Takeshi Natsuno, Executive VP, NTT DoCoMo i-mode and Ilkka Raiskinen, Senior VP, Media & Entertainment for Nokia will be keynoters at GDC Mobile, a two-day mini-conference, March 4-5, that’s part of the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, March 4-8 2003.

Dave Collier’s World Tour of Mobile Games and Interactive Entertainment and Game Design for the Mobile Medium should be worth attending, and if you share, as we do, an interest in the answers to Justin Hall’s question, Why play solo in a communications medium?, Dan Scherlis’ Multiplayer Games and Mobile Communities sounds like a good bet.

Mobile phones are designed to connect people, yet most mobile games today are designed for solitary play. Can mobile games take advantage of mobile connections? Or must the mobile phone prove merely a worse Game Boy than Game Boy? This session examines the lessons of wired online games - particularly massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) - and argues that multiplayer games will also prove the most profitable format for wireless online play. This need not require 3D graphics, or any graphics at all. Specific examples are used to explore the applicability of specific elements of MMOGs, particularly social interaction, persistence and player investment, and breadth of community.