Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming

Other Blogs:
American McGee
Beautiful Pixels
Hideo Kojima
Hitachi Wasabe's Xbox 360

Xbox 360 Marketplace Updates: (MajorNelson.com)

Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Thursday, April 30, 2009

The Quiet Opportunity in Casual PC Games

I attended the session "The Quiet Opportunity in Casual PC Games", and while there was some good content, I worry about anyone attending the session who doesn't have a grasp and knowledge of the state of the industry.

Jessica Tams (President, Casual Games Association), and Lloyd Melnick (Co-Founder, Merscom) presented, with Jessica leading off.

To perhaps over-state it, Jessica's presentation was a mix of fluffy slides and divisive and outdated information on the casual market and casual gamer demographic. I give her props for voicing strong opinions (like not buying any of the GTA franchise "if you have morals"), and demerits for miss-stating the separation of core and casual gamers and advertising opps, and relying on outdated data from 2007. But she gets props for finishing out with passion and humor.

Lloyd from Merscom presented some interesting interesting.

Because Merscom is so big (40+ portals and aggregators) they're both one of the bigger "secrets" for those not familiar with the casual market, and they have direct access to a lot of current data. I was scribbling as I was blogging this, so I may do a follow-up with more data.

Other thoughts:

Casual Games fit media vehicle timelines better (film, etc.)
> Cooperation, aligned interests (lower risk, and more co-funding and co-development)
- Share costs
- Share Revenue
- Interests Align
- Incentive to keep costs reasonable
- Low development budgets = 50% royalty

> Mass market, rather than core gamers
Big portals
> Big Fish (~50% of casual portal traffic)
> RealArcade
> Oberon

I really wish the game industry, and the casual market, would learn from other industries. I need to right my comparison to one particular "expressions-driven" vertical industry.

Official breakdown:

While much of the glamour and publicity goes to the major core game releases like GTA and GoW, it is the casual market that is enjoying the strongest growth of any sector of the game, let alone entertainment, industry. Casual games are PC titles that target the mass market but primarily 30+ women. They are sold via download on websites such as Yahoo! Games, Big Fish Games, RealArcade and hundreds others as well as retailers including Walmart, Target and Best Buy. Unlike their core game cousins, these projects often have a development cycle of less than six months and budget under $100,000. This session will explore opportunities for developers and small publishers in this fast growing space.

Speakers
* Lloyd Melnick
Co-Founder, Merscom

As a co-founder of Merscom, Lloyd has marketed, produced and published over 150 games for both the casual and core gamer market. Lloyd played a key role in the development and launch of Merscom's number one hit title, Blood Ties, building a relationship with Lifetime Networks, selecting the game's developer and managing the launch. Lloyd secured relationships for Merscom with leading portals and aggregators including Big Fish Games, RealArcade and Oberon in the U.S., helping Merscom gain access to virtually all casual game customers.

*Jessica Tams
President, Casual Games Association

Jessica is the Founder and Managing Director of the Casual Games Association. Jessica oversees the Casual Games Association and the Casual Connect series of services. Previously Jessica was in development, publishing and distribution of casual, core and Xbox games in roles ranging from engineering to product planning & business development.

Labels: events, Triangle Game Conference, Triangle Game Conference 2009

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Talking to Each Other: Methods for Open and Successful Communication Across Disciplines

I attended the "Talking to Each Other: Methods for Open and Successful Communication Across Disciplines" session.

Brass tacks, this is where a lot of companies absolutely crater themselves. This was largely centered around conflict resolution (designers and engineers), applicable to a bunch of scenarios.

Gary Stelmack (representing design) and Marq Singer (representing engineering) drove the session.

This was one of those sessions (for me) that contained no new info, per se, but was still incredibly valuable in the restatement (and very encouraging to hear it presented to game devs.

Coming from a heavy requirements management background, I did like the reminder to to not start a dialog with the requested solution. Rather, starting with a general statement of what offer to be done, and the parameters the solution offer to meet.

Other bits:
*People to whom your talking don't necessarily have the same context you do.
* Do thinking about the problem, possible solutions, pros and cons, etc. - and be able to articulate them.
* Avoid a heavy use of lingo
* "I'm as smart as you" syndrome (being afraid of looking stupid, which is the flip side to cultural elitism, which wasn't addressed in the talk).
* Cool idea to tag people with internal "evangelist" (bridge builders) to work through cross-functional friction / disconnects.

I like how much energy Marq and Gary had, which made what was ostensibly a personnel process talk engaging. I also like how honest Gary was in talking about how he used to fall into the elitist trap, until people who cared enough broke him out on it.

My criticism of the session is - HUGE irony - there was no real dialog prior to the Q&A. They basicly tore through the content at us for 45 minutes.

Official breakdown:

We will discuss the basic framework and components that make up a typical cross-discipline discussion of a feature or feature request. This will delve into the tools that are required to properly initiate a discussion and cover the necessary types of information and goals that need to be developed before the discussion can start, providing a basis for identifying common problems that must be overcome before the discussion can successfully progress. Using examples that might be seen on a daily basis while developing a game, the types of common problems that hamper effective communication will be covered, along with techniques on identifying and rectifying those issues and finally, how these techniques can work with external communications and in dealing with online communities.

