Parveen Kaler

Vancouver VC Forum #5

I presented for a group of investors at the VC Forum last Thursday. It was my first time pitching Smartful Studios to investors. There was an additional challenge as I did not know ahead of time who in particular I would be pitching to.

I’ve pitched to developers many times. I think I tell a fairly decent story. I pitch at the right level of detail. And I’m able to appeal to developers at an emotional level.

I haven’t quite found my voice when pitching to VCs. Here is some additional detail I will present next time:

Problem #1: The Legacy Revenue Model Is Not Sustainable

The video game business is currently a hit-driven business. Large sums of money and large teams are required to get product on the shelf by Black Friday. A majority of sales take place in the opening two weeks. The magic number everyone mentions for failing to make the Black Friday deadline is 40% less revenue.

This is not a sustainable business model.

Problem #2: Games Are Neither Meaningful Nor Memorable

Games are supposed to be fun. Unfortunately, the implication here is that games are a mere distraction from a person’s banal life.

Distribution channels are clogged with shovelware. Poor quality product may be shipped because of movie tie-ins. Poor quality product may be shipped because of advertising or sponsorship.

Solution

Focusing on episodic content that is digitally distributed is a huge improvement on the current revenue model. This leads to smoother revenue generation. Developers can also generate much sooner.

Developers can assume much more creative risk if content is distributed episodically. Developers can develop pilot episodes of their games in a similar fashion

First and foremost, just like great films and great novels, games are art. Period.

You can try to argue this point with me. I dare you. I will stick my fingers in my ears and yell LALALALALALALA at the top of my lungs.

The market works much more efficiently if developers focus on producing high quality content. Funding poor quality projects is a waste of time, resources, and investment dollars.

Vancouver Half Marathon

I ran the Vancouver Half Marathon earlier this month. The race started at 7 AM on a Sunday morning. I woke up at 5:30 AM. This is early for me. Very early. I don’t wake up this early never mind the fact that I had to actually run.

For breakfast I had a banana, an orange, an extra strong coffee and two Advils. I had been suffering from shin splints the previous month and I wasn’t able to complete any long runs. The plan was to hit the pain with a preemptive strike of ibuprofen.

I stopped lifting weights and going to yoga earlier this year. The plan was to focus on running. My body wasn’t recovering from all of the abuse quick enough. Trying to get a business off of the ground, dealing with friends and family, and traveling out of town there just wasn’t enough time in the day.

Stopping weight lifting was a bad idea. It was keeping me flexible and strong. Once I stopped lifting, the shin splints started to kick in. In the future, I would consume massive amounts of protein to help my body recover. I would try to get at least one weight workout in each week.

It was a beautiful day for a run. Conditions were almost perfect. Everyone had a smile on their face at the start line. Music was being played along the race route. My name was written on the front of my name placard. Random people cheered me on.

About an hour into the race I entered Stanley Park. For the first hour, I ran at about 10 km/h. This was my planned race plan. I finished the first 10 km of the race in 1:01:09. Then I hit the hill in Stanley Park.

This is when my feet started blistering. Really bad blistering. I’ll spare you the pictures.

I ended up running the last 11 km at about 9 km/h.

According to my Garmin ForeRunner 305, I ended up finishing in 2:15:54. According to the ChampionChip, I ended up finishing in 2:15:51.

I have full data from my GPS watch that I will post up soon. I’ll write up a review of the Garmin ForeRunner too.

Gamer vs. Audience

I don’t like the term gamer. It is a limited viewpoint of how a game is actually experienced.

When I was young, the game console was usually connected to the second TV in the basement. I played Doom or Warcraft on the PC in the bedroom. Games were played between 10pm and 2am. It was either a solitary experience or the kids got together in the basement so that they would not disturb the more mature adults.

Somewhere along the way, people started playing games in the den and in the living room.

I don’t like the term gamer because it discounts the passive members of the audience.

Games that I’ve worked on in the past have had Observer Modes. This is important for real-time strategy games and for shooters. It is a required feature for competitive gaming leagues.

Half the experience of Guitar Hero or Rock Band is sitting by yourself and trying to improve your skill. It is about trying to hit each and every note in a song.

The other half of the experience is getting together with a large group of friends, drinking your face off, jumping around, and belting out notes at the top of your lungs. The people in the room that don’t actually have their hands on the controllers are a legitimate part of the experience too.

Design games with both the active and passive members of the audience in mind. Drop the gamer term and adopt the term of audience.

