Mobile gaming guru Ryo Shimizu heads to AdFest

Japanese gaming guru Ryo Shimizu will present a Speaker Session at AdFest this year titled ‘Zen of the communication architecture A.K.A. game’. Shimizu is pioneer in the world of mobile gaming, who first caught the eye of the games industry by writing programming articles while studying at high school. He spent three years developing an official game programming curriculum and textbooks for Japanese schools, before joining Microsoft as an evangelist.

Shimizu (above) realized that if someone could create games for mobile phones, it would represent a revolution in gaming – in communications architecture itself. The rest is history. In 2003, Shimizu left his job to launch his own company, Ubiquitous Entertainment Inc, which is now one of the world’s leading creators of development tools for mobile devices.

“I’ve spent the last 15 years working as a professional game developer. But what are games, exactly? They’re communications architecture. This “architecture” is not merely a diversion for leisure time, but can also be applied to various web services, advertising projects, and more,” says Shimizu.

“The latest mobile social gaming in Japan represents the cutting edge of this application of communications architecture, but there are many other fields in which it is applicable. At ADFEST 2012, I wish to present these possibilities to attendees.”

In his Speaker Session, Shimizu will discuss ways in which communications architecture can be used beyond the world of gaming.

“The possibilities presented by games are limitless. For instance, games are ideal for education. Business simulation games can be invaluable. War games are, of course, another type of game,” says Shimizu. “We can expect games to move beyond enclosed, artificial worlds, becoming applicable in various aspects of daily life. I imagine them become so integrated into daily life that the word ‘game’ itself disappears.”

Since launching Ubiquitous Entertainment Inc, the company has developed the first full functionality WWW browser for mobile phones, Site Seeker, as well as JavaScript and HTML5 game creation engine enchant.js, which was used in nearly 200 games in its first two months of release.