Don't Blame Mr. Taneli Armanto, Give Him An Award

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The man who took the standard BASIC program of Snake and put it on the Nokia 6610 as "Nokia Snake" has recieved a Special Recognition Award at the Mobile Entertainment Forum for destroying the lives of millions of Snake addicts the world over. Congratualtions - now how about a head to head with the original Tetris...


Full Press Release
Snake Creator Receives Special Recognition From Mobile Entertainment Forum
N-Gage Arena Members Get A Chance To Chat With Mobile Gaming Pioneer

Espoo, Finland - 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 Nokia 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/.