I posted last week about how Digital Chocolate’s Trip Hawkins — previously the founder of gaming giant EA — believes in mobile games with a strong social element, rather than flashy versions of console games ported to mobile, or games based solely around hot graphics. I saw today the news that mobile game publisher In-Fusio has secured the Halo franchise for mobile, and will develop mobile applications based on it. I’m not a hardcore gamer by any stretch, but Halo’s pretty cool. That doesn’t mean it’s going to work on mobile, far from it. In fact, I’m hard pressed to think of something worse to put on a phone than a console first-person shooter known for its rich graphics and intensive gameplay.

Halo does have a strong community of online players attached to it, though — and it’s that community that Halo mobile must be built around to succeed. But it’s doubtful that’s what the company has in mind. Part of the problem with porting console franchises to mobile is the inflated expectations people have of them, and it’s doubtful a Halo game on a phone could measure up.

Take a look at the top-selling mobile games in the UK for August: the only console retreads on there are versions of simple, old-school games like Tetris and Breakout, and then football management and golf games. Everything on there is a simple, casual game, not an involved shoot-em-up. When it comes to mobile games, simple sells. It’s the same thing as on richer platforms: all the flashy graphics in the world don’t do any good if the basic gameplay is poor — and gameplay on a mobile is fundamentally different than on a console or PC.