"The combination of voice communication gives a distinctly better user experience," Nilsson says. "During the latter part of 2006 we conducted some behavioral studies and observed that users had much more fun talking and playing simultaneously. They were actually laughing a lot, and because the games here are all casual ones, the service is making gaming a social way of communicating. We also saw in the study that users normally prefer to play with friends and people they already know."
The service offers players a buddy list and presence function, which tells the user who is available. The user can invite a person to a game via instant messaging, then with a simple press of a push-to-talk button start the voice function.
The key words are simplicity and interoperability between device suppliers. The service is standards-based and uses existing network infrastructure, and today supports Symbian devices with IMS clients.
