Mobile Editorial: 'Social Networking: The Next Generation of Mobile Gaming'

Author: by Staff

In the latest editorial on sister mobile site Games On Deck, Gamevil USA president Kyu C. Lee discusses how sites like MySpace and Facebook successfully influenced Korea mobile games like Mini-Lovely and Lapis Lazuli, and announces a new Gamevil title to use these concepts, USA: Big Trouble On Little Earth. In this excerpt, Lee explains how Big Trouble On Little Earth will make full use of social networking for the first time on US carriers: "This winter, Gamevil will be launching Big Trouble On Little Earth, the first title ever on AT&T to have the Challenge SMS feature. Big Trouble On Little Earth has various fun mini-games that players must achieve high scores in. After completing a mini-game, players have the option of sending a challenge note with their high scores to their friends who also have the same game. The receiver, who would see the challenge as a text message on his mobile phone, must then try to beat the high score of the challenger in the same mini-game. This further promotes game play among users and also encourages P2P distribution as users would recommend the game to other players and send challenges to them, thus creating a viral effect. The Challenge SMS feature has already proven to be successful in networking players in Korea when the game was first launched there. Currently, the total number of Challenge transactions has reached 784,239 in Korea. Korean Internet portals are overwhelmed by the number of users asking other players to challenge them, as users would even go so far as to post their phone numbers on a bulletin board." You can now read the full editorial on Games On Deck with more from Lee on how the feature has captured Korean mobile audiences, and how it might change the face of mobile gaming going forward.