>>PRODUCT REVIEWS TIRA JUMP PRODUCT SUITE * SLICKEDIT 10 SEPTEMBER 2005 THE LEADING GAME INDUSTRY MAGAZINE >>HEADS UP DISPLAY >>STATE OF THE INDUSTRY >>MOBILIZE YOUR CONTENT PHONES WE LOVE FOR HOW GAMES FIT INTO PRACTICAL HINTS FOR THEIR PLAYING POWER THE MOBILE AGENDA YOUR PORTING BLUES MOBILE POSTMORTEM MOBILE BEFORE CRISIS: ISSUE FINAL FANTASY VII Still Using THAT Old Rag-Doll? Do your characters walk, climb, fall down, Unsurpassed cross-platform game get-up and interact just like...well, you? physics with an integrated animation system and tool chain They should! Enables next-generation character animation that blends physics and animation in real-time Includes HydraCore™ technology for multi-core and multi-threaded platforms Backed by the most experienced support in the middleware industry Havok Complete™ Any genre. Any situation. www.havok.com []CONTENTS SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLUME 12, NUMBER 8 FEATURES 11 STATE OF THE INDUSTRY: MOBILE GAMES Over the last few years, the North American mobile phone market has grown by leaps and bounds, and the mobile game industry now represents a rapidly growing revenue stream for the market leaders. But how is the interaction between developers, publishers, and carriers shifting as the market matures? In this state of the industry report, Paul Hyman investigates what the market holds for all the major stakeholders. By Paul Hyman 19 BUSINESS LEVEL: THE TIPPING POINT Each year, the line separating wireless and console/PC gaming blurs, as do the design 11 fundamentals behind them. Is having cross platform design a step that all games can leverage in the future? Mike Yuen takes this concept as a starting point and discusses the connection between wireless and traditional gaming platforms. By Mike Yuen 23 MOBILIZING CONTENT: PORTING GAMES FOR MOBILE DEVICES POSTMORTEM Every cell phone used to play games is different, sometimes startlingly different in 28 MOBILE POSTMORTEM: BEFORE CRISIS: FINAL FANTASY VII terms of hardware, and porting games for the mobile market is full of thorny but intriguing When Square Enix decided to take its classic FINAL FANTASY VII franchise challenges for developers. This article looks onto mobile platforms, the developers quickly realized that working with at some of the common problems and established intellectual property needn’t restrict the game style. The possible solutions for those making multiple game that resulted uses the platform’s camera and network functionality SKUs of mobile games effectively, from innovatively to weave a side-story to the classic RPG, but development of palette swapping to compression methods. 23 the title wasn’t without its difficulties. From the stiff technical requirements to the game’s initial popularity, the creators explain how By Mike Ying, Jacob Abrams, Vikas Gupta, they created a landmark mobile game in this month’s postmortem. Bob Whiteman, and Kal Iyer By Kosei Ito DEPARTMENTS COLUMNS 2 GAME PLAN By Simon Carless 34 INNER PRODUCT By Sean Barrett [PROGRAMMING] Memphis Blues Immediate Mode GUIs 4 HEADS UP DISPLAY 38 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore [ART] Mobile news, G-Phoria, Microsoft Meltdown wrap, and more. Eyes Right 7 SKUNK WORKS By Mathew Kumar and Justin Lloyd 40 GAME SHUI By Noah Falstein [DESIGN] Tira Jump Product Suite and SlickEdit 10 Don’t Cell Out 48 A THOUSAND WORDS 41 AURAL FIXATION By Alexander Brandon [AUDIO] Capybara Games’ PLANT LIFE Audio Budgets COVER ART COURTESY OF SQUARE ENIX WWW.GDMAG.COM 1 GAME PLAN [] www.gdmag.com CMP Media, 600 Harrison St., 6th Fl., San Francisco, CA 94107 t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090 EDITORIAL EDITOR Simon Carless [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR Jill Duffy [email protected] ASSISTANT EDITOR Brandon Sheffield [email protected] ART DIRECTOR Cliff Scorso [email protected] MEMPHIS BLUES INTERNS Alan Bank, editorial & Rebecca Nickodemus, design CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Sean Barrett [email protected] Alexander Brandon [email protected] Noah Falstein [email protected] Steve Theodore [email protected] ADVISORY BOARD Hal Barwood Designer-at-Large Dave Pottinger Ensemble Studios A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, THE CONCEPT OF DOING Ellen Guon Beeman Monolith George Sanger Big Fat Inc. an entire issue of Game Developer on mobile on mobile game porting (pg. 23). From problems Andy Gavin Naughty Dog Harvey Smith Midway phone game development might have been met with restricted heap sizes, all the way to differing Joby Otero Luxoflux Paul Steed Microsoft ADVERTISING SALES with a little skepticism from some quarters. J2ME implementations, there are a host of NATIONAL SALES MANAGER But today, with major console and handheld interesting, unique problems to be addressed, Afton Thatcher e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6217 SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER, EAST COAST, EUROPE & EASTERN CANADA game publishers streaming into the mobile space, and this article helps to do just that. Ayrien Machiran e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6224 and a rapidly stratifying set of mobile-only ACCOUNT MANAGER, SO. CALIF., SOUTH WEST, CONTRACTORS & MARKETPLACE Susan Kirby e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6226 