"We Give This Industry 6 Months To Live"

This is hilarious: the NY Mag write up of the Wired profile of Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group. (Thanks Ryan!)

We'd always assumed the labels had met with a team of technology experts in the late nineties and ignored their advice, but it turns out they never even got that far — they didn't even try! Understanding the Internet certainly isn't easy — especially for an industry run by a bunch of technology-averse sexagenarians — but it's definitely not impossible. The original Napster hit its peak in 1999 — kids born since then have hacked into CIA computers. Surely it wouldn't have taken someone at Universal more than a month or two to learn enough about the Internet to know who to call to answer a few questions. They didn't even have any geeky interns? We give this industry six months to live.

Video Game Venture Capital Blog Launches

Kim Pallister and Vlad Cole (former Joystiq EIC) have launched their site, VGVC.net, which keeps tabs on all the money moving around in the game space. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

I would, however, like to see some more analysis from the two. They are really smart guys - instead of just telling me what happened tell me why you think it's interesting or important! I want to hear those thoughts. Maybe that's tough, since they're both employees of Microsoft?

Music Biz versus Game Industry

I've been thinking about this lot lately, the breakdown of the traditional music publishing model and what that means for games. I'm not the only one, of course. In fact it was Kim who asked me what the equivalent of concert sales would be for games, which is, as usual from him, a really interesting question. After all Prince can give away him albums online because he sells out every concert date he books. Can game downloads realistically be a loss leader?

I really don't know. Where else would money come from? Subscriptions (MMOs, GameTap), advertising, micro-transactions, corporate Second-Life-style customized virtual worlds... lots of people are trying lots of different things. If I suddenly think of something brilliant then I'll let you know.

In the meantime I wrote up my latest thinking about this on GigaOM, where I'm a regular contributor these days: What Can Games Learn from Music's Mistakes?.

Should We Worry?

EA acquires Bioware/Pandemic - should we feel a frisson of anxiety? I do, and I'm not sure why, exactly. When Bioware and Pandemic came together it was hailed (by their PR, as well as by industry watchers) as an innovative structuring of capital and resources to allow a studio to remain independent. Well, they are independent no longer! irst Riccitiello went back to EA, and now this. What does it mean? Was it just not working out? Can they remain creatively independent under EA? Was it an offer they couldn't refuse (I mean holy shit, $629 million is a shitload of money)?

Tipping in Favor of Girl Power

This week, several things cropped up on the radar which collectively suggest some sort of tipping point. Or, I suppose, more likely that the point has tipped and we are starting to see the effects.

The first announcements were released in conjunction with the event, Casual Connect. Sony Online announced the relaunch of Station.com, a portal for the casual experience of games, including access to trials of Sony's MMOs. Nickelodean announced plans to spend $100 million over the next two years on casual games and virtual worlds. Oh, and did I mention that casual games are still dominated by female players?

Gamasutra didn't pick it up, but this week also saw the news that Barbie Girls, a virtual world aimed at, you might guess, preteen girls, experienced astonishingly explosive growth, reaching 3 million users in sixty days.

And you thought WoW was popular.

Then in recent game announcements, Ubisoft released details on a new series of games specifically for girls. The Imagine series include aspirational games based on professions, like fashion designer, veternarian, and figure skater. There's also a virtual baby doll with Imagine Babyz. Throw in Imagine Equestrienne and I'm so there.

Speaking of things equine, Atari is coming out with a horse-riding simulation game, My Horse and Me. The language in the official PR is carefully gender-neutral, speaking very coolly of the "Horse-enthusiast community", but you cannot convince me that in North America, at least, this game is not targeted specifically at horse-crazy girls between the ages of seven and fourteen. Which is to say, nearly all girls.

You may also have read that the PS3 has finally sold 1 million units in Japan eight months after launch. It took the Wii six weeks to reach the same milestone. Why? In part because flocks of non gamers (many of them women) bought a console, some, I've no doubt, for the first time in their lives.

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Game Developers and Porn Stars

Derek makes a really interesting point in his (sensationalistically titled!) post, Will Wright=Jenna Jameson. He's not saying that Will's got a nice rack, but rather that Jenna's rack and Will's brain are analogous - they are very, very important in a specific industry while their marketability in another field is unknown.

When we think of "game developers", who do we think of? The Miyamotos and the David Jaffes of the world, the Will Wrights, the superstars who make a salary way above the reach of the rank and file game developer. We tend to assume (or at least, I did) that game developers must be highly paid because their skills are so specific. But the reality is, as the popularity contests like Ten Hottest Guys in Games show, people are hard-pressed to name even ten developers, let alone know what they look like or understand what they do.