Speakers

* Marq Singer
Red Storm

Marq Singer has had a long and varied career. He spent the late 80's and early 90's working in the film industry in a variety of projects and roles, which ranged from general crew for TV commercials to special effects for horror films, including the minor cult-classic Killer (1989). He is a co-author of "Java Applets and Channels: Without Programming" and has contributed to the popular "Game Programming Gems" series. He has given multiple lectures on a variety of game-related topics. Since 1998, he has been working in the games industry serving in a number of engineering functions including physics, animation, UI and AI. Currently, he is a physics programmer for Red Storm Entertainment, a division of Ubisoft, working with both the Havok(tm) engine and custom dynamics. The most recent title that he worked on was Rainbow Six: Lockdown for the PS2 and PC.

* Gary Stelmack
Red Storm

Gary has worked at Red Storm Entertainment for 11 years, assisting in the development of games from both the Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon series. He started in QA and shifted into design, where he has been happily working for the past 8 years. Being involved in both disciplines and working with relatives who are engineers has helped him to develop solid communication skills that were often learned the hard way. Most recently, Gary has worked on America's Army: True Soldiers for the Xbox 360 and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 for the Xbox 360.

Labels: events, Triangle Game Conference, Triangle Game Conference 2009

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Right to Game: An interview with Hal Halpin

Several of the 9:30 sessions for day #2 of the Triangle Game Conference got off to kind of an anemic start -- unfortunately, especially on the business and policy side.

I attended "Right to Game: An interview with Hal Halpin", a deeper dive into what the hell the ECA is doing for the game industry. Fortunately, the answer is "a hell of a lot".

Non-mic'ed, hard-to-hear session aside, the Entertainment Consumers Association has refocused to be advocates for consumer rights and educating, from DRM awareness to standardizing EULA. They're a good balance for retailer and industry advocacy groups.

Hal was very complimentary toward the ESRB, while echoing a concern I have about needing to better distinguish between Halo- and GTA-style M-rated games.

Hal also made the analogy too the AAA organization, and the same way that the ECA wants to do both advocacy and affinity benefits.

They're also hiring Jason Andersen (I think from ONE PR Studio) as a public-facing advocate.

Hal stifled himself a few times to not disclose upcoming announcements, and it sounds like they'll be meeting consumer demographic needs outside of gaming, per se.

I find it frustrating that games are saddled with restrictions more akin to toys, rather than the media they are.

Interesting side distinction was the fact that PC titles are much more of a "software-seat" style license, making resale a no-opp, but console titles are more of a traditional merchandise purchase, and can hence be resold.

Full disclosure - I'm an ECA member. And there are 50 chapters, so there's likely an opp to participate close to you.

The session was mediated by Themis Media Group co-founder and CFO Thomas S. Kurtz.

Here's the official digest:

Join us for a conversation between ECA President Hal Halpin and The Escapist's Russ Pitts over the future of games as a media and a business, the role of the Electronic Consumers Association and the many key issues facing consumers today, including DRM, Net Neutrality, the economy and the ESRB.

Speakers

* Hal Halpin
President, ECA

Hal Halpin is the president of the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA), the non-profit membership organization which represents gamers. Mr. Halpin, a pioneer in the interactive entertainment industry with more than 15 years of experience, has dedicated himself to creating organizations that help unite and advance the games business. In addition to the ECA, he also formed numerous influential publications, services and organizations. He is often called upon by members of the media and government officials to represent the interactive entertainment sector.

Panel Moderator
* Russ Pitts
Director of Video Content, The Escapist
* Thomas S. Kurtz
Chairman & CFO, Themis Media

Russ Pitts is the Director of Video Content for Themis Media, where he is Executive Producer for all of their web series, including Zero Punctuation. Russ has worked in the entertainment industry for 20 years, first as an independent video director and producer and later as a producer and writer for TechTV's groundbreaking series "The Screen Savers."

Labels: events, Triangle Game Conference, Triangle Game Conference 2009

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Triangle Games Conference

The Triangle Games Conference kicked off today (or last night, if you count yesterday's excellent IGDA Triangle chapter conference kickoff ~~drink fest~~ party).

There are five track sessions at the conference, offering something for everyone in the biz:

Game Tech & Programming
Game Design & Production
Games & Media
Serious Games
The Business of Gaming

Keynotes will be from Mike Capps ("What Makes US Epic") and Peter Tamte (~~"Please Publish Six Days in Fallujah"~~ "Brave New World: The 3 Forces Re-shaping the Videogame Industry").

With well over 600 folks attending, and conference-goers and presenters from at least as far as Germany (the wicked smart and very pleasant tech guys from Crytek), the Triangle's inaugural games conference has turned into anything but "just a local event".

Emergent Game Technologies will be well-represented at the show as well, with architect Vincent Scheib giving a talk about "Rapid Prototyping Technology", VP John Austin sitting in on the "Breaking into the Game Industry" panel, and a bunch of us running around there today and tomorrow attending sessions and getting caught up with our industry brethren.

Hope to see you there.

Labels: Emergent Game Technologies, events, Gamebryo, Gamebryo LightSpeed, North Carolina, Triangle Game Conference, Triangle Game Conference 2009

Share: | | | TinyUrl | Twitter

Contact Adam

Contribute to 0 comment(s) | Review 0 comment(s)

SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.