Following up on our meeting at the Mobile Game Conference, I caught up with Allen G. Lee, Vice President of Business Development at Gamevil, to see what their plans were for Mobile MMOs, their recent expansion into the US market, and mobile gaming in general.
CrossGamer: A year ago Gamevil told GameSpot you had no plans to bring Path of a Warrior to the US at this time, because the material is too esoteric to appeal to American audiences. What made you change your mind? In that interview, you told GameSpot that if you were to ever bring Path of a Warrior to the US, you might replace the Chinese epic motif with Roman or Greek mythology. Is that your current plan?
Allen Lee: Path of a Warrior is a huge success in Korea with over 37,000 online 
sessions played a day. It made sense for us to bring this title to the US market, which has breakthrough network and multiplayer technology. Yes, we changed the theme from Chinese epic to medieval fantasy. We felt that the US audience could relate very well to a medieval fantasy story.
CrossGamer: This June Gamevil told Gamasutra you were considering developing for the Nintendo DS. Long term, do you think consumers will be carrying both cell phones and dedicated portable gaming systems? If not, how long will the convergence take?
Allen Lee: Mobile is the one device that people will always have on them. It's not just for talking, it's a means to always be connected and informed. Mobile games may always be mobile games, because you have ergonomic limitations on a device that is designed to be a "phone first." However, as 4G rolls out around 2010, you will have a much more competitive and highly robust multimedia device. I believe that's when we'll see more of a technology convergence, and you may stop hearing words like, "that's pretty good... for a mobile game."
CrossGamer: What is the full potential of mobile massively multiplayer online games? Are they heading towards experiences like World of Warcraft? Will they be played solely on mobile devices, or will they be persistent worlds that can be accessed from multiple platforms (like mobile and PC or console)?
Allen Lee: What I see in the future are mobile MMOs that do not replace, but run in parallel and complement other platforms. As I mentioned, even with similar technologies you cannot compare a mobile MMO experience with a PC or even a console experience because of different control styles. The controls and platforms are just different. Each platform carries both limitations and advantages that both hinder and enhance an experience. In the future, I see the different platforms coexisting but playing a different role in an MMO world.
CrossGamer: What are the theoretical limitations of the mobile platform for gaming? After everyone has powerful graphics accelerators, broadband and low latency connections, and plenty of storage on their mobile devices, what kinds of games will we see? What kinds of experiences will never translate to small screens and mobile control schemes?
Allen Lee: There are only so many things you can do with mobile device controls, so even with advanced hardware technology, a mobile gaming experience will be limited by control styles. Screens will get larger and more brilliant, but in the short term you cannot translate the immersive visual experience you get from a 30" computer display or a 42" television display. However, in the long term, imagine a visual output that is displayed in a form factor such as glasses. Imagine gaming controls that are dictated by hand motions. The possibilities would explode from there.
CrossGamer: What aspect of Path of a Warrior are you most proud of? What would you most like to see changed about the game if technical or financial limitations were removed?
Allen Lee: We are most proud of Path of a Warrior's ability to seamlessly blend a standalone and MMO experience. Features are strategically implemented to provide incentives to end users to hop back and forth between the online and offline game play. Regarding what changes that I would like to see, those will be revealed when the sequel is launched :-) Work on the sequel is currently underway, and it will be on a scale that's four times even larger.