How many porn movies have you seen? Five? Ten? A couple hundred? How many porn stars can you name? I bet it's a fraction of the number of films you've seen. Derek has a point - it's a pyramid, but on the other hand, doesn't that exist at a lot of companies? Derek's real point is that game design and development, like porn, is not a transferrable skill. You can't walk into IBM or Oracle with intimate knowledge of the combat systems of God of War 2 and expect to get a job at the same level you were at. And when you leave, as many game developers know, there are kids lined up right behind you who will do your job for less.

There's always a prettier, younger girl who will shove you down the stairs and out of her way.

Is there a natural piracy rate?

Chris Anderson over at The Long Tail blog writes this piece about how a zero-piracy rate in any given media is not only impossible, but probably financially detrimental.

The Long Tail and Videogames

Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, wrote an article called "The Long Tail" for the October 2004 issue which argues the commercial viability of non-hits. He's currently maintaining a blog on the topic while he works on a book-length version.

Anderson has some great examples, like how Netflix has allowed documentary films to undergo a commercial renaissance, and how more than 50% of Amazon's top sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles. He makes a pretty convincing argument that an internet-based distributer can make good money on non-hits by offering a couple thousand different titles, priced fairly.

Of course, videogames are quite famously not music, books or movies. Can this distribution model work for them? I say why not? Again, don't think about how to shoehorn Halo into this distribution model. Halo is a hit, and the industry already knows how to sell hits. The long tail model requires a flood of content with limited appeal. Think Katamari Damacy clones, PopCap, curling simulators, Indie Game Jam entries. Think all the videogames with reviews that caution "unless you're a die-hard fan, pass this one over," because the die-hard fans, the niche markets, are the territory of the long tail.

The long tail isn't "the end of hits." Anderson is happy to point out that the long tail isn't a lot of things. The long tail could be a way to bring back the commercial garage game, and it might very well be the best way to save the point 'n' click adventure game. As long as I keep working at Electronic Arts, I'll probably never get anywhere near it, but I think almost every developer here would love to see this kind of market emerge, if only so we can play what comes out of it.

Armistice

A lot of us were disappointed by the Xbox unveiling on Mtv. I didn't see it, but I've read and heard the comments. And most of you also acknowledge that it wasn't meant for us.

That is absolutely the most important thing to understand about this whole launch: it wasn't about us. It wasn't about games. As of yesterday, the console wars are over.

We're looking at a new dawn rising, friends.

Xbox 360 does not compete with Sony or Nintendo. It is not a gaming console. It is a powerful device to deliver content online and over WiFi. Microsoft's real competition is Apple, Yahoo, and Google. Apple's movie-download service. Yahoo's retail channels. Google's - well, everything. Heck, throw Comcast and TiVo in there for good measure. The games are merely a means to an end - an "instant-on revenue to support an exponential expansion into the livingroom," as Eric put it over an IM chat we had.

A reporter recently asked me to comment on how important it was to be first in the console wars. But that's an irrelevant issue, now. Microsoft has redefined the space on its own terms. It's not a console war anymore. Microsoft has altered the terms of the conflict to cater to their strengths. It is now a war of integrated systems and services. Sony and Nintendo? They're still making gaming systems. Fancier ones, but nothing like what Microsoft has in mind for Xbox 360.

This was really driven home to me while at Ryan's house, checking out his modded Xbox. That thing was a buffed-out media center. We browsed the web, downloaded videos, and watched them. Ryan scrolled through the files on the Xbox as well as the files on his laptop. He had tons of games loaded on, ready to play. Freedom from packaged software. Freedom from wires. Freedom. The Xbox 360 saw this, and understood; it was always a part of their plan, anyways; the hackers got it first, but Microsoft will polish it. Can the PS3 and the Revolution compete? No, not at the stakes Microsoft is playing for.

The reason the unveiling played out the way it did is because they don't really need to convince us of anything. We're all just along for the ride. Gamers? We're small potatoes to Microsoft. A means to an end.

In Other News

...I guess they unveiled something an hour ago.

The Worst-Kept Secret in the Industry

By now we've all seen the Xbox 360. And we know that yes, it is called the Xbox 360, we have a pretty good idea of what the specs are, and we've all seen the pretty, pretty pictures. And is Microsoft freaking out?

No way. They are fat and happy. This is perfect for them - the rumor-mongering and passionate debates among geeks over whether or not the leaked photos were fake or real or new alien technology turned a simple new console release into a home entertainment revolution that ended up being too big for the game industry - spilling over into the cultural wasteland of MTV.

At this point Sony might as well not show up to E3. Oh, we're mildly curious, I suppose. But their thunder has been good and stolen. Nintendo? I love you, but you might as well wait until next year to say anything. 2005 belongs to Microsoft.

The best way to make sure everyone's talking about your secret is to call it a secret and make sure you tell everyone not to tell anyone. It's a lesson that catty girls learned in junior high--the quickest way to spread a rumor and take over the playground. Turns out Microsoft is pretty good at it, too.

