"The problem lies in the Tao of Pikachu. Pokémon became so much more than a game. It became one of those ludicrous kids' phenomena, a Tickle-Me Harry Potter that inspired media hype and religious hate across all boundaries and creeds, that its soul - one man's dream encapsulated in a Game Boy cart - was forgotten."
Gearoid Reidy captures the essence of a good game gone bad in "The Tao of Pikachu."
"Doesn't 'free' sound a lot better? Greystripe, Inc.'s Gamejump offers over 300 free cell phone games for download, in exchange for about 30 seconds of your time. Download as many games as you want, turn over your email address and zip code, and instead of charging per-download, the games display short, targeted full-screen ads every time they're booted up."
Joe Blancato looks at "The Free Future of Mobile Gaming."
"Back when Logan was last renovated, sometime in the 1980s, electrical outlets were only good for plugging in the occasional vacuum cleaner and were located on walls or columns easy for cleaning workers to locate ... and away from most of the terminal seating. Therefore, most often, The Seat is not even a seat at all, rather a space of floor near an outlet upon which a power-seeking passenger must squat. But every once in a while, a Logan traveler will come across a Seat that is exactly that: an honest-to-Vishnu chair near a power outlet.
"In the past decade or so, these Seats have become as rare as unicorns, and last Christmas, as I trundled from The Screening to The Wait, I spotted one. It was empty. I almost wept. And then I ran."
Russ Pitts explains why "Mario Smells Like Mothballs."
"'The first issue [for publishers] is making sure the carriers will place their game, so their first priority is coming up with a name people will recognize. The problem is that the market forces them to become very conservative. In 2005, I was asked on the E3 and GDC stages, what were the main issues determining success in 2005-06 in the mobile gaming industry. I said "carrier relations and post-production." They asked, "What about creating innovative games?" I said, "You'll notice I didn't say anything about that."'"
Allen Varney speaks to Eric Goldberg about "Un-Laming Phone Games"
"One exciting ability of next-generation consoles is the ability to create realistic human characters with real emotions. Certainly, exploring emotion isn't a bad thing, but when it is one of a game's main features, you can bet there hasn't been much focus on actual gameplay. There are only so many hours in a programmer's week, after all."
John Scott describes why mobile games provide a "Better Way to Play."