When I was asked to speak at the third annual Mobile and Online Games forum earlier this month, I was surprised—I'm not exactly a mobile-gaming expert or even a fan. I realized that my presence must have been intended as a bit of counter-programming—perhaps the naysayer voice. Ah, now there was a role I could warm up to. And so I began to map out my speech.

I would begin my speech…

In all honesty, I'm not a big believer in mobile gaming. I just don't get it. I am positively stunned at the size and popularity of this market (huge in Europe, exploding here). There are hundreds of games, dozens of Web sites, and many companies making lots of money producing all manner of games (from the simple golf game to the more complicated run-and-shoot to adult strip poker—in fact, there seems to be a preponderance of the latter).

The audience should feel me warming to my topic.

But what's the attraction of mobile gaming? I mean, look at these things. A typical mobile phone's screen is an inch or so wide and a couple of inches long. What's worse, you play on a keypad roughly the size of a playing card. Who can play an action game without getting a terrible phalanx-based cramp? I guess I understand grown men warming up to these games—those who are too embarrassed to carry around a Game Boy. They're happy to have a mobile phone for business calls and surreptitious gaming. "Look," they say, "I use the phone for work. Pay no attention to the strip poker game on the screen…" But these guys have to be a small slice of the market, right?

And why would the target market—kids and teens—want to play games on a cell phone when they can play on the bigger, brighter screens and more useful controls found on a the Sony PSP, Nintendo DS and Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP?

I also thought the dual barriers of price and the difficulty of getting games onto the phones would surely present an insurmountable hurdle for mobile phone gaming success. And, until recently, high speeds on mobile phones were a pipe dream. Of course now we're watching video on our cell phones.

Hmm, that doesn't exactly support my theory. Perhaps I should strike the previous sentence. Nah, I'm sure I'll resolve it in the end.

So good, now we can download these 5MB to 15MB, $5 to $12 (today's typical sizes and prices) games with ease, but are they playable or compelling?

At this point, the audience might perceive me as antigaming. If they haven't been reading my columns, that would be a fair assumption. But loyal readers know that I own a GameCube, that I have tried Xbox, and that I—well, maybe they don't know this—have been playing first-person shooter games on my PC since the days of Wolfenstein 3D. No, I'm over-thinking this. I know games and can become as obsessed about them as the next person.

I'm sorry, but the new wave of mobile-gaming enthusiasm, heck, even the prospect of speaking at this forum [must remember to insert name of conference here] failed to convince me that I was standing at the brink of something big.

Huh? This isn't going as I had planned. Can I have a change of heart mid-speech? I guess I have to admit that I'm torn. Odd. I thought I knew what this speech was going to be about until a week ago. I guess I can recount what happened and throw myself on the mercy of the stage. Here's hoping no one brought tomatoes.

But that was before two recent events forced me to reconsider my position on mobile gaming.— Continue reading...