for 10 cents per minute though(been down the pay for dialup per minute as only option road.. it sucks!).

(damn swedes and their free 3g for the rest of the year or something deal..)

Bluetooth?

[DiSKiLLeR]

There's no reason why you couldn't play multiplayer games over bluetooth?

The new Sony PSP and Nintendo DS have bluetooth for multiplayer gaming, so why couldn't mobile phones do the same? You could have a multiplayer game on the bus, on the rain, in a lecture, whatever....

But yes, the ultimate solution would be to have multiplayer gaming over GPRS :)

I can already surf the net using Opera, go on MSN Messenger, ICQ, AIM and others all on my mobile... the SE P900. My gf's P800 can do it too.

So i see no reason why multiplayer gaming can't go there.

D.

Re:Bluetooth?

[Devalia]

My old phone, a Sony Ericsson T68i let you do this. Albeit it had a limited selection of games (namely Battleships) which could use it but it worked well and was great for those long train rides with other friends with the same phone.

Re:Bluetooth?

[gl4ss]

mobile phones do the same, for years(? technically you could say that already I guess) already.

the chances that you're on the same bus with a friend of yours are quite slim though.

Re:Bluetooth?

[rasz]

The new Sony PSP and Nintendo DS have bluetooth

DS Has wifi, not the BT.

Re:Bluetooth?

[foidulus]

There's no reason why you couldn't play multiplayer games over bluetooth?
Yeah there is, bluetooth requires the person you are playing with to be in the same area as you. If you are that close together, why not just link up via gameboy?
True mobile gaming would allow me to play a game of chess during my commute to work in Tokyo with a friend in Paris who is riding the metro. Can't do that with bluetooth.
Though I suppose using bluetooth on a train might be an interesting way to meet new people who are into gaming. And nobody is going to try to go "toothing" with the gaming geek! ;)

Re:Bluetooth?

[MC Negro]

DS Has wifi, not the BT.

The DS has Wi-Fi AND bluetooth. Actually, a lot of people are saying that it's not really bluetooth, rather some Nintendo proprietary stack based on bluetooth. But there is, in fact, two different ways to engage in multiplayer wirelessly -- Nintendo's Protocol/Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. So one could conclude that we'll be seeing some possibilities for world-wide (or nation-wide) online gaming soon.

The article uses chess as an example of multiplayer gaming on cellular devices, but I don't really think that's a good example of how cellular multiplayer gaming would fail. I don't think the kind of people who are going to go out of their way to play games online in a true multiplayer fasion (no "shadow gaming" here) are going to be playing chess. Chess is time-consuming, chess is thought intensive, and chess is limited to two players.

UbiSoft's mobile game titles (Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, XIII) are examples of where the mobile gaming industry is heading. A friend from my macroeconomics class use to spend the entire class playing UbiSoft's SC:Pandora Tomorrow on his Nokia cellphone, and the game looked surprisingly fun (despite lacking 3-D graphics). I can certainly see room for multiplayer for a game like that, and I imagine the same could be said for many mobile titles like it. But on a similar note, one could also point towards the upcoming Ghost Recon title for the bastard step-child of the taco-phone, which is a full, 3-D FPS. The game looks great, given its limited resources and the demo of online multiplayer on the Ngage's website looks fantastic.

Re:Bluetooth?

[Anonymous Coward]

To clarify (and potentially correct) what you're saying:

Nintendo DS has Wi-Fi for IP-based gaming and communication. That would imply that net-wide (room-wide or world-wide) multiplayer is possible using Wi-Fi. PSP also uses Wi-Fi.

Nintendo DS also has 16-player local wireless, that has very low power requirements. It can recognize when other Nintendo DS systems are in range, and can also wake from sleep mode to connect with systems that are sending out a "group format" signal. Range is about 100 feet. PSP has no low-power local wireless equivalent to this.

