Thank You N-Gage

30-07-2011

N-Gage RIP It’s been nice to follow the recent success and hype around Finnish Game Developers.

Rovio is rockin’ the globe with Angry Birds and RedLynx is making some serious waves as well. Supercell scored 12M$ in funding from Accel Partners to develop their ground-braking browser-based MMORPG Gunshine.net. Not to mention Remedy and Housemarque. Finnish gaming is booming and I for one am loving it. Well done guys & gals!

This got me thinking. Why is this happening now? How come there is so much game development talent in Finland especially in mobile gaming?

Could it be that we owe a big thank you to the most ridiculed gaming venture that’s ever come out of Finland: The Nokia N-Gage? The ill-fated platform whose life-support Nokia quietly unplugged a few months back.

It is an undeniable fact that Nokias’ trip to gaming was a huge psychedelic failure from the start. Anyone and your neighbors kid could have told the Nokia management (if they would have listened) that the sidetalkin’ take the battery out to switch games joke of a gaming phone would never fly. And I should know. I worked as the guy with the world’s most daunting task – run digital marketing for N-Gage globally. It was like climbing Everest naked. Well maybe not quite but tricky still.

That said I do think that while failing to get us gaming on those weird phones Nokia did an enormous favor to the Finnish and Global Mobile Gaming industry. During the N-Gage years Nokia published some amazing ground-braking mobile games that paved way for a lot of the innovation and gameplay we now see on iOS, Android and other mobile platforms: Pathway to Glory (first ever mobile multiplayer over GPRS-networks – by Red Lynx), High Seize (by RedLynx), Bounce (the grandfather of Angry Birds by Rovio), Asphalt (born on the N-Gage – still racing on iOS and Android by Gameloft), ONE (by Digital Legends) and Pocket Kingdom (One of the first Online MMORPG games on a mobile phone – by Nokia) just to name a few.

Have it not been for N-Gage (and essentially Nokias’ big bucks) these amazing games would not have seen the light of day and as a result Finnish game developers would not be where they are today.

So raise a glass and give thanks to where thanks are due. Rest in peace N-Gage and thanks for all the good times. I for one am a much better climber though nowadays I do tend to equip myself with the proper gear and choose my quests a bit more carefully.

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Sports Tracking!

By: Jussi Solja

16-08-2010

Marketing, mobile, Social Media, Work

I’ve been helping the guys at Sports Tracker with their social media strategy and the launch of their fabulous mobile application and online service.

It’s incredible fun and motivating to work with a bunch of talented and passionate individuals who are willing to take risks and throw themselves out there. The way you have to if you want to really engage with your audience and earn their trust and get them to “like” you :)

Check out the unconventional launch press release we (props to Jari Salo) put created and the intro video (props to Jari, Aleksi Koskinen and Kristiina Wheeler) to the service.

Find out more about Sports Tracker at www.sports-tracker.com, Like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

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Conversational Marketing

By: Jussi Solja

11-03-2010

Disruption, Marketing, Media, Search, Social Media, Web 2.0

This almost brings a tear to my eye :)

Check out this really nice recap presentation of the thinking that has been happening in and around the Nokia Digital Marketing team during the past few years. I’ve been fortunate enough to work closely with this brilliant group of thinkers and advocates of change and I gotta say I miss those days. Not to say that this is the end of the collaboration – maybe more an end of an era.

Anyhow…check it out and let me know what you think!

Conversational Marketing

View more presentations from Arto Joensuu.

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Crowdsourcing growth?

By: Jussi Solja

20-02-2010

Disruption, Social Media, Web 2.0

The Finnish Government (or to be precise the Prime Minister’s Office) just hopped on the crowdsourcing bandwagon with their ideoikasvua.fi -site that aims to crowdsource ideas for sustainable economic growth. Cool, right? Wrong. Unfortunately.

It’s a nice step to the right direction I’ll give them that but why won’t you go all the way and do it right? Why have a two month submission window with a very strict step-by-step Q&A structure that will put most people off at the start? And if you want to start a dialogue like you claim why force visitors to submit their answers to your questions before letting them view the thoughts other people have submitted?

While you are at it why not create something more open and inviting that would get us non-academics hyped and excited as well about helping our dear country take the next step beyond Nokia-land? An environment that would facilitate an ongoing open and inspiring dialogue between the people running the country and the folks down in the trenches. From now ’til we reach that great new future and beyond.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this is not a great step to the right direction. I just hate it when the opportunity for something ground-braking is wasted because of the paralyzing fear that dramatic change inflicts in people. The fear of leaving your comfort zone and just boldly going where no man has been before.

Bottom line: They are looking for game changing ideas but are afraid to lead the way. I just feel sad for all the crazy interesting ideas we could have shared that will now never see the light of day.

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Mobile music: Welcome Spotify!

By: Jussi Solja

28-05-2009

mobile, Music

Connected mobile music is getting more interesting by the minute. iPhone and Nokia users (to name a few) have already enjoyed the ability to purchase & download music directly on their mobiles. Last FM has also treated it’s users to a mobile version of the Last FM radio and most radio channels have created mobile streams of their programming. What mobile users have been lacking is a on-demand / streaming music service that let’s you freely choose the music you want to listen to.

Enter Spotify – the ground breaking Swedish streaming music service that has spread like wildfire on people’s PC’s and Mac’s.

(In case you have lived in a tree for the past year: Spotify is a music service that let’s you stream and listen to pretty much all the music in the world for free (with ads) or for a 10€ / month fixed price (without ads – my choice). At the moment you need to have an invite from another Spotify user to get in but a simple Google search for “Spotify invites” should help you with that.)

Spotify have finally released some more information of the long-awaited mobile version of the service. The video below demos the service on Google’s Android. The good news is that Android will not be the only supported mobile platform and that yes – it will support offline listening…sweeeet. Can’t wait!

But: If I was Nokia or even Apple…I’d take this sucker pretty damn seriously.

p.s. Message to the folks at Spotify: If you need someone to beta test the mobile version on Nokia or iPhone…feel free to drop me a note.

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N-Gage hits the million mark

By: Jussi Solja

25-03-2009

Games

I feel very nostalgic. I worked with Nokia’s N-Gage the first time around and have obviously followed the progress of Nokia’s ill-fated gaming venture ever since.

A year back Nokia relaunched the revamped N-Gage. As a service, not a gaming phone. Smart move I thought. And it seems that I was right and so was Nokia. The service has now hit one million subscribers and is growing pretty rapidly thanks to the pre-installed N-Gage applications in most new Nokia smart phones.

Ok Nokia. Here’s the plan: Keep the faith even though the times are tough. Get more quality games out, keep on developing the service and trust your staff that have believed and worked hard to make this happen. You NEED to be in mobile gaming and now it seems like you might finally have a fighting chance.

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— Marketing (&) Mischief

Thank You N-Gage

More music videos…

Mobile music: Welcome Spotify!

N-Gage hits the million mark

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