GW2: Mini Mobile

GW2: Mini Mobile

in Suggestions

Posted by: Obscure One.4357

Obscure One.4357

Its no secret mobile gaming development sector is becoming a bigger and bigger player in the gaming industry as a whole. With projections expecting the industry to clear the $12,000,000,000 mark ( source) its rapidly becoming apparent larger studios can benefit from expanding their IP into the mobile market to snag a piece of that twelve billion dollar pie.

How does this apply to the Guild Wars IP? Simple, resume development on an existing project, the “Extended Experience” ( source Massively.com) with an added mini game to bridge the gap between the PC and mobile users. Notably when the E.E. for GW2 was announced they mentioned a very interesting advancement in the technology of their server architecture: the ability to push data from inside the game to outside of the game in real time. This may not seem like a huge deal to some, but if you think about the plethora of options that this creates for a developer the possibilities are limitless. Hence my suggestion for a mini game for GW2 designed for use on a mobile platform: Mini Mobile.

In both GW1 and GW2 there are little cosmetic items called minipets that basically don’t do much but follow your character around and look interesting. Mini Mobile would allow for these little previously exclusively cosmetic items to be used in a mobile game made in the likeness of a collectible card game (CCG). In this CCG players could use any of their unlocked mini pets to build a deck of 10, and battle other players or AI enemies for rewards. Rewards that would be beneficial to both the mobile game and the actual game, such as crafting materials, more minipets, laurel daily rewards, and so on.

Now why a CCG you ask? Production cost, pure and simple. Arena Net has a huge amount of extremely high quality concept art done by some of the most talented artists in the industry such as Daniel Dociu and Kekai Kotaki. This library of art is what we call a sunk cost; you already spent the money for it and its already paid for itself, so future usage is essentially free. With this aspect out of the way, a potential developer would need to figure out how to create a fun, balanced, and rewarding game experience that appeals to not only its existing fan base, but also to a target audience that may have never even heard of Guild Wars, or MMOs at all for that matter.

Expanding the IP in this manner into the mobile industry means more money for NCSoft and greater justification for a larger development budget for Arena Net, which translates to a richer game. Happy parent company + happy development company = better product, and better products make happy consumers. I like being happy, and I happen to be a consumer, so it seems like a great idea to me.

With this in mind, what kinda mobile gaming options do you crazy kids out there in the webernet think would be a good fit for expanding the GW2 IP into the mobile frontier?

Circumventing profanity filters one kitten at a time.

GW2: Mini Mobile

in Suggestions

Posted by: Lodius.5392

Lodius.5392

I say don’t…. especially if it is:

A) Cross console … I don’t want to play with a group of people playing on their iphones or something. It will greatly ruin the game
B) Independent Game – NO NO NO, this would cause our PC player base to diminish and a few players go to that console type.

GW2: Mini Mobile

in Suggestions

Posted by: Obscure One.4357

Obscure One.4357

I say don’t…. especially if it is:

A) Cross console … I don’t want to play with a group of people playing on their iphones or something. It will greatly ruin the game
B) Independent Game – NO NO NO, this would cause our PC player base to diminish and a few players go to that console type.

“cross console” concepts aren’t really what I’m getting at here, I’m discussing a GW2 application for mobile platforms. I’m interested in seeing mini pets, turned into a CCG format for a mobile platform mini game that integrates with players both inside the game and out. I would agree entirely that playing the actual game via mobile device would be a negative experience, but that notion is also a concept I’m not getting at here. Furthermore I too do not want anything that would be fully independent since (as fun as Rytlocks Rampage was) it doesn’t draw players into one fan-base but rather segregates them and tends to alienate one or the other. But again that too is also not a concept that I’m getting at here.

The concept is:
- Mini Game both mobile and pc users can play together.
- Rewards using existing systems such as rare crafting materials, minipets, titles, and a daily/monthly achievement tracks.
- Expanding the Guild Wars IP to the mobile gaming market so that it could still be enjoyed by exclusively mobile users in a stand-alone minipet mini game.

Ideally you’d be able to chat, use the trading post, and even access crafting with the current aspirations of the presently indefinitely delayed Extended Experience, and what I’d like to see in addition to it is mini game interactivity to bridge the PC to mobile OS platform.

Circumventing profanity filters one kitten at a time.