Shopping with Mario

Calling all New York peeps!! Nintendo of America is opening its first-ever retail store in Rockefeller Plaza, NYC. Blow-out block party celebrates the launch May 14th. They'll stock exclusive Nintendo merchandise (pink DS???) and have a DS sampling station. Also, "the store has been designed to create an interactive experience for all visitors including a multi-player gaming wall and a surround sound gaming lounge where consumers will play dozens of edgy Nintendo games."

(Hmm, don't know what they mean exactly by "edgy" but okay.)

I often feel like moving to New York...today the temptation just got raised up a notch.

Take Two, Making Friends

Developer IFD resorts to calling the Feds on a piracy charge against Take Two. Maliciousness or miscommunication?

GamesIndustry story.

Hindsight for Sony

They should have done this years ago. Just an aside - I'm absurdly pleased to see a female player featured as the default gamer in the silly cartoon art illustrated the bad old way and the good new way.

Game Girl Diaries

Blogs, in case you didn't know, are the new corporate buzzword. So everyone at my workplace has a blog. Never mind that I already have two - I've started a third one for my work that I'm calling "diaries", as it reflects a more personal approach to gaming in work and life. So, there it is - GameGirlDiaries.

All the other editors have blogs too, as well as some of the online guys. You can see their stuff all together at Blog Faction.

Vibrating Controller Patent Case

Oh, that pesky vibrating controller. Still causing trouble after all this time. Today a U.S. court ordered Sony to stop selling its Playstation console and pat $90 million dollars in damages to Immersion, a company that develops haptic technologies. Immersion has brought a suit against Sony claiming patent violation.

Read the Reuters news feed.

Read the Japan Times article.

This refers not just to the trance vibrator, but to the dual-shock technology used in both PSOne and PS2 controllers. Sony is appealing the ruling.

The Videogame Industry Union?

Great article on Gamasutra about the prospects of unionizing game developers. Very interesting.

EA's Plan for World Domination

My boyfriend is not a gamer. I mean, he did unlock all of Moby's gear in three days of playing SSX Tricky. But he's not a gamer. He's not "hardcore". Well, he did play FIFA Street for five consecutive hours. It's a game his friend Tom bought, even though he doesn't even have a PS2. Tom just brought it over to our house and we've been playing it here. Tom's not a gamer, either...but he is French, and he's a huge fan of le foot. The fact that you can play FIFA Street in locations like Marseille with his favorite (and least favorite) players was enough to make him pick it up. He'll be buying a PS2 for the first time, too.

Tom and Jesse aren't gamers. A lot of gamers (my office buddies, for example) think FIFA Street is, well, garbage - to put it more delicately than they did. But gamers aren't whom EA is courting with games like FIFA Street; they're wooing Tom and Jesse.

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Sell Sell Sell

The first-ever Advertising in Games Forum represents, I think, a sad trend. I'm not one of those anti-advertising purists. I enjoy many ads on TV, I think they have a place in our culture, and I think kids can be taught to be savvy about them.

But I can't help comparing games to other media. Product placement is a big deal in film - there are people who get upset about it. And there was at least a stir in the publishing industry when it was reported that Fay Weldon was paid an undisclosed sum by the Italian jewelry company to write "The Bulgari Connection." I wonder, was that book cheaper for Weldon fans because they were essentially reading just one big ad? Are the games going to be cheaper for the consumers if they're sponsored by Coca-Cola? Somehow I doubt it.

No one, however, bestirs herself for the cause of keeping videogames pure. I look forward, however, to the opportunity for devilish protest as we come up with clever hacks to either erase or transform brand logos. That could be fun. Virtual vandalism!

Moeru Nintendoki doki PANIC!

ANN is reporting that after teasing it in a press conference in September, Nintendo's Hiroshi Yamauchi announced that Nintendo will be opening an anime studio by 2006, producing videogame tie-in animations.

In a statement earlier, Yamauchi was quoted as saying, "Videogames are very similar to films." Despite the fact that anyone who has done art for both digital film and the game industry would tell you that's a crock of monkey snot, I'm interested to see what Nintendo wants to make. Will they be taking over future Pokemon cartoons? Some sort of Super Mario Bros. series? Donkey Kong?

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Metroid. Ghost In the Shell meets Aliens with music by Yoko Kanno. Oh yes.

IGDA's open letter on Game Industry Quality of Life

The IGDA has written an open letter addressing the recent Quality of Life issues in the game industry. Of particular interest is the mention of plans for a full-day Quality of Life think tank at the coming Game Developer's Conference in March.

Meanwhile, Yahoo! News is carrying LA Times coverage of last week's ea_spouse blog post.

