Truly mobile games link GPS, Wi-Fi to cell phone

The mobile gaming world is targeting mass-market users with “one-thumb” casual offerings that are simple to understand and easy to play. But one Orlando developer is hoping to find an audience with a line of sophisticated games that use GPS technology.
Your World Games Ltd. is putting the finishing touches on The Shroud, a location-aware multiplayer title starring Taro, a young farmer who collects items and trades for goods as he fights to defend his land from demons. The Shroud will allow players with GPS-enabled phones to take on challenges by physically moving into randomly determined “hot spots” nearby.
“We weren’t creating a GPS game just for the sake of creating a GPS game,” said Your World Vice President Robert Sprogis, noting that gamers can choose not to experience the game’s location-aware features. “We feel we have somewhat of a responsibility to educate the public of how to play location-based games. We like to teach them how to swim with their waders on, take them into the shallow end of the pool before they go into the deep end.”
Mobile enthusiasts and gaming geeks have long dreamt of mobile games that allow them to move into position to shoot an opponent, say, or capture an item in a scavenger hunt by snapping a photo. But so far, at least, location-aware games remain the domain of only the most hardcore wireless fans.
Blister Entertainment, a subsidiary of Canadian developer KnowledgeWhere Corp., drew attention more than a year ago by launching two GPS-supported games with Nextel Communications Inc., Boost Mobile L.L.C. and, eventually, Sprint Nextel Corp.’s iDEN network. Swordfish and Torpedo Bay largely failed to resonate among mobile gamers, though, leading KnowledgeWhere to focus on providing location technology for a host of applications instead of simply developing location-based games.
“Uptake (of the two games) has been small,” conceded Stephen Nykolyn, KnowledgeWhere’s VP of business development. “I think, for the most part, it was because the games didn’t hit a wide variety of handsets; not all could support it. Also, we couldn’t afford at the time to put a whole lot of marketing behind them.”
The location-based game market faces other substantial hurdles. GPS-enabled games often require expensive mapping data, and a server is required to provide location information, so games are typically more expensive than simpler titles. (Boost offered Swordfish at $6 for the first month and $3 for each additional month.) And most location-aware games to date require substantial mobility on the part of the user: they can’t be played indoors, for instance, or even near streets or in crowded areas.
Developers and carriers aren’t giving up hope, though. Carriers are beginning to offer a host of location-based services, and the number of GPS-capable handsets on the market is increasing steadily.
The Shroud may be the first high-profile location-aware game to come to market in the United States. The offering will get the benefit of marketing muscle from Sony BMG Music Entertainment, which is acting as co-publisher, and Sprogis claims the title will get deck space-a key for any wireless game. What’s more, The Shroud is a tiered offering: consumers with less-sophisticated phones or only a casual interest can pick up the game and ward off monsters alone, while gamers looking for a more immersive experience can experiment with the multiplayer and location-aware features.
While the game has yet to hit the market, it is already attracting the attention of the gaming world. Bloggers, enthusiasts and reviewers are slobbering over The Shroud, which in October garnered top honors from Game Informer as “the most ambitious game on the list” of top 10 mobile titles.
Your World plans to follow The Shroud with a handful of other titles, all of which will offer a GPS-enabled component. And while each game will include “mini-games” designed for casual, two-minute engagements, the company is hoping to lure the most demanding mobile gamers with sophisticated storylines and cutting-edge technology.
“This game definitely does have an appeal to hardcore gamers,” Sprogis said. “They have not been a targeted demographic in the mobile space yet because people think they don’t exist. But they do. I assure you.”