STACK #184 Feb 2020

LIFE TECH FEATURE

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Gaming on your phone has come a long way since the humble days of Snake. Words Adam Colby

TELCO FEATURE

A friend’s girlfriend recently declared that she had never played a video game and had no idea – or interest – in what they were about. “But you play Candy Crush ?”, the boyfriend countered. “Yeah, but that’s not a video game.” There was once a time when gaming was solely for gamers. It was an exclusive club coveted by those who held a membership and derided by those didn’t understand it. Barriers were rarely crossed, games and the devices designed to play them were designed by gamers for gamers. Genres would come and go as each new generation brought a tide of nascent technology that pushed the realms of video game development into exciting and unexplored territories. But it was all very black and white; the borders were defined and rarely crossed. You were either a gamer or you weren’t. And that suited everyone. But canny business folk within the games industry realised that in order to increase the bottom line, the customer base would need to expand, and thus gaming as a medium evolved to compensate. It was Nintendo’s little white box that threw the door open to a new audience of gamers. The Wii, with its novelty motion controllers and broad range of software that appealed to mums and dads looking to get fit, right up to a game of archery with the grandparents. Barriers were dropped and a new wave of players/customers dubbed ‘casual gamers’ by the media became hooked on interactive entertainment. Eventually Nintendo realised that its core audience had deserted and in a 360, the Japanese gaming giant’s attention switched. But what now for the legions of ‘casuals’ turned on to video games? Enter the mobile phone.

A new decade The next big step in mobile gaming came with the introduction of wireless application protocol, or WAP technology. This meant that users could now download basic text adventure-style games and enabled support for multiplayer. From here, the levy broke and the implementation of new operating

In the beginning There was once a time when owning a Nokia 6110 and playing the pre- installed Snake on a monochrome screen was seen as the pinnacle of mobile phone technology. Yes, 1997 would prove to be a defining year in mobile gaming. Tetris had featured on a phone three years earlier made by Danish company Hagenuk, but Snake on the 6110 was where it was at, and the simple dots and lines maze-style game became the essential companion on every commute. Utilising the 6110’s built-in infrared port, users could even play the first mobile multiplayer games of Snake too. The first step had been taken and before long simple card games and even basic shooters chased out the 20th century.

systems would see the beginning of more complex games in colour coming around the turn of the century. Following the cycle in the early ‘80s, where arcade games began to be ported to console and home computers, the big publishers sat up and took note, and before long basic console ports began to arrive.

56 FEBRUARY 2020

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