Baby steps.

the pre-Christmas onslaught

I have a friend named Aaron. He bought the Sims 2 a few weeks ago. He was wrapped up in it - raising his sims, cultivating virtual life, planning to make movies using the game engine.

Then Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas came out. His Sims died as he played hours as a gangsta wearing a Groucho Marx mask, riding stolen dirt bikes around fake California. It's the best GTA game yet, he argued persuasively - the music is fantastic. The mini-games are awesome, the world is huge, riding bikes is rad.

Then I bought Halo 2. He came over to my house and played hours of it with me. That was great fun, but he doesn't have an Xbox. I was happy enough with that though. Multiplayer was fantastic - waging total mayhem.

Then tonight he got on chat with me.

Aaron: man half life 2 is incredible
Justin: ?
Justin: wtf
Justin: I'm sick of new games
Aaron: yea
Aaron: but half life 2 probably eclipses them all
Justin: WTF
Justin: you gotta be kidding me
Justin: why is that?
Aaron: its just amazing
Justin: what's so amazing?
Aaron: its the most immersive interactive game world i feel like i've ever seen
Justin: ?!?!
Aaron: and just the whole world of it is so well crafted
Justin: them's big words homie
Aaron: yeah. this is far more impressive than GTA SA
Aaron: you don't even get a weapon for like the first half hour or so
Aaron: you're just sort of experiencing this world and being led around by very subtle cues
Justin: how are you supposed to immerse without a weapon?
Aaron: well you can pick up various objects and throw them around
Aaron: stack them and stuff
Justin: um
Justin: like tetris?
Aaron: yea
Justin: but with more graphics?
Justin: um
Aaron: haha
Aaron: the way the narrative is told is great
Aaron: its basically a must play
Justin: you fuck
Justin: I'm broke and tired

Doom Free

I find this story particularly interesting and ironic.

Helen of Troy had the face that set a thousand ships a-sailing. Doom 3 has proved to be the game to set countless video cards a-selling. For years there have been previews and videos and articles and interviews with the makers of the game. Forget sliced bread, this game is hyped to be the best thing ever.

And perhaps all the hype is warranted. I don’t know. In the process of moving and equipped with a years-old laptop, I don’t really have the money, time or computing power to test Doom 3’s succulent waters.

But all this hype has caused people to pirate the game in large numbers. It’s not that people are massively buying the game and getting disappointed by the hype, ala Enter the Matrix. Rather, people are so enthralled in the aspect of playing this wonderful gift from our lord and savior id Software that they are bypassing that whole paying for it thing.

What’s the tipping point when the hype machine doesn’t only hurt a game’s expectations, but also its bottom line? Is there really any benefit in making retailers hold onto that much-anticipated release date when they already have copies in stock?

Get Paid for Gaming

... if you're a girl, that is. UbiSoft is looking for female gamers. Check out the Craigslist posting. Basically you'll be a gamer ambassador - playing videogames and going to represent the company at trade shows. Booth babe? But at least you're a real gamer, right? As Kat put it, "I 'figure if they want to pay me money to play games from home, then so be it." Word. Sounds like a dream job for someone! Check it out.

Eidos Lost

What's happening to Eidos? While I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for them because of warm feelings towards Ion Storm, they've been stumbling of late. Their failure to turn the strong IP Tomb Raider into the genuinely mind-blowing hit it deserved to be left them grasping. Deus Ex 2 has not performed well. Thief 3's post-release media blitz (May 26th is the release date) will have to carry on without the lead designer.

And now, rumors of a takeover amidst precipitously falling stock prices.

Maybe it would be all right for Eidos to enfold itself into EA or Ubisoft. Better than releasing such excreable titles as 25 to Life. Let's all consolidate! Hey, it worked so well for the music industry.

And all we'll be playing in the future will be endless iterations of sports games and FPS war games. Whoo-hoo.

Online Game Distribution Inches Closer to the West

Remember the early 90's when the casual internet was new? Remember all the beautiful, bizarro theories about how the internet signified the next step in human evolution? We would ascend from our physical shells to become beings of pure information, free-wheeling about the cosmos. Yes, those were the days.

A decade later, humans turning into data feels less certain, but purly digital software, freed from the harsh confines of disks and discs is becoming more and more popular. As reported on Slashdot Games, the Hollywood Reporter (my first stop for gaming news, don' cha know?) has this article talking about a videogame developer experimenting with distributing a game via peer-to-peer networks.

The company, NP Cube, is attempting to sell their MMO "Dark and Light" to the hardcore gamers of Reunion Island, east of Madacascar, off the coast of South Africa. NP Cube's main concern seems to be with saving the cost of materials, but I'm surprised that nobody mentions that this model of distribution basically nulls conventional piracy techniques. Since the actual game is kept on servers by the game company, they can give away the client and just charge for access. This business model has lead MMO titles to quickly out-gross conventional titles in places like Korea and China that have been notorious for software piracy. When analysts talk about how online distribution is fundamentally flawed because consumers like to have something they can grab, they obviously aren't talking about Asia. The fact is, this model is already hugely successful, and it is likely just a matter of time before Western markets adapt.

