GamesOnDeck Feature: 'N-Gage Arena: Nokia's Tomi Huttula'

For the latest feature for Gamasutra sister mobile game news site GamesOnDeck, we talk with Tomi Huttula, Head of Arena Product Management for Nokia, about how the company intends to grow the N-Gage Arena into "the biggest and the most active mobile gaming community." In this interview, our third look at Nokia's plans for its next generation N-Gage following an interview with Nokia's director of games publishing, Gregg Sauter, and an editorial from Dr Mark Ollila, head of games publishing, N-Gage's Arena project head Huttala talks about how to coalesce the "690 000 registered members in 190 countries and 320 carriers" it currently boasts into an active and flourishing community. In this excerpt, Huttala says the Arena need not be a place for the mobile 'hardcore,' and that even the most casual title could and should be as connected and communal as the rest: "As said, the easy game discovery and great offline game play are already attractive differentiators for everyone enjoying mobile game play, but I think it is wrong to assume that casual games should not have great graphics and not be connected. On the PC there are several examples of very casual but connected games. What we are looking for is that game developers start innovating on how to create games really fitting the mobile space and learn to take advantage of the connectivity as the natural element in mobile devices. Consumers definitely understand the connected nature of the phones, so this is not an unfamiliar concept for them. We just need to offer the connectivity in the right way, and not try to copy directly what connectivity means in the game consoles. Our role with the N-Gage platform is to provide the tools for mobile game developers to do this." You can now read the full GamesOnDeck feature on the subject, with more from Huttala on Arena's features, community chat, and perceived competitors (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external websites).