The rumor about Nintendo DS and Bluetooth came about in the press because some of the features of Nintendo's local wireless protocol bore a strong resemblance to those of Bluetooth. The rumor was dismissed during Nintendo's E3 2004 Pre-Show, during the segment announcing the Nintendo DS, its features, and some of the developers already working on games for it. Nintendo used the term, "proprietary application," to refer to their local wireless protocol.

Re:Bluetooth?

[cjellibebi]

IIRC, playing real-time arcade-type games over TCP/IP, or even GPRS or GPS is not feasable, as the information cannot be communicated in real-time. Bluetooth (and Infra-Red) does not rely on networks, and can do straight peer-to-peer connections. Also, multiplayer games where everyone is close together are more fun, as you get to share in the emotions of the other nearby players.

Mobile phone SDKs such as Mophun include a module for communicationg over Bluetooth and Infra-Red connections.

Going forward...

[dmayle]

I must admit, this is one place that I see Nintendo taking the lead with the new DS. I've seen manny people pan it, because they can't think of a telling use for a game with a second touch-pad screen. Forget single-player games. If Nintendo does the dev kits right, since it's got wi-fi built into it, whether you're playing someone local, or over the net, it could be seemless.

And the touch pad? A perfect device for communication. Forget using the stylus to scribble notes, instead imagine certain regions for different messages, defined large enough so that you can use your thumb to pick one of four, or one of eight, responses. Or the ability to send an invite, a la Xbox-live to a friend no matter what game they're playing, to get them to join you. This is definitely where Microsoft got it right, and I hope Nintendo does as well, because while there are millions of people, from kids to adults who play video games, the number who sit in front of their computer with an IM window of some type open and chatting is even greater, and if you can mix those two markets together, than you will be riding a very powerful market force, indeed...

Will it ever take off?

[ntr0py]

If this article is right, it'll have to, otherwise multiplayer gaming is left to the console crowd, and we all know they can't do it right ;)

from the article:

[Anonymous Coward]

"The social element is really integral to multiplayer," added Riedel, "but we can't really do chat, voice chat, or video conferencing on mobile right now."

I'm sorry? You can't do voice chat on a mobile phone? :)

Re:from the article:

[perlchild]

Very funny, but no, your mobile phone can't do 8-way communication with all 8 members of your party like in Diablo, or party-broadcast either. I imagine they're afraid it would take away from their network revenue.

Out there now

[Anonymous Coward]

While gamers were walking though Brew 2004, they may have come upon our booth, Four Corners Development Group, where we were showing our Multiplayer Pool game that has been live on Verizon for 6 Months. While the press contemplates what some companies will do to solve the myriad of problems that exist with getting these games to work, some have already done it.

Looking forward, as carriers drop the data rates, I think we can expect more and more multiplayer games. A good question might be, will they be designed for the casual, mobile gamer?

has been there for years now

[drfrog]

airg.ca, a company i worked for, has had a civilization type game available via wap for years now

I certainly hope not!

[bluemeep]

On many of today's networks, even a simple chess game could hit you for half an hour of airtime--and that's if you manage to make it through without the other player getting fed up and dropping or going into a tunnel and losing reception.

If people are going to be zooming around the highways playing Chess, I hope it never takes off. I already have to deal with enough SUVs swerving around due to someone with a cellphone glued to their ear; I'd hate to see what they drive like while trying to pull off Kasparov's Gambit.

High data costs?

[drinkypoo]

I don't know about his cellular provider, but mine (T-Mobile) will give me GPRS data for $19.99/mo unlimited. This really is unlimited, they can afford to do that because it's about 41kbps best case, or roughly modem speed. This is plenty for just about anything you'd want to do on a cellular phone. The latency will be high, so you're not going to be playing a fighting game against someone with it - for that you need bluetooth and proximity.

$20/mo isn't bad considering you can not only use it for cell to cell communications, or cell to web, but you can plug a $5 cable into the phone and hook it up to your laptop, and use it as a modem.