What do y'all think?

Weekend Reading: Learn About Korean Game Companies

Just a quickie:

While doing research into the MMOs of Asia over the last week, I came across an interesting report by IT KOREA Journal. This 30 page pdf provides an interesting view of many Korean game developers that those of us here in the West might not otherwise know anything about. They even interview a few industry big-wigs, like Kim Jeong-ryul, chairman of Gravity, makers of Ragnarok Online.

There's info on trends in Asian MMOs, Asian mobile gaming, and profiles of currently successful games. Good stuff all around. Published March 2004.

While the original document seems to have vanished, Google has cached an html version of the pdf which you can read here. All the pictures are missing, but the writing is clear enough that it hardly matters.

Update: Found the original. If you want the bigger download with all the pictures, try this link

Scott McCloud on Micro-payments and Games

My life has been blasted by comics lately. I attended the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco over the weekend, and also wound up watching the fictional documentary ("mockumentary" would be both overused, and highly inaccurate) Comic Book: The Movie, but the entirely coincidental pinnacle was Monday afternoon when comics guru Scott McCloud spoke at EA Redwood Shores' Milestone Auditorium. Some of you may be familiar with McCloud's Understanding Comics, which has garnered praise from people both in and out of the comics community. His discussion (and show-don't-tell examples) of how we use symbols and visuals to communicate has made him popular among user-interface designers, visual designers and game designers. Scott spoke about a lot of issues involving comics and gaming, but there was one idea he touched on that struck me as a really cool idea. Now I'm just trying to figure out if it's also a good idea.

If you've kept up with Scott in recent years, you know that he has long been a proponent of the web micro-payments concept, and is now on the board for the Bit-Pass micro-payment system. One of the concepts he brought up at his talk was the idea of using micro-payments for online gaming, which he analogizes to feeding quarters into the arcade machines of yore. Would you pay 25 cents for 100 credits of Bejewelled? What about a dollar for six hours on Everquest? How about a virtual penny arcade that let you play multiplayer Joust or Gauntlet II online with people from around the world? No monthly subscriptions, just pure pay-to-play.

I think there's potential here, especially in the indie and shareware markets. I don't know if I want to give you $5 dollars to play your lo-fi but innovative game whenever I want, but I might give you a quarter to play it a few times. Also, this model could help consumers warm up to the idea of buying something without getting a physical artifact, which along with the proliferation of broadband technologies, could start to give consumers the savings from not needing a box. Perhaps most importantly, it's these small market titles that don't have millions of dollars riding on them. Large publishers don't have any problem putting units on the shelves at your local EB, and they'll just keep on taking your $50 until the market moves under them.

P.S. What would a blog post that starts with an APE reference be without a webcomic link? One of my big wins from the Expo was a print version of chapter one of Monica Gallagher's spiffy webcomic "Gods and Undergrads." Go. Read.

Join the Army: Go Home, Meet Friends and Relatives, and Kill Them.

This article on Gamespot raised a few eyebrows as it noted EA's recent release of Metal of Honor: Rising Sun... in Japan (Official Japanese MoH:RS site).

Players take on the role of American soldiers fighting in the Pacific theater of the Second World War, that is, against the very nation they are selling the game to. The article notes that while the Japanese game reviewing press has stoically avoided commenting on anything more than the game play, gamers themselves are not quite as willing to brush it off as "just a game."

Still, as another Gamespot article notes, only about 1% of Japanese gamers (from the Tokyo Game Show) actually own any American games. Still, EA's probably not going to be helping those numbers with MoH:RS.

In any case, what is up with that, yo? Perhaps more importantly, how should game companies deal with issues like this without having to sacrifice lucrative international markets?

How to Break Into the Games Industry. No, really.

I attended a talk by Chris Klug [MobyGames rap-sheet], former creative director of Electronic Arts' MMORPG, Earth & Beyond, at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center. Klug came to the videogame industry by way of the pencil & paper RPG industry [Exhibit 1, Exhibit 2], and spent much of his early working years as a professional theatrical lighting designer. As somebody who changed from one field to another perceived (mistakenly, he believes) as being very different, he had quite a bit to say on how you, too, can get into not just the games industry, but any industry.

A word of warning: Klug's answer to the question "How do I get a job?" is, I'd say, roughly the equivalent to answering the question "How do I get in shape?" by saying "Good diet and regular exercise." Those of you looking for silver bullets had best stop reading and look elsewhere. Also, this is, of course, largely opinion, and I didn't agree with everything he said, so no guarantees.

