GDC: Live blog EA Moblile
Published: March 24, 2009
09:06 - Robert welcomes everyone to day 2 of GDC mobile. Don’t forget to watch the mobile game awards at 10:45.
09:07 - Talking about the process of planning GDC, all the different speakers who enroll to speak. Talking about how all the different regions in the world all have such different things going on in the mobile space.
09:09 - Introducing Travis from EA Mobile.
09:10 - Head of worldwide studios for EA mobile. Giving some more background about himself. He feels there is no better time to work in the video game industry as now.
09:12 - Mobile is evolving at a shocking rate. Going to talk about the business up front.
09:13 - EA mobile is number 1 worldwide mobile publisher. In mobile you have to address all the new mobile devices as they come. Porting is a huge issue, EA ports their games to as many phones as they possibly can, if you want to succeed then you have to.
09:14 - Smartphones are looking to be the big thing for mobile gaming. The percentage of smartphone sales is growing very fast.
09:15 - 20% of handset sales is smartphones. Java is still profitable in Europe, but the rest of games are decreasing, smartphones still growing. Asia is not doing well with Java, it’s decreased almost 10 percent.
09:17 - Smartphone sales are up almost 14 percent year over year. If smartphones are up so much, and consumers who buy smartphones are buying more stuff why no increase in sales? Because a lot of smartphones are not good for gaming.
09:20 - Distribution is so important. It’s crucial to have good distribution to get your games in consumers hands. In 2007 the iPhone. They knew the iPhone was a powerful device and they really wanted to be a part of it. It’s a highly flexible device and they had to redirect a lot of their organization to make it work on the iPhone.
09:24 - 800 Million apps have been downloades, and the most downloaded apps are games. Time to start demonstrating stuff.
09:25 - Showing Tiger Woods. Looks as good as ever, fully rendered 3d character, used motion capture. The caddy is telling him how to take his next shot. Demonstrates putting spin on the ball. Right in the sand trap hehe. On the green now, almost sinks the long put. Looks good though.
09:26 - Next demonstration is involving social networking. Talking about the power of Facebook, Josh Elamn is coming up to talk about Facebook. So many people use Facebook. Gaming is one of the most used parts of the Facebook platforms. Scrabble is one of the biggest apps on Facebook. It has over million users. Talking about Facebook connect for iPhone. Very cool way to interact facebook with iPhone.
09:31 - Showing the new Scrabble update that lets you interact with Facebook from your iPhone. When you update and log in you will automatically see all your profile pictures and friends who have the app and all of that. They seem to be having an issue connecting with Facebook. (the Wifi in here is not very good, I’m tethering - Dave)
09:33 - Got it working. When you click invite friends you will see you local phone contacts as well as your facebook friends. If you click my games, it will show you all of your games that you currently have running on facebook. Josh and Louis are playing one on one scrabble, Josh is on Facebook on a MAC and Louis is on an iPhone. Josh is sending a chat from his computer and we see it on the screen on the iPhone. Putting together a word, which gets validated, and then shows up on Josh’s computer. While you wait for your opponent to go, you can check his stats or just create a whole new game and play that and come back to your game after.
09:36 - So easy to get new games with your friends on the phone or on Facebook.
09:37 - Talking about great cool is was when the update launched last night, and how the realized how big it is the actually be able to do this. It’s a free update if you done already have the game.
09:39 - Travis is talking about how far games have come in general, and now talking about how far games have come on mobile from snake on an old Nokia to the amazing visuals on the iPhone today.
09:40 - Showing video of all the games we broke in the story on here. (No gameplay, just logos for the games.)
09:41 - End of Keynote, and end of live blog.
See you all soon, we are previewing a lot of games today so keep it locked here.
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