Play Warcraft on your mobile phone?

mavric240 · June 20, 2008, 11:20 AM

Play Warcraft and Second Life on your phone?

New mobile player aims to make portable gaming grow up

By Mike Smith

Cell phone gaming sucks. Not only is it slow, riddled with costs, and saddled with crappy controls, the cell phone versions of classic favorites like Madden, Call of Duty and Need for Speed tend to be pale, watery knock-offs, lacking many of the features that make their fully-grown versions such big sellers. You'd think, now that everyone and their dog sports whizz-bang 3G handsets, we'd have some better options.

A new company is aiming to change all that, by bringing the rich world of PC massively-multiplayer games to mobile phones -- and what's most impressive is that much of the hard work is already done. Vollee's service doesn't actually install the game on your phone. Instead, the game's graphics and sound are streamed to your phone, much like you might watch a mobile TV show or browse YouTube. This means, in theory, you have all the capabilities of the PC game at your fingertips, and expanding the games Vollee supports is simple.
Vollee's first supported game is popular virtual world Second Life, but the company's industry-veteran CEO Martin Dunsby promised us many more are in the pipeline. Vollee has forged deals with several more major publishers -- including World of Warcraft owner Activision Blizzard, and while Dunsby won't get specific about which games are covered, it's only fair to note that Warcraft is the only MMO Activision Blizzard has.

"Clearly there's huge demand from Warcraft players, and we'd love to satisfy that demand. We believe mobile is an essential part of any virtual world experience," says Dunsby. "In the real world, people want to be able to take their email and chat mobile, and the exact same thing is true for virtual worlds."
You're not going to be leading any raid groups from your handset: even with a super-fast wireless connection, Vollee's client doesn't have the responsiveness or control flexibility of a real PC. But if you're looking to log in to check your auctions, chat, or maybe grind out a little experience while you're in line at the grocery store, it's more than up to the job.
If that's enough to pique your interest, Vollee's service is in open beta right now, and if you have one of the 40-odd compatible handset models, you can try it out for free. Just be sure you have an unlimited data plan from your cell provider -- like any streaming application, Vollee's games suck up plenty of bandwidth.

June 20, 2008, 11:20 AM	#1 (permalink)
mavric240 Member Character Info sassyevil 70 Undead Warlock Trollbane US PvE Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/44/17	Play Warcraft on your mobile phone? Play Warcraft and Second Life on your phone? New mobile player aims to make portable gaming grow up By Mike Smith Cell phone gaming sucks. Not only is it slow, riddled with costs, and saddled with crappy controls, the cell phone versions of classic favorites like Madden, Call of Duty and Need for Speed tend to be pale, watery knock-offs, lacking many of the features that make their fully-grown versions such big sellers. You'd think, now that everyone and their dog sports whizz-bang 3G handsets, we'd have some better options. A new company is aiming to change all that, by bringing the rich world of PC massively-multiplayer games to mobile phones -- and what's most impressive is that much of the hard work is already done. Vollee's service doesn't actually install the game on your phone. Instead, the game's graphics and sound are streamed to your phone, much like you might watch a mobile TV show or browse YouTube. This means, in theory, you have all the capabilities of the PC game at your fingertips, and expanding the games Vollee supports is simple. Vollee's first supported game is popular virtual world Second Life, but the company's industry-veteran CEO Martin Dunsby promised us many more are in the pipeline. Vollee has forged deals with several more major publishers -- including World of Warcraft owner Activision Blizzard, and while Dunsby won't get specific about which games are covered, it's only fair to note that Warcraft is the only MMO Activision Blizzard has. "Clearly there's huge demand from Warcraft players, and we'd love to satisfy that demand. We believe mobile is an essential part of any virtual world experience," says Dunsby. "In the real world, people want to be able to take their email and chat mobile, and the exact same thing is true for virtual worlds." You're not going to be leading any raid groups from your handset: even with a super-fast wireless connection, Vollee's client doesn't have the responsiveness or control flexibility of a real PC. But if you're looking to log in to check your auctions, chat, or maybe grind out a little experience while you're in line at the grocery store, it's more than up to the job. If that's enough to pique your interest, Vollee's service is in open beta right now, and if you have one of the 40-odd compatible handset models, you can try it out for free. Just be sure you have an unlimited data plan from your cell provider -- like any streaming application, Vollee's games suck up plenty of bandwidth.