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Starsky and Suck?

At a San Francisco IGDA meeting back in March, Kathy Schoback explained that it's nearly impossible to get shelf space in mainstream retail stores for a GameBoy game that isn't a license or a sequel.

During the Game Developers' Conference that same month, Warren Spector gave a keynote speech explaining that there was still room for innovation in this kind of market, where original concepts for characters and story can be hard to sell.

Spector later argued that point with Greg Costikyan, on Costikyan's weblog. Now on his site, Greg hones his critique of licensed games, taking issue with the upcoming "Starsky and Hutch" licensed title. His primary objection is age-based - Starsky & Hutch is too old a show to be relevant for game-playin' kids today:

I'm old enough to remember when Starsky & Hutch was on TV. I'm also old enough to be outside the target demographic for games, even though the age range is increasing. Basically, with few exceptions, people in their 40s don't play games.
In other words, the people who actually remember this TV show don't play games and aren't going to buy this thing. Those few of us who DO remember the show also remember that it sucked. No, make that, it sucked huge wads of crap.

The game is likely to be timed to release with the upcoming film - probably part of a post-Charlie's Angels me-too 70s TV-movie cash-in.

The money spent on the license and the 70s costumes might have been spent on some kind of original story. But then it might not have had the odd location in our memories, as the title for a show many of us heard of, but never really saw. Does that make us more likely to play the game? I'm picturing half the shelves at my local gaming store flooded with entertainment software based on TJ Hooker, Cageny & Lacey, Hill Street Blues, My Favourite Martian, My Three Sons, Gilligan's Island, MASH, and All in the Family.

Perhaps the S&H game will be great. The recent Simpson's Hit and Run game took the open ended play of Grand Theft Auto and added enough of the content of the show to make fans respect this game. But the Simpsons is a clear license, with a fanatical following. What about Starsky & Hutch?

We assume that licenses are selected primarily for their vast revenue potential. But Jason's back of the envelope calculations favor original content. So perhaps S&H represent safe synergy - TV+movie+game=guaranteed opening weekend sales. Or, if you buy Costikyan's argument that the Starsky & Hutch license is irrelevant, then perhaps the people running game studios and making content aquisition decisions are too old. We'll see if a movie marketing blitz or compelling gameplay can help Starsky & Hutch compete with the Matrix game!

Customer Service in Gaming: Players Versus Developers?

Gaming, like the rest of the software industry, is becoming more of a service-providing field rather than just exclusively concerning itself with box-sales and moving on to the next game. Instead, more and more companies are using subscription-based models to sell their products (witness Valve's recent announcement of Half-Life 2 availability through Steam) or launching yet-another MMPOG, the epitome of service-based gaming.

Yet as demonstrated through Alex "Marweas" Rodberg's now infamous public forums posting and consequent public lambasting on Penny Arcade and gaming news sites, sometimes conflicts arise when gamers and developers (or their representatives) meet on public forums. But who's fault is it? The people who make the games or the people who play them?

Like any complex issue, it's a little bit of both. Speaking as someone who's last job dealt mainly with providing "community support" for A Tale in the Desert, let me first state that the whole profession is in its infancy with no real standards on what types of policies companies should follow for their customer relations. ATITD, because of our relatively small playerbase and close developer-player ties, still utilizes volunteer Game Masters (GMs) and relies heavily upon player-run fan sites. However, most current MMPOGs have eliminated volunteer customer service positions due to the legal complexities involved and fear of a potential fiasco like the UO Counselor Lawsuit. Increasingly, more games are using streamlined and automated service systems rather than costly individual personalized support. And perhaps that's the main reason for Mr. Rodberg's outburst of frustration.

With traditional methods of customer support becoming more "corporate and standardized," message boards and forums are one of the few remaining places where players can rant and rave about the game and perhaps get some treasured developer feedback. Players want to feel like their opinions and problems are unique and special, not be "Support Ticket #4832953" and answered by an auto-generated reply system. Thus, more pressure is being put upon developers and community managers to be the "public face" of the game, which may explain why SWG has a developer tracker on their official forums to counteract their widely criticized customer support system. And with Raph Koster, the former lead developer of SWG and now recently-promoted Chief Creative Officer for SOE personally answering the playerbase's concerns and questions in an affable and reasonable manner, many players easily forgive the purging of their support tickets.

Nowadays, in addition to creating a quality product, game companies have to be politically savvy enough to satisfy their customers wants and desires in a diplomatic manner. Who knows? Perhaps in the future, a polisci degree will be as important as a CS one to the aspiring game developer.

Beyond the Living Room

Ken Belson writes in the New York Times from Tokyo:

The lesson in the latest round of quarterly earnings seems clear: If you want to succeed, work your way into the living room, not the boardroom.

