EA Mobile has a mixed feelings for Nokia N-Gage

During the 2008 Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Games Summit which took place in Rome, Italy, Pocket Gamer’s Stu Dredge had a chance to talk to EA Mobile’s Peter Parmenter, who shared his mixed feelings for Nokia N-Gage.

In a nutshell, Peter said EA Mobile is ready to support the platform and release its games to the N-Gage users, but Nokia doesn’t make it easy for developers to play. He went on to say: “We need to work together on the economics. I think it’s easier to get an audience with the Pope than it is to get a game through certification at Nokia.”

At the same time, the mobile game publisher said they’re making more money publishing games for the iPhone.

“As a publisher, we will make twice the revenue from selling an iPhone game in Italy than we will from selling an N-Gage game at the same price,” he added.

But it’s not all dark for the N-Gage. EA Mobile knows there are many, many more N-Gage compatible devices than iPhones out there. They “genuinely want” to get on board as they (and the whole industry) believes Nokia has created a great ecosystem for the distribution of high-quality games. Parmenter added “There’s a lot of free games, and we don’t know if the market will be able to sustain that. Time will tell. However, from a customer experience perspective, everyone’s in agreement that they’ve created something very special, and it’s shaken things up.”

Personally, I believe Nokia’s onto something with N-Gage. The sheer amount of devices available on the market gives the Finnish giant a unique position no other player in the industry has. What they seem to lack is a more open approach to reach more developers and make existing ones publish more games for the platform. Any thoughts?

[Via: PocketGamer.co.uk]