I'm not a gamer. But I've probably bought 10 games in the last 6 months, which probably exceeds all the games I have ever bought, ever. Why? Because there are iPhone games, which I tend to play on tubes and trains and bored in bars. And sometimes for 5 mins in bed, before going to sleep.
And for a few bucks, it's not really breaking the bank. There's a lot of money in iPhone development at the moment, particularly because it's the new frontier, it's a growing market, and a £2.99 hit that a million punters buy is about £2 million smackeroos.
I think we're in the first wave of apps. It's a new system (in a scientific sense) and it will take a while to reach equilibrium. I think there next phase (or a next phase) will be federated services and frameworks.
So for example, the three games I'm playing at the moment are
* Chess with friends (networked)
* Frenzic (networked scores)
* Fieldrunners (no networking)
The important thing here is not the games (although theory are all great, go and get them) but my comment in brackets after the games.
Most games can be enhanced with some sort of networking. Playing a friend always beats playing a computer. At the very least being higher than a friend on a scoreboard is always good fun.
Now running and maintaining your own online networked score board isn't easily. Sure it might not be hard, but you could be a great indie game developer but a lousy web guy.
This is where I think a range of federated services and frameworks are going to come in. Some really smart web guys can build and license this to some really smart app guys, and you have a new business model. Hell if I had a packet of VC this is what I would be doing.
There is also significant first mover advantage here, as who ever builds the biggest network first, becomes the network everyone wants to use. Note, this isn't about building a social network. It's about building the framework, and letting other people build the social layer. Think for Fireeagle than Facebook.
So lets use the leader board as an example. Fenzic has one. But I want to know who my friends are, and what there scores are. To do this I have to go to each friends and find out if they have the game. And the same for every other game I play.
Much easier if there is a federated leader board framework. On this system, it knows the games I play and it knows my address book (hashed,secured, private, protected etc). I upload my Frenzic score, and it knows which of my friends also play the game and what there scores are. The games could then build in features like "Destructor just PWND your Frenzic score" etc etc ...
The framework could then also monazite further by Amazon / Last.fm style recommendations, as it would know what games you play "a lot" and what games other people who play the same games "a lot" like. Those recommendations have marketing value.
The federated system could also be extended by providing further game network features to game developers for different licensing costs. Board games have different requirements to FPS games, but the requirements aren't so different for each category.
The whole ideology can be of course extended beyond games too. Games just make it easy to explain.
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