From "Consumer Electronics Surge Ahead of Office Computers"

Remember all that talk about the battle for the living room? Hot plastic on plastic action as Sony's PlayStation2 and Microsoft's Xbox entered the race to be the box at the heart of home entertainment. The PS2/Xbox struggle was just a foreshadowing of what was likely to be a paradigm shift in consumer electronics and personal computers.

It's a long term trend evident in the size of thinking machines. Starting with the room-sized ENIAC and now today with PDAs, devices for human mental augmentation have shunk rapidly. (see Tools for Thought). If you don't need to be at the tech lab to time-share on the computer, then you can work from your office desk. Or you could work from home! Or anywhere you carry a small bag full of technology.

Anyone who has edited PowerPoint slides from the first row seconds before giving a speech can speak to the white-knuckle thrill of modern business technology. As exciting as the business applications have proven though, the world is filled with people who are not as likely to file a report as they are likely to take and distribute a picture of their baby or their children.

So it makes sense that the living room is the medium term destination for technology growth. It's where people gather. Humanity at large seizes military inventions for casual use! Hurrah! But living in Japan, and watching the Xbox launch in South Korea, I realized that "living room" is a silly assumption. Many homes or hotels featured only a nice floor to sit on, and precious little space for gathering in private.

You could argue that all countries are headed in the living room direction, converging on a shared goal of couch-borne plenty where the fruits of capitalism elevate fattening legs in front of giant screens.

Or you could argue that the longer-term destination for technology is the human body (see Steve Mann). If technology augments us, we don't want to have to choose when to be augmented - we want the choice all the time. We don't take pictures of our girlfriends and boyfriends sitting at their desks at work, or sitting on their couch in front of their television. Why should we expect that all technology pleasure is best experienced in the living room? Some day, that will seem as absurd as imagining that computers belong only in an office.

Even if the living room is only a rest stop on the road to tomorrow, it seems fitting that the early battles are being fought with PlayStations and Xboxes. Extensive immersion in video games is the best way to observe the evolution of the technology business, the future of human augmentation, and the future of our shared reality.

Xbox Vote of Confidence on GameFAQs

Before today, in months of scanning, I have never seen an Xbox game listed on the front page of GameFAQs.com as one of the Top 10 FAQ pages.

GameFAQs aggregates fan-provided hints and tip-sheets for games. It's indispensible for fans of story-driven or plot-oriented titles, role-playing games, adventures. If you're trying to find a hidden house in Skies of Arcadia, you can't get past the Russian guards on the second level of Splinter Cell, or you're trying to figure out how exactly to create the optimal character for Summoner, some fan has solved the game, solved it again, and solved it a third time, taking detailed notes on the secrets and tricks they used. Not all games get this treatment, however - only games that have dedicated fans, and dedicated players hoping for hints.

Scanning the top ten requested games on GameFAQs is a good way to see what people are playing (it's how I first heard of Animal Crossing). So it's been telling that Xbox hasn't had any games that are popular in this way - Nintendo, PlayStation and PC dominate the ranks. That is, until BioWare's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - currently ranked the number one most popular FAQ on GameFAQs.

Jane and I are addicted, wrestling for control of the controller (actually we're under deadline and not playing it much at all. But we think about it often!). It's the first Xbox game I've seen Jane play for more than twenty minutes. Knights of the Old Republic is a great game with perfect appeal for a console role-player. The game meets the pent-up demand of gamers who haven't yet been able to harnass their Xbox for an epic adventure.

Those players won't find many hints in the GameFAQs page for SW: KNOTR, there's only a few slim user-generated FAQ files there so far. By my count, it's taken over 18 months for an Xbox title to generate an active users-helping-users community. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic looks like a strong long-term vote of confidence in the Xbox platform. What will Bioware do next? And what platform will it be on?

Game Farming

I have wanted a copy of War of the Monsters for the PS2 for a while now - I demoed it at E3 2002 and had a blast knocking b-movie creatures around with friends. It seems like it would be a great game to have on the shelf, when two player brawls better suit an evening than conversation.

Even months after it's release, the game is still over $35 retail, and over $25 used. I was hoping for more like $20, especially if I buy it online and have to pay shipping.

Fortunately, Chad Paulson writes in about a new service he's constructed: GameFarmer:

Well, I just launched a service you might find useful. It is a console game price comparison engine called GameFarmer. Unlike other price comparison engines, GameFarmer focuses on video games and allows gamers to sort by new and preowned games. It also allows gamers to set price alerts when a game falls below a certain price (either new, preowned, or both).

The front page lists games that have recently dropped below that magic $20 price limit. Maybe there is some lesson here about prices gamers are willing to pay. Or perhaps games are like movies - some have extended lifecycles: the equivalent of US theatrical release, then overseas, followed by airlines/cable, then video/dvd, etcetera. It's a rare game that doesn't eventually end up in the bargain bin; if you're willing to wait long enough to get a copy. I've filled out my 20$ buy in request for War of the Monsters; we'll see if that comes to pass.

