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INTERVIEW: Infinite Ventures |
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Written by beersoft
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Friday, 27 February 2004 |
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Here is the first in our series of interviews with the movers and shakers in the smartphone world.
MSMobileNews: Who are you and what do you do?
Infinite Ventures: My name is Eugene Evans and I'm the founder and president of Infinite Ventures. We're an independent producer of games on all sorts devices including PDA's, Smartphones, DVD and some of the gaming consoles. Folks can read more about us at www.infiniteventures.com We've been putting a lot of time into developing and publishing a line of PDA and Smartphone games that you can check out at www.portable-games.com
MSMobileNews: How long has your company been involved in making games?
Infinite Ventures: Since it was founded in 1997. I've actually been involved in games development in one way or another for 21 years.
MSMobileNews: Which of your games do you enjoy playing the most?
Infinite Ventures: For sheer fun I like Drive-Thru Poker on the Smartphone. It's quick, easy to play and addictive! We'll soon be releasing Tetranoid and this ultra-graphic update of Breakout is a blast!
MSMobileNews: Do you own a smartphone? if so which one?
Infinite Ventures: I am always carrying around whatever the latest phone is that we have for development. I'm currently carrying a Smartphone 2003 phone from HTC. I believe it's the phone that Orange makes available. This is my day-to-day phone.
MSMobileNews: What where your first impressions of the smartphone? Most people I have spoken to had very low opinions of it until they used it, and now they all have a smartphone
Infinite Ventures: I agree with peoples impressions. The Microsoft Smartphone only gets better the more you use it and Smartphone 2003 really makes a big difference in the feel. The first time you need to call someone and the number is there because it was brought over by ActiveSync from Outlook you can only smile.
The growing library of useful software will only make it even more attractive in the future.
MSMobileNews: Do you think that smartphones will replace the low end PDA market? And if so how long do you think it will be before Smartphones and PDA's merge as one?
Infinite Ventures: I don't think one will ever replace the other. There will always be room for low and high end PDA's and phones. People have different needs. The question is what will the majority of people prefer. I think most people will be happy to carry around just a Smartphone,.
MSMobileNews: Can an all in one device such as a Smartphone succeed against its separate counterparts (MP3 player, camera, pda etc)
Infinite Ventures: In time it may. The Smartphone with a decent sized memory card is a perfectly fine MP3 player. Right now the phone can't replace a decent digital camera. The low resolution of images, lack of zoom and flash mean that it's not useful for much more than snap shots for fun and those features will get expensive in a phone for at least a couple of years. If your PDA needs are mainly contacts and calendar a Smartphone will do fine.
MSMobileNews: As a mobile gaming platform, do you think the smartphone platform is viable, comparing it to all the JAVA, BREW and N Gauge/symbian based platforms?
Infinite Ventures: Yes, it kicks *#@! The Microsoft Smartphone is the best mobile phone gaming platform on the market and should be for sometime. The phones have fast processors, great screens, decent memory availability especially with a memory card inserted, great audio and reasonable controls.
MSMobileNews: When do you think Microsoft Smartphone will possess the power to run 3D games ?
Infinite Ventures: I don't think that is too far out. We could see it within 18 months to 2 years. ATI and nVidia (the leaders in 3D tech for PC's) have already said they're developing low cost, low power 3D hardware. It will be a while before they actually appear in phones.
MSMobileNews: Out of the current smartphone games released by other developers, which do you play?
Infinite Ventures: I actually haven't had much time to play too many other Smartphone games.
MSMobileNews: The smartphone market is mostly aimed at men, have you developed or plan to develop software which is aims to attract more women to smartphones?
Infinite Ventures: I disagree with the statement that they're aimed at men. My wife carries a Smartphone and loves it for the same reasons as everyone else. I would say that at the moment they're mainly targeting business executives with the appeal of the Activesync link to Outlook. We're not going to do anything special to appeal to women. We're developing games with a broad range of appeal.
MSMobileNews: Now that we have windows mobile 2003 with .net framework on the latest phones, do you think it's a good thing for development? Or do you think java is better suited to mobile gaming
Infinite Ventures: I think developing in C is the best approach for games but it really depends upon the games needs and the developer. If you're doing a simple game then java could be perfect. An experienced C developer with a library of code is hard to beat.
MSMobileNews: Will we be seeing more ports of pocketpc games on the smartphone platform?
Infinite Ventures: Yes, I think we will. We'll soon have four games out. However, not all games will port. Our adventure games (Shadowgate, Déjà vu & Uninvited) would require quite a work over to port them to the Smartphone due to the smaller resolution of the displays. These games have graphics that really take advantage of the 320x200 display. If Microsoft's rumored move to 320x240 displays for Smartphones in the next year or two turns out to be true we could see a ton more ports.
MSMobileNews: Out of all the classic video games that have been released in the past 30 years; things like pacman, space invaders moving on to things like double dragon and outrun, up to modern games like street fighter and tekken, which would you like to see on a mobile platform?
Infinite Ventures: My favorite arcade games were Pacman, Galaga, Scramble, Tempest and Robotron. Some of these have been converted, some have been cloned but it will always be hard to truly capture the coolness of Robotron's two joystick action.
MSMobileNews: Can you give us any news or gossip on upcoming Smartphones games you have in production?
Infinite Ventures: Lands of Shadowgate is finally in early beta. There is still a chance for people to sign-up to beta test. It's been in development much longer than we had hoped but we think the wait will prove well worth while. This is our fantasy multi-player turn-based strategy game. It will be coming out for Pocket PC first. What's cool is that it is multiplayer even without your Pocket PC being connected to the internet--play through wifi or through the cradle. We call it Play-by-Sync. Players can sign-up to be a beta candidate at www.landsofshadowgate.com. Shortly after the Pocket PC release we hope to have the Smartphone version ready. This will prove to be very cool because players will be able to play each other from anywhere. We really think we've come up with a new paradigm for multiplayer gaming on phones.
I'd just like to thank you for the chance to talk with your readers. We'll be sure to keep everyone informed of our new Smartphone releases.
we would like to thank Eugene for taking the time to talk to us, and we will have some exclusive reviews of some of Infinite Ventures games in the next few weeks.
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