TG Daily has an article on cellular games. They talked to the developers of “24″, a game from the popular TV show. Being a game programmer myself, here are some facts from the article I’ve found interesting:
- Development time is typically between 7 and 9 months - With about 1/3 for development time, and 2/3 for adapting the game to run on the various cellular phones out there. A cell phone game has to be converted into 1000 unique builds to support more than 100 carriers around the world!
- The average game weights around 150 kilobytes - In order to achieve this, developers often have to cut down on game content to make the game fit on cell phones with less memory, sometimes offering low-end versions of the game featuring less gameplay.
- Small screen size - Game creators must create the gameplay on a very small screen, when compared to console video games.
- Typical cellular games cost around $5 - The games are usually downloaded through your provider’s interface, meaning you can’t just go to EB Games and buy a copy of your favorite game; you have to wait for your provider to offer it.
- A typical cellular game costs between $200000 and $500000 to make - A XBox360 or Playstation3 game is reported to cost between 10 and 25 million to make.