I notice that the University of Oxford’s Software Engineering post-graduate programme includes a specialist course on Software Product Lines that would seem to offer a good general introduction to the topic. Places are still available for the December 2006 start at the time of publishing.

Please let us know of any other similar courses.

Yesterday, I promised to follow-up with more information from the Cambridge Wireless Games SIG event that took place on 28th June.

Jon Hare’s talk had concluded with the slide Mobile Games Development - Matt knows how to do it so it was over to Matt Spall of morpheme to live up to this challenge, although Matt’s talk had actually been billed as “Can creating new brands work on mobile? - one man’s view”.

Matt began by noting that brands can move around platforms (mobile, PC, xBox etc.) pretty easily - so it’s generally easier to make more money by developing a game around a brand.

Examining the top-selling games in the charts also shows that brand-based games dominate, with only a handful of non-brand games entering the top 10 chart at all. An original game, as Jon Hare had also noted, is likely to be a financial loser. However, Matt noted that this situation could ease as direct access channels between user and developer improved.

Matt gave the example of Balloon Headed Boy, a game morpheme have developed and promoted for the best part of several years. Balloon Headed boy is promoted through a variety of channels including his own MySpace page (he has lots of friends), a music single, and various promotional items such as mugs, t-shirts and notebooks. Using alternative channels to promote the game has enabled Balloon Headed Boy to compete successfully in this brand-based market.

In terms of successful genres for original games Matt noted success for pub-style and sport-themed games but warned against RPGs. Only one original RPG game had made it into the top 10 in a year.

Other points that emerged during and after Matt’s session:

• No game has failed for being too easy
• Focus on social aspects of games
• Get your game preinstalled. Only 5% of users are interested in downloading games.
• Nokia’s Content Discoverer should make it significantly easier for people to find games - if the user has a phone with it installed - so should make things better for games developers

The next Games SIG event will probably be in December 2006.