Scott Howard

Games, social networking, design and mobile those or the quadrants of the matrix my being with my soul plotted smack in the middle. Not sure those four subjects actually narrow down the scope of my existence at all, considering that the world at large has more mobile phones than people, design is all around us, games have been played since the dawn of culture and anyone reading this right now is probably using a social networking site of some sort, debating if what I am writing is worth liking on Facebook or Tweeting about on Twitter. So a little about me - The Gaming Years I started in the games industry at Sega, right before the launch of the Dreamcast console. It was an amazing time for gaming and I could not have asked for a better start for working in the games industry. Many of the people that I worked with at Sega have remained in contact, and still continue to make a profound impact on the games industry to this day. The Mobile Years Fast forward to October 2003 when I joined Nokia, helping to launch the original (what we now call "classic") N-Gage hardware gaming phone. Another company, another hardware launch. The N-Gage "Classic" never met with the success one would hope, but a little know fact is that the hardware itself was one of the highest loyalty rated devices produced by Nokia at the time. The few people who owned them, loved them. More importantly for me though, this was getting me started in the mobile industry, and not just the mobile industry, but the fledging mobile games industry. This industry would be my passion for the next six years, working on such hits as Pocket Kingdom, Reset Generation and working along side industry greats like Ed Annunziata, Ed Rotberg, and Scott Foe. Today - The New Frontier Ok so I totally stole that from Star Trek, but really this era is about new frontiers. Many of the things that were science fiction are mundane realities of today - Internet in the palm of our hands, real-time maps of the entire planet with views from the street, rich games that let you play with anyone, at any time, from your phone, your console, your PC or your tablet, and a social network infrastructure that enables you to share these experiences with all your friends, in real-time. Time will tell how all of these things come together, but I know one thing, I will be there at the intersection of all things - Games, social networking, design, and mobile.