DemoCampVancouver06 - iPhone Development for Independent Developers

DemoCampVancouver06 started with a moderated panel. Boris Mann moderated the panel with Dustin Sacks of SillySoft Games, Jamie Cheng of Klei Entertainment, and myself taking part.

Definition of Terms

The panel started with an introduction to terms such as independent game development and casual gaming.

I don’t have a good definition for indie games. I know what it is not. It is not quirky games. Both independent and larger studios can make quirky games. It is not say anything about business models. Independent game developers can be either amateur or professional.

What independent game development is about is a direct relationship between a developer and its audience. Independent game developers should not have layers of bureaucracy between the developer and audience.

I really don’t like the term casual gaming either. It is a somewhat meaningless term. The 40 year old soccer mom may be playing Bejeweled or Diner Dash for 20 hours each week. How is that casual in any way?

Mainstream Games

The discussion moved on to games and mainstream audiences. Traditionally, games have been targeted at the male 18-35 year audience. In recent years, we have been seeing short-form, puzzle games targeted at the 40 year old soccer mom. We have also seen the mainstreaming of games with the Wii. Older audiences have enjoyed games like Wii Sports.

However, to be truly considered mainstream, I contend that games must be accessible to all the same way that film, books, board games, and card games are experienced today. We also need to cover a greater range in terms of theme. We need to move past themes that are just space marines, zombies, Nazis, pirates, ninjas, and wizards.

Quality of Life

The discussion then moved on to business and Quality of Life issues. The topic of ea_spouse came up. Ea_spouse wrote a blog post called EA: The Human Story. It was written from the point of view of a disgruntled spouse who’s partner was working at the Electronic Arts studio out in Los Angeles.

I contend that Quality of Life issues that the industry currently still faces are just a symptom of a larger disease. The revenue model that the industry currently uses is not sustainable. The business model is based upon having product on the shelf at Walmart or Best Buy by Black Friday. The magic number everyone mentions for failing to make that deadline is 40% of revenue disappearing.

This results in crunch time. Lots of crunch time.

iPhone Development for Independent Developers

I was up first with my presentation. I was expecting stronger opinions about dancing with Apple and iPhone development. But when I looked into the audience I saw one Asus eee PC. Everyone else had a MacBook.

The only real point of contention was from Dustin. He strongly believes on developing for open platforms like the Mac and the PC. That way there are no gatekeepers and you have a direct relationship with your audience.

Market Share

I started my presentation by stating I wanted to take a big view of the iPhone as a platform and as a medium. The iTunes Music Store with market share of 19% is the leading retailer of music. It took Apple 5 years to get there. So, thinking about where the iPhone Application Store will be 5 years from today is a very useful exercise.

I believe that Apple will try to push into the living room with the Application Store. They currently ship the second generation of the Apple TV. In 5 years, we can expect a few more generations of iteration. At this point they are really trying to compete with set top boxes like Tivo. As the XBox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3 become more mainstream and offer more choices in terms of media, Apple will be forced to compete with them.

The Application Store on an Apple TV would be a worthy adversary for XBox Live Arcade and for the PlayStation Network.

However, this will be a fundamentally different audience. In the past, the Mac was not a gaming platform because games were not targeted at Mac users. Simply porting Halo or Grand Theft Auto or Madden Football to the Mac or the iPhone is not a viable strategy. The audience just doesn’t want those types of games.

Content Distribution

I contend that the four price points that matter are $40, $20, $0.99, and Free. $40 is the price of a Nintendo DS or Sony PSP game. $20 is the price of a DVD. $0.99 is the price of a single on iTunes. And Free is the way we consume the majority of our content.

Don’t sell games at the $5 to $7 price point.

Harmonix just got you to pay $180 for Rock Band. But they sell Phase on the iPod in the $5-$7 range. Think about what that does in terms of value perception.

The $5-$7 price point is where the shovelware, puzzle games will sit. Don’t compete with shovelware. Figure out how to differentiate yourself, especially by price point.

Think about how iPod users consume content. People listen to podcasts on the bus. People see a single mentioned on a blog post and they are two clicks away from purchasing the single in iTunes.

Don’t fight this. Provide content in an episodic manner and provide it à la carte. This is how your audience wants to consume your content.

Call To Action

The last point of my presentation was actually a Call To Action. I started by quoting Daniel Radosh of the NY Times. Radosh wrote an article called The Play’s The Thing last year after Halo 3 was released.

If games are to become more than mere entertainment, they will need to use the fundamentals of gameplay — giving players challenges to work through and choices to make — in entirely new ways. The formula followed by virtually all games is a steady progression on toward victory: you accomplish tasks until you win. Halo 3, for all its flawless polish, does not aspire to anything more. It does not succeed as a work of art because it does not even try.

