Last week I had the chance for a talk with Gregory Horoupian, who manages Nokia’s game business in the Middle East and Africa. Gregory was on a tour of the region, including Jordan, to check out the gaming culture and industry.

Nokia’s N-Gage started life as a gaming smart phone some years ago. Although the company pushed N-Gage with a huge marketing campaign, the device was considered a failure. Now N-Gage is back as a software platform across a number of Nseries and non-Nseries devices.

The new N-Gage was launched last April and seems to have gained some respectability among gamers.

I discovered the new N-Gage platform on my N95 when I performed the latest software update for my phone (which loyal readers of this blog know was a pretty painful experience).

Although I am not even a “casual gamer”, I actually registered as a user and downloaded a few game trials out of geek curiosity. Incidentally, the N-Gage platform’s interface was designed by one of the most innovative design companies in the world, IDEO.

N-Gage is not just a game downloading platform but a gamer’s social network. The more you play and score the more virtual points you get and that makes the platform sticky and creates a sense of competition among users.

Games are priced between 9 and 13 US$, which makes them cheaper than handheld titles and more likely to attract casual gamers.

I asked Gregory about the uptake of the platform in the Middle East and he seemed enthusiastic about development so far. Payment for the games remains a sticking point. Soon, Nokia will be striking deals with regional operators to make payment possible without credit cards. That will make it more likely for the platform to take off.

For all of Nokia’s efforts to launch services and be locally relevant, the comparison to the iPhone is inevitable. Nokia’s N-Gage games are contributed by big name game publishers and Nokia’s own game development house. The iPhone is attracting big names as well but also smaller developers. This is a neck to neck race between Apple and Nokia. They launched their gaming initiatives at around the same time. Gregory insisted that competition is good for everyone and pointed out that Nokia’s effort has advantages such as the social networking features and more integration with phones’ other capabilities such as Bluetooth and even the camera in some cases.

There are already some iPhone app development efforts appearing in the Middle East. So I was eager to ask Gregory about the opportunities for budding game developers in the region. What I had in the back of my mind was the fact that any small development team in Jordan, for example, or even a single developer could get Apple’s iPhone SDK, develop a game, submit it to Apple and start selling it worldwide. So Gregory’s answer was a bit disappointing to me as he said that developers will basically have to participate in game development conferences to pitch their games to publishers.

Finally, Greg showed my his favorite game on the N-Gage: One. It’s a 3D fighting game that you can play alone, against a friend via Bluetooth or even across the net. Pretty impressive graphics and gameplay.

Incidentally, I used the chance of this meeting to create my first 360east video interview. The process went very smoothly thanks to Ikbis’s Mohammad Jaradat, who shot and edited the video, trying his best to make a 31 minute video featuring a blogger geek and a gaming geek look interesting.