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The future of mobile gaming: What our favourite devs want to see in 2015

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The future of mobile gaming: What our favourite devs want to see in 2015
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2015 is in its infancy. It's a mewling slip of a year, still full of left-overs and hangovers from 2014.

There's a whole 11-and-a-bit months stretching out before us though, so we thought it was the perfect time to catch up with some of our favourite developers and see what they hope happens to mobile gaming in 2015.

The results range from the obvious to the difficult, from the sublime to the slightly surreal. Some of the interviews were done in person at Pocket Gamer Connects in London, others were conducted over email.

Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments at the bottom of the article, we'd love to here what you want more of in the mobile gaming sphere this year.

Premium content

For Mike Bithell, developer of literal shape-shifting platformer Thomas Was Alone and upcoming Vita stealth game Volume, 2015 is all about premium experiences.

"I want to be proven right, basically, that you know what - people that play games on mobile are happy to pay if the content is amazing.

"If it's right for them. If it's a good game, people want to pay for that experience. Giving someone something that doesn't hassle them for more money, that doesn't treat them in a way that drives them towards free to play loops. I think people are ready to have games that are just fun again.

"So I want people to take the absolutely impressive risk of trying it, because it is working in a few games. Thomas Was Alone was a premium price game and we made good money on it and Monument Valley made much better money on theirs. It's doable. It's possible."

Risky business

And Jon Ingold, creative director of Inkle, the studio behind the sublime 80 Days, is all for taking risks as well.

"I want to see more premium games with higher price points. I want to see more people telling the audience that complains that three pounds is too much for a game to fuck right off. They don't have to play my games if they don't want to.

"I want to see more experiences which fulfil the promise that they set out to the player. The flip side of wanting to charge more is you actually have to deliver what you're saying you're going to deliver.

"And a lot of mobile games and indie games they come up with this idea, they say 'we've got this idea, we're going to create this experience which is like this,' and you play it and you go 'I see where you're going, but you're not there.'

"So that's something I want to see, and that I want to keep striving for for us. It's a really tough thing to ask people to do, because it basically means spend more time, spend more money, and take more risk, which is really hard. But I'd love to see it."

An inkle-ing

Joe Humfrey, Design Director at Inkle agrees, although he's worried about the space for premium experiences being eroded away by the inherent risk that they won't make any money.

"I think that my desires for this year are actually quite modest. I just want to see this space not disappear. I'm increasingly concerned that people are realising premium releases are commercially not very viable.

"And I just want that industry, that kind of sub, niche industry of premium on mobile and tablet to just continue to thrive, and for there to be great experiences that you can pay a fiver for.

"I think there's also not enough trust from players that the purchase they're going to spend more than three pounds on will actually be any good. And so it's kind of a bit of a catch-22."

More mobile, less mobile

For Ben Meakin, Community Manager at Miniclip, who was showing off interesting looking Zelda-meets-Infinity Blade adventure Beast Quest at PGC, 2015 needs to be about mobile and tablet games that make use of the platform they're being developed for.

"I still don't feel there's enough games that really take advantage of mobiles and tablets as a physical object. I'm thinking of Simogo here with Year Walk and Device 6 - I could not imagine playing those games on anything other than a tablet.

"You're holding it in your hands, and there's this fidelity of something rushing at you, and there are moments when you're stepping your fingers and it becomes a physical act - you're not just dragging you're actually walking with your fingers.

"And there are puzzles where you have to turn it upside down. And that blew me away because I hadn't seen anything like that on mobile. And to my frustration I've still not seen that many things that actually do that, or at least that aren't coming out of that studio.

"Last year was the first year I'd be playing mobile games in new places, so sat at home on the sofa, as opposed to on a train, on the tube, and I want more games to take advantage of the fact that mobile itself is a platform that has physical properties that can really enhance the game experience."

Tap happy new year

For Alistair Aitcheson, developer of Slam Jet Stadium and massive touchscreen multiplayer BIP winner Tap Happy Sabotage, 2015 needs to be a year of new discoveries, of new ways of finding games, and new methods of delivering them to players.

"I think the app stores are quite small, limited windows, and there's only so much space in new and noteworthy, there's only so much space in the top ten, there's very limited visibility. For years developers have been saying 'oh, Apple needs to fix this, Google needs to fix this,' and I feel like that's been the wrong question.

"I feel like there must be other ways to broadcast games to specific interest groups, to draw their attention to games that they wouldn't have realised were even there otherwise.

"Or some game that reaches an audience in another way, that uses physical space or an engagement with a particular community that has a relevance with that community. That becomes 'this is our game' and reaches its audience that way.

"I don't know what the answer to that question is, but what I would really like to see is someone finding that answer."

Unity, bundles, and Rogue-likes

Luke Schneider from Radiangames thinks mobile games did pretty well for themselves in 2014, and would like to see that trend continue. And from a developer's point of view he'd like better Android support in Unity, and an easier way to focus on multiple platforms.

"I think that's the worst part of mobile development. There are too many platforms to support for small developers. Based on 2014, if I spent all my time on iOS (and nothing else), I could probably make more games in less time and come out about even."

Neil Rennison from Tin Man Games would like to see more app stores introducing bundles, as well as new avenues opening up for devs to get noticed.

"iOS bundles have been a really great way to sell our apps and it would be great if Google and Amazon followed suit!

"As I say every year, I really hope there are more ways for devs to get exposure rather simply hoping for a feature and I want a lot more of that promotion for premium titles.

"I worry that this year we may start seeing some devs falling by the wayside because they struggle to get noticed, despite having great games with great reviews."

And Kepa Auwae of Rocketcat Games, the dev behind Wayward Souls, one of the few games to get a perfect 10 from Pocket Gamer in 2015, would like more roguelikes.

"More super fast paced, turn-based Roguelike-inspired games please. Like 868-Hack, Zaga-33, Hoplite, Nightmare Cooperative, Power Grounds, and so on. That's all I ever play anymore, so I could use more of them."

Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.