With the real "meat and potatoes" part of GDC a full day away, we decided to make the best of it and take in a few seminars, today's focus being mobile gaming. It's no surprise that the mobile market is one of the fastest growing sides of the gaming industry. Sony and Microsoft can tirelessly debate about how many consoles each has sold, but at the end of the day, practically every person owns a cell phone. 

Checking the list of available seminars, "TV Playalong: Play a Mobile Game Synchronized To TV" sounded interesting. Speaker Jeroen Elfferich of Ex Machina, described taking the mobile interactivity developed with for shows like Big Brother and American Idol, and creating an entire game show that utilizes user generated responses. Sounds kind of fun, but being charged a $1 per response sure doesn't. The only people who would enjoy this kind of gaming are the suits at mobile phone companies.

"TETRIS: Best/Worst Mobile Game Ever" was much better. Speaker Rick Marazzani of iQ212 Games asked the question, "What if Tetris was created today?" Tetris is one of the most successful games ever created, selling over 70 million units, being ported to nearly every console and currently making up 8%-9% of all downloaded mobile games. However, is Tetris's success due to it's game design, or the fact that it is such a familiar title to a broad audience. 

Tetris is kind of an anomaly. If you're the best player, or the worst player, you still wind up with a screen filled with blocks at the end. It's the sense of beating your own score that keeps you playing. Mr. Marazzani claims that without a "win state", users won't feel the same sense of achievement that comes with beating a game with a definitive ending.

The other problem would be marketing Tetris. If it was launched today, no one would be familiar with it's easy controls and simple gameplay. Name recognition would be another issue, "Tetris" doesn't exactly explain what the game is about. Mr. Marazzani describes Tetris as being the "Slim Jim" of mobile gaming, cheap to make, plenty of name recognition, and easy to snack on in small increments. 

Mr. Marazzani creates an interesting hypothetical, which evokes a debate about the very essence of game design. Ouch, I just made my brain hurt.