Pocket Gamer's man on the scene, Stu Dredge, has been live-blogging the 2008 Nokia Games Summit from Rome, and he's just attended EA Mobile's presentation regarding its opinion on the future of N-Gage. The verdict? EA wants to play, but Nokia isn't making it easy.
In many ways it's refreshing to see EA didn't just go up on stage for a big, girly Nokia love-in. It laid out its dreams and its issues with the N-Gage system fairly and openly – not afraid to tell the world that right now the iPhone is a far more effective money mill than the N-Gage.
"As a publisher, we will make twice the revenue from selling an iPhone game in Italy than we will from selling an N-Gage game at the same price," explains EA Mobile's Peter Parmenter. "We need to work together on the economics. I think it's easier to get an audience with the Pope than it is to get a game through certification at Nokia."
But it's not all hard heels and huff. EA genuinely wants to get onboard the N-Gage train, and Parmenter was just as forthcoming about what he believes Nokia has got right (as well as the long list of items it apparently needs to address).
"Yes, they've created a great ecosystem for the distribution of high-quality games," says Parmenter. "There's a lot of free games, and we don't know if the market will be able to sustain that. Time will tell. However, from a customer experience perspective, everyone's in agreement that they've created something very special, and it's shaken things up."
Head on over to PocketGamer.Biz to read the full blog – it's an incredible enlightening peek behind the iron curtain of mobile game production.
And stay tuned for more hot blogging direct from Rome.
