Nokia Games Summit Review, and some Moket announcements

Well, it's been an interesting time in Rome to say the least. Why? Well, for a few reasons.

I've been here demonstrating Moket's capabilities and Flash Lite games at the Nokia Games Summit. As you can imagine this type of event is mostly centered around platforms such as N-Gage, Java and Symbian. I was very pleased to get an invitation as a Flash Lite company, as I think it shows a shift in thinking towards the Flash mobile platform amongst device manufacturers and the industries that are built around them (such as mobile gaming).

I've had the chance to speak with representatives from EA, Glu, Gameloft, Digital Chocolate, Sega, I-Play, Nokia, and many other media and content developers. I quickly realised that most of my time was going to be spent in an education role - trying to help define the space that Flash Lite can exist in amongst these other technologies. We've long said that Flash Lite is not trying to be Java, but for some this is what I found to be the assumption as to what Flash Lite was trying to achieve, particularly in mobile gaming. I therefore had the pleasure of setting many people straight :) and showing them that Flash Lite does indeed present an opportunity for certain mobile experiences alongside these other platforms, and at a considerably smaller development cost.

What was great was to be able to demonstrate 2 new releases for Moket. One is our new Flash Lite casual game for Paramount Pictures - "Tropic Thunder Chopper Rescue". This is our first title under a new license  Moket has signed for Paramount Pictures mobile content, through our distribution partner Gambit Group. To be able to show a company like Paramount putting into the Flash mobile platform gave us some very good points and we sure spent them this week! Read more about our Paramount deal here on the Moket site.

The other great demo was the ported games we have created for the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (or the "Tube"). We have been working with Nokia prior to launch of this great new touch screen device, to bring Flash Lite games from regular S60 and "keypad driven" devices to the touch screen paradigm. We were showing the touch-version of our popular action puzzle game "Trench Rocket", and are also now working on delivering this title, plus Cipher, to the Nokia Download platform for sale for new 5800 customers once the device starts shipping.

Lastly, I'll remember this week for enduring two of the worst storms in the last 50 years in Rome! I happened to be walking to the venue to set up our display, with my Forum Nokia colleague Ung-Ping Tian, when the first storm hit on Tuesday night. Walking through a foot of rushing water (we were walking up a steep road), furious lightning and dark, un-lit Roman roads, did not get me off on the right foot for the conference! We arrived at the venue soaked to the bone, and around an hour late, and cursing Goggle Maps for giving us a false impression of how far it was! The second storm hit the event party last night, destroying the marquee we were all having drinks in, smashing glasses and lights, overturning tables and forcing everyone to scamper back down into Castel Sant' Angelo, where the party was being held. Let's just say Mother Nature didn't want to be left out of a mobile gaming conference, and forced her way onto the guest list! Well done to the organisers though who handled a freak cyclone in the middle of their luxurious corporate event with style!

All up it's been a fantastic time here at the Summit. I've met a lot of great people from all aspects of the mobile and gaming communities and business, and am looking forward to continuing conversations and business opportunities with them over the coming months. Thank you to Nokia for inviting us and we hopefully will see you all there again next year!