developers and publishers who are producing BIZ LEVEL UP ACCOUNT MANAGER, NO. CALIF., NORTH WEST, ASIA & WESTERN CANADA increasingly interesting, competitive, and Of course, we’re also featuring all our traditional Nick Geist e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6223 ACCOUNT MANAGER, GLOBAL RECRUITMENT/EDUCATION & TEXAS handsome products, it’s high time that all of us columns for the issue, and whether you’d like to Aaron Murawski e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6227 sat down and had a proper look at what the mobile know more about computer-generated eyes or ADVERTISING PRODUCTION market has to offer. new tactics regarding effective estimation for in- ADVERTISING PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Kevin Chanel Firstly, when looking for a postmortem for this game audio costing, our regular columnists REPRINTS Julie Rapp e: [email protected] t: 510.834.4752 GAME GROUP MARKETING issue, there was one particular flagship game we should be referred to immediately. DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS STRATEGY Michele Maguire were itching to feature, and as you can see from Plus, we’ve got another special Business Level DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Tara C. Gibb our cover, the makers of BEFORE CRISIS: FINAL column, this time by Mike Yuen of Qualcomm MARKETING MANAGER Kathleen Cheng FANTASY VII at Square Enix in Tokyo were able to (pg. 19), talking about possible mobile and CMP GAME GROUP VP, GROUP PUBLISHER APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES Philip Chapnick accommodate us and write a detailed account of console/PC game convergence, and both a CONFERENCE DIRECTOR, GDC Jamil Moledina how they made this wholly separate side story mobile game-themed Thousand Words art piece ASSOCIATE CONFERENCE DIRECTOR, GDC Susan Marshall to FINAL FANTASY VII. and a Heads Up Display that takes a look at the EXECUTIVE WEB PRODUCER Peter Leahy EDITOR, GAMASUTRA.COM Simon Carless From innovative use of mobile phone cameras, latest mobile handsets and their suitability for FEATURES EDITOR, GAMASUTRA.COM Quang Hong to intriguing ways of leveraging network features, game-related key-pounding. CIRCULATION this action-strategy game strived to be different. CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Kevin Regan e: [email protected] But naturally, in using complex hardware and CIRCULATION ASSISTANT MANAGER Jessica Ward e: [email protected] TELEVISION PERSONALITIES CIRCULATION COORDINATOR Miguel Mendiolaza e: [email protected] building off such a well-loved franchise, there Finally, we’d like to bid a fond farewell to our Inner CIRCULATION ASSISTANT Michael Campbell e: [email protected] were possible pitfalls as well as massive Product columnist Sean Barrett. Sean has been CIRCULATION ASSISTANT Adrea Abidor e: [email protected] advantages, which the team details (pg. 28). invaluable at analyzing a multitude of code SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND ADDRESS CHANGES issues relevant to our industry, and we’re very t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606 e: [email protected] CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? sorry to see him go, even if his figures, diagrams, INTERNATIONAL LICENSING INFORMATION For those not working directly in the mobile game listings, and tables make our underpowered Mario Salinas e: [email protected] t: 650.513.4234 f: 650.513.4482 industry, the most confusing question is probably journalistic heads ache. CMP MEDIA MANAGEMENT the simplest: What exactly is the focus, extent, Despite Mr. Barrett’s departure, the Inner PRESIDENT AND CEO, Gary Marshall and growth pattern of the North American mobile Product column won’t be going anywhere. If you EXECUTIVE VP & CFO, John Day EXECUTIVE VP AND COO, Steve Weitzner game market? Fortunately, Paul Hyman has dug have feedback regarding what you’d like to see EXECUTIVE VP, CORPORATE SALES & MARKETING, Jeff Patterson up some answers in his “State of the Industry: covered in the column in the future, or, indeed, EXECUTIVE VP, HUMAN RESOURCES, Leah Landro Mobile Games” article (pg. 11). comments and suggestions on what the other CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, Mike Mikos SENIOR VP, OPERATIONS, Bill Amstutz Through a series of interviews with many of the columnists have been up to, contact us at the SENIOR VP, CMP INTEGRATED MARKETING SOLUTIONS, Joseph Braue major players in the development/publishing and usual address: [email protected]. SENIOR VP AND GENERAL COUNSEL, Sandra Grayson mobile carrier arenas, Hyman’s reporting provides Now, if you’ll excuse me, the allure of mobile SENIOR VP, COMMUNICATIONS, Alexandra Raine SENIOR VP, CORPORATE MARKETING, Kate Spellman a rounded picture of how the mobile game market gaming has me firmly in its thrall, and I’m off to VP, GROUP DIRECTOR OF INTERNET BUSINESS, Mike Azzara has evolved, and how it will continue to evolve. play one of those terminally addictive PopCap- CORPORATE DIRECTOR, AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT, Shannon Aronson licensed games on a mobile handset we tested for CORPORATE DIRECTOR, CREATIVE SERVICES, Kellie Ferris CORPORATE DIRECTOR, PUBLISHING SERVICES, Marie Myers HARD TO PORT, CAPTAIN the Heads Up Display feature.