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Snake Creator Receives Special Recognition From Mobile Entertainment Forum
N-Gage Arena Members Get A Chance To Chat With Mobile Gaming Pioneer
BY OUR TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT
19 June, 2005: Like innumerable other mobile users, the first mini-screen game I played on my first mobile was Snake. The snake gobbled up minute food particles which popped out of empty screen, growing longer and unwieldy, ducking from itself and the walls as the body grew and grew.
Here's to the snake man! Mr. Taneli Armanto, creator of the world's most popular mobile game, Snake, has received a special recognition from the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) for his key role in bringing Snake on to the Nokia 6100 series of handsets. As per the MEF, Mr. Armanto's ingenuity and vision have made a significant contribution to the growth of the mobile entertainment industry. Mr. Armanto received the award at MEF's annual event in London yesterday.
"I'm truly honored to receive this recognition. When we created Snake for the Nokia 6110 in 1997, we wanted to give people an entertaining experience, but we never imagined that it would become the classic mobile game. It showed people that you could create a great game for a mobile phone," said Taneli Armanto. "In particular, we wanted to take advantage of the infrared link in the Nokia 6110 - a first at that time - which would allow people to play against each other."
Nokia estimates that there are around 350 million mobile phones in the market with Snake, which makes it one of the most popular games in history. In recognition of this enormous installed base, Nokia brought a new version of the game to the N-Gage platform in January. The 3D version of the game, Snakes, is available for free download and is the first N-Gage game that people can virally distribute via their phone's Bluetooth wireless connection for free, not to mention support for up to 4-player gaming sessions.
"I'm glad to see that the latest version of the Snake franchise has kept up the innovative spirit in which we created the original," continued Mr. Armanto. "Mobile technology has evolved so much since 1997 that it was only logical for Snake to evolve as well."
"The Snakes minisite, www.snakesoutbreak.com
, received hundreds of thousands of hits in the first few days which is a recognition of how many people know and love the franchise," said Gregg Sauter, Director, Games Publishing, Nokia. "People have spent millions of hours fine tuning their skills with intense concentration. Fortunately, that effort has not been wasted as people can now put their Snake skills to use on their N-Gage."
Nokia is offering all N-Gage Arena members a chance learn more about the history and creation of Snake via a chat session with Mr. Armanto on on Tuesday, June 28th, 2005, 10:00 am -11:00 am PST (Pacific Standard Time) at
http://forums.arena.n-gage.com/.
The N-Gage game deck is an innovative mobile device that is creating an entirely new market for the games industry. Built for active gamers, the N-Gage platform is the first mobile and connected game deck to feature online high-quality 3D multiplayer game play over Bluetooth wireless technology and GPRS. The N-Gage device also offers unique online games services as well as a comprehensive and growing games catalogue from the leading game publishers. Nokia is the world leader in mobile communications. Nokia and N-Gage are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nokia Corporation.
BY OUR TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT
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