Products & Services

The big N-Gage conversation

By James on 22 May 2008

GLOBAL – Yesterday AllAboutNGage.com wrote a story about what happens with your N-Gage games if you change or upgrade your device. Right now the answer is simply that you lose your games and will need to re-purchase them. This differs from the original plan where your games would form part of your N-Gage Profile, enabling you to take the games with you on whatever N-Gage-enabled device you choose.

This has caused consternation amongst the gaming and mobile fraternity. We’re not in a position to comment on this right now, but we do want to highlight the discussion right here on Conversations. Once we’ve had a chance to catch up with our gaming colleagues, we’ll be back with more.
Meanwhile, here’s a quick roundup on the main stories around this.

The story started on AllAboutNGage. The team followed up a thread on N-Gage Arena forums which was discussing the movement of games from one device to another. Further investigation revealed that indeed games could only be transferred if a device was being replaced under
guarantee.

The situation enraged SMSTextNews.com enough to go on an all out rant about Nokia. Read the full story here.

Long-time Nokia fan, Ricky Cadden of Symbian-Guru, has taken productive approach in suggesting a (theoretically) simple fix to the problem.

The BBC has also written about the story here.

Please feel free to add links to more on this subject in the comments below, and of course to let us know how you feel about it.

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Ricky Cadden Says:
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:22 pm

I’m glad to see this at least mentioned here (I totally understand not commenting), and very much appreciate the link.

I also wanted to add the link to the thread on the N-Gage.com forums:
http://forums.arena.n-gage.com/nokia/board/message?board.id=3&thread.id=46104

It’s important, IMO, that concerned parties voice their feelings in a central place, where the appropriate people can not only get an idea as to the magnitude of affected users, but also have a central place to address the mob, so to speak.

I’m very anxious to hear Nokia’s response, and have hope that this will be resolved appropriately, with a win on both sides. I know I’m anxious to purchase a few of the latest games.

Devin Balentina Says:
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:28 pm

I’m not happy about this either and won’t be making a purchase until this is fixed, my thoughts here: http://www.thenokiaguide.com/my_weblog/2008/05/getting-a-new-p.html

Stefan Constantinescu Says:
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:54 pm

http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=1111

http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2008/05/21/hooray-for-drm-once-again-those-n-gage-games-are-all-locked-up/

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/05/22/ngage_games_die_with_your_phone.html

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/05/22/n-gage-users-n-raged-by-nokia-handset-lock-in/

My thoughts: They are not going to be a surprise, games should be tied to your username/password, not your IMEI.

Norman Says:
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:29 pm

Annoys me too. Also getting attention elsewhere:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/22/n-gage-users-n-raged-by-nokia-handset-lock-in/ http://gadgets.boingboing.net/
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/05/22/n-gage-games-cant-be-transferred-to-new-devices/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/05/22/dlngage122.xml
http://www.dailywireless.org/2008/05/22/7783/

LK Says:
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:48 pm

I think the IMEI-tied system is a bad move. While I admit to not being terribly enthused about mobile gaming (as of yet) if I lose my purchased games each time I buy a new device, this is a no-go. I buy phones quite often (usually from Nokia), and am not willing to rebuy previously purchased games over and over again.

If the games were tied to an N-Gage account as per Nokia’s original statements when N-Gage was first announced, I would be more than happy to lay down money to buy a few games, with the knowledge I could play them forever.

krisse Says:
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:47 am

I was part of the team that researched and wrote the original article for All About N-Gage, I’d just like to add a few comments:

1. Locking the games to a reference IMEI is not the main problem. The main problem is there’s no way to change that reference IMEI when you move to another phone. If there was such a method, it would allow legitimate users to keep their games forever, and it would also prevent piracy just like it did before. The IMEI referred to by the phone is (we assume) stored on Nokia’s servers, so any changes would be entirely under Nokia’s control, there would be no way for pirates to change the reference IMEI.

2. It would be more convenient to lock games to an account of course, with that account locked to an IMEI to satisfy the DRM requirements of publishers. When you logged in to N-Gage, the phone would check with Nokia’s servers to find out which games you’ve purchased and display them automatically, with the option of downloading them if you don’t have a copy stored locally on the phone.

3. Nokia already allows their Nokia Music and Nokia Maps content to be purchased and transferred from phone to phone, there’s no reason why they couldn’t do the same thing with N-Gage content as well.

4. Nokia is moving towards being an internet services company as well as a hardware manufacturer. They’ve spent literally billions on this so far, so they’re clearly serious. If they do want to be taken seriously as an online services company, they have to allow people to access those services across a range of devices, otherwise the point of offering online services is gone. Locking games to one device forever is not the actions of an online service.

Jussi Says:
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:55 pm

It’s also made it into the Finnish media. http://www.kauppalehti.fi/5/i/talous/uutiset/etusivu/uutinen.jsp?oid=12139

Looks like some game press and blogs have picked it up today too.

Nokia Conversations Says:
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:52 pm

N-Gage update – it’s good news!

ESPOO, Finland – We’ve dug in deeper and we’ve been told a fix is in the works for the recent N-Gage games transfer situation. This is excellent news and although initially it looks like it may need to be serviced