Day 2 Keynote - Chris Early, Studio Manager, Microsoft Casual Games Group
Whew, just made it in time. Everyone seems a lot more relaxed than yesterday, and a lot more hungover (I guess they were partying with Trip too).
9:15 - Here we go. Once again we have conference chair Matthew Bellows straight talkin’ about the industry. We’re starting to perk up a little bit; the first stage of the industry was based on casual adoption, the second stage on carriers dropping the price of higher-end handsets. But that�s not enough - it would just be tv before cable (i.e. not reaching our full potential). Innovation from all sides is necessary to prevent this from happening.
Ask any informed mobile gamer (i.e. QuicklyBored reader) about the major problems impeding the progress of the mobile games industry and you’ll probably get them saying something like this: getting games not offered through my carrier is difficult (or in some cases, impossible), multiplayer gaming generally sucks, and why does it matter that my buddy has a phone from Verizon and I have a Sprint phone?