Cheapass Games Interview

For proof that there's a ton of innovation and good spirit in cheap game-making, look no further than the recent OgreCave interview with James Ernest founder of Cheapass Games. Cheapass has been earning winks and smiles in the paper games industry since they offered people a chance for some organized fun for under $10. Now according to Allan Sugarbaker's interview, they're working on full-color titles and game software tie-ins.

I was pleased to read that they often start their designs from themes and let the game mechanic unfold from that. It gives me hope for my place and people ideas for as-yet-unpublished games. That, and it's always nice to read about hardworking independent artists. James has made game-sharing more important than game graphics or game perfecting. Bully for Cheapass games. Have you tried to buy a nice German boardgame lately? Puerto Rico doesn't go for less than $26 on eBay!

Quake Casino

Think you're L33t? Care to b3t on it?

Great entry on Slashdot about a new service, based in the conveniently offshore Carribean island Curacoa, that will let you bet real money on your deathmatch. It seems legit.

I am not a gambler, so this doesn't seem interesting to me as an activity. But I can imagine for some it would provide an incredible adrenaline kick. But I don't understand one thing - when I signed up for the email notification to register, it asked me to check a box indicating that I was over eighteen. Don't you have to be over 21? - that's assuming if you're not in one of the 11 states which don't let you gamble.

Further evidence that offline and online economies converge in game space.

Commercial Ludic Convergeance

We should see increasing use of video games to sell products and brands:

Matthew Ringel is president of Games Media Properties, a joint venture of the William Morris Agency and Ya-Ya that is designed to help companies reach consumers around "the video game lifestyle." ... "There's a gold rush with games," Ringel said. "We're making the picks and shovels."

There has been much talk in the past about product placement in games (ie, SimDonalds). But BizReport: "Advertisers Use Online Games to Entice Customers" is less about putting a Tommy Jeans billboard in a snowboarding game, and more about Jeep games for women, Jimmy Neutron games from Nikelodeon using codes found in cereal boxes, Barbie blogs and America's Army. These are games made specifically to promote products, not products coming up in the course of regular place. But about all current convergeances of commercial and ludic are mentioned in the piece. (from LucJam).

Dear Game Designers

Great letter to the editor in the NYTimes today by Isabel Walcott, founder and former president of Smartgirl.org:

I was amused to see "Payoff = Points: A False Equation'' (Oct. 24)[an article by Janelle Brown about the changing nature of video games based on increasing age of the average gamer], about the changing tastes of the "maturing" computer game player. The industry has seen demand change as young and teenage boys reach their 30's and beyond; they now want lasting experiences, complexity, multi-tasking, humor and creativity from their gaming. They don't just want to score: they want a relationship!

As a longtime researcher of the computer gaming interests of teenage girls, I know that these are the very game characteristics that they have always yearned for. If the industry hadn't virtually ignored girls for the last 20 years, it wouldn't be playing catch-up now. Hiring a lot of women in creative management roles at these companies might just solve their design problems.

[Link]

Wolf in Cuddly Cute Sheep's Clothing?

Sam Hart's intelligent critique of Nintendo's business practices on GeekComix is particularly relevant today. Nintendo is currently under fire from the EU regarding these same business practices, and will have to pay US$147 in fines (see NYTimes story).

Nintendo has definitely made its name as a family-friendly, kid-safe company with the cutest, sweetest avatars on the block. But it sounds now like they were a hard-hearted greedy corporation engaging in illegal strong-arm tactics to artificially set the prices of their products.

Oh, Nintendo. Don't make me cry.

Click on this most delicious burger!

According to MSNBC, There will be Big Macs and Intel inside in the upcoming Sims Online. The original Sims game seemed almost a parody of consumer culture (at least in terms of the product descriptions, if not the model of ideal consuming lifestyle fun). But it's natural that the first massively-multiplayer online game likely to appeal to more mainstream gamers would also be the first online game to feature widespread product placements. Can you imagine seeing ads for Mountain Dew in Everquest ("Do the Dew - for the Orc Slayer in you") ? That would be reminiscent of the likes of Bazoomer.com advertising in the film State & Main. But Big Macs in the Sims Online? That's not too surprising, and a further sign that gaming is losing some of its insularity.

GameCube: Let the Sun Shine In

I've been so busy playing Halo and Grand Theft Auto 3 that I haven't paid much attention to the third console, the eternal Nintendo. According to Ferrago.co.uk, Mario Sunshine is now among the fastest-selling games of all time, outpacing Halo and GTA. And maybe driving some interest in Nintendo's GameCube?