Snake Creator Receives Special
Recognition From Mobile Entertainment Forum
N-Gage Arena Members Get A Chance
To Chat With Mobile Gaming Pioneer
Espoo, Finland, June 16, 2005 – Mr.
Taneli Armanto, the creator of the world’s most popular mobile game, Snake,
received a special recognition from the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) for his
pivotal role in embedding Snake on the Nokia 6100 series of handsets. According
to the MEF, Mr. Armanto’s ingenuity and vision have made a significant
contribution to the growth of the mobile entertainment industry. Mr. Armanto
received the award at MEF’s annual event in London yesterday.
“I’m truly honored to receive this
recognition. When we created Snake for the Nokia 6110 in 1997, we wanted to give
people an entertaining experience, but we never imagined that it would become
the classic mobile game. It showed people that you could create a great game for
a mobile phone
,” said Taneli Armanto. “In
particular, we wanted to take advantage of the infrared link in the NNokia 6110
– a first at that time – which would allow people to play against each other.”
Nokia estimates that there are
around 350 million mobile phones in the market with Snake, which makes it one of
the most popular games in history. In recognition of this enormous installed
base, Nokia brought a new version of the game to the N-Gage platform in January.
The 3D version of the game, Snakes, is available for free download and is the
first N-Gage game that people can virally distribute via their phone’s Bluetooth
wireless connection for free, not to mention support for up to 4-player gaming
sessions.
“I’m glad to see that the latest
version of the Snake franchise has kept up the innovative spirit in which we
created the original,” continued Mr. Armanto. “Mobile technology has evolved so
much since 1997 that it was only logical for Snake to evolve as well.”
“The Snakes minisite,
www.snakesoutbreak.com,
received hundreds of thousands of hits in the first few days which is a
recognition of how many people know and love the franchise,” said Gregg Sauter,
Director, Games Publishing, Nokia. “People have spent millions of hours fine
tuning their skills with intense concentration. Fortunately, that effort has not
been wasted as people can now put their Snake skills to use on their N-Gage.”
Nokia is offering all N-Gage Arena
members a chance learn more about the history and creation of Snake via a chat
session with Mr. Armanto on on Tuesday, June 28th, 2005, 10:00 am -11:00 am PST
(Pacific Standard Time) at
http://forums.arena.n-gage.com/.
About N-Gage The N-Gage game deck is
an innovative mobile device that is creating an entirely new market for the
games industry. Built for active gamers, the N-Gage platform is the first mobile
and connected game deck to feature online high-quality 3D multiplayer game play
over Bluetooth wireless technology and GPRS. The N-Gage device also offers
unique online games services as well as a comprehensive and growing games
catalogue from the leading game publishers. Nokia is the world leader in mobile
communications. Nokia and N-Gage are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Nokia Corporation.