Like cinema, games will need to embrace the dynamics of failure, tragedy, comedy and romance. They will need to stop pandering to the player’s desire for mastery in favor of enhancing the player’s emotional and intellectual life

It is really difficult to put into words the passion that I tried to deliver this message with. So, I’ll just try to leave it at that.

Video

There was a ton of video taken of the event. You can watch over at BlipTV and over at Flickr Video.

Appreciation Weekend: Ariane

It’s been a little bit of a rough week for me. I woke up today to a rainy Vancouver morning. So I decided to brainstorm the most absurdly positive thing that I could do.

I was chatting with a few friends about my blog the other day. Ariane mentioned that I didn’t post enough personal material. I have strayed away from personal posts because I would actually like to write material of value to you, the reader. I didn’t want to turn a blog, which is inherently a self-indulgent medium, into something even more self-indulgent.

So Ariane, you asked for more personal material and you’re getting it.

Every week, I will write a post of some person or something in my life that I appreciate. This week, we are starting with Ariane.

I’ve known Ariane for about 10 years now. We first met at Simon Fraser University. But really, we have gotten much closer over the last year when she moved downtown.

Ariane is the first person I call when I do something dumb or if I need women advice. She is easily the most open, understanding, and non-judgmental person that I know. I like to call her my favourite sister. I had to demote my actual sisters to slots #2 and #3.

Ariane has really grown over the last year. She has grown substantially in both her personal life and professional career. It really has been great to see.

If you know Ariane personally, leave a comment to show your gratitude.

March Recap

March was a good month in terms of blogging. I was able to crank out 7 blog posts in March including a post with video. Look for more media rich content in the future. I’ll continue to focus on generating higher quality, unique, editorial and opinionated content.

I’m focusing on adding more positivity to the tone of my writing. I’m still not completely satisfied with the voice in my writing.

I’ve been trying to improve my public speaking skills. I did a speech for a group of friends last month and I have another speech scheduled for the same audience this month. I haven’t picked the topic of my speech yet. If I think it is valuable, I will post my slides here again.

I have another presentation scheduled at DemoCampVancouver. The state of iPhone development keeps evolving very rapidly. There were two public BETA releases of the iPhone SDK along with another private release. I would expect two more releases in the month of April. There have many developments in the jailbreak scene too.

There has been controversy about the features that Apple did not release in the official SDK versus the features available to jailbreakers. There has been controversy with regards to Java and Flash on the iPhone. There have been rumors of a 3G iPhone being released this summer. There has been controversy as to how Apple is rolling out their Developer Program.

My presentation at DemoCampVancouver will focus on the bleeding-edge nature of development. If I do demo something, it will be my prototype renderer running on a jailbroken device. It’s just too early to be actually showing off gameplay. There is no point showing something that is bound to change down the road.

A couple years back a friend passed away in a car accident. A few friends gathered together last weekend for a memorial. We celebrated hard and it turned out to be a very positive weekend.

In general, it has been a very positive month. I made a conscious decision this year to drop the negative cruft that had accumulated. Positive situations just seem to pop up all of the time. Last week, a friend called to say that he had the most awesome day and he just had to call someone. It was probably the most thoughtful thing I can recall in the last little while.

My website has been up and down over the last two weeks. Dreamhost, my hosting provider, has been going through a number of outages. Hopefully, they can sort everything out very soon. If it lasts for any longer, I will probably go ahead and switch providers.

I updated the blog to Wordpress 2.5. I don’t think the blog has been up long enough for anyone to notice any issues with the upgrade. From others that have upgraded, it looks like Wordpress 2.5 is solid.

I’ve published my shared calendar. There are only a couple of events on my calendar at the moment. As I attend more public events, I’ll keep adding them to the calendar.

The blog is also available in a mobile version. There is no special URL that you need to access. The blog does browser detection and displays a custom version of the blog optimized for mobile Safari.

I have been spreading my focus a little thin over the last month. I have been helping family members that moved this month. I really need to do a better job at timeboxing my availability to others. Sometimes a simple get-together seems to consume an entire day or evening. So, expect me to be more firm when I show up and when I take off.

I also have troubles saying no to requests. I keep saying yes to requests made by almost anyone. A lot of these requests are just not congruent with where I want to be in terms of focus. I keep saying yes to projects and contacts that I should have shelved a long time ago. Expect that to change this month too.

The Vancouver Half-Marathon that I’m running in is just over a month away. I read this great article over at ZenHabits on running. I am a firm believer of lacing up your shoes and just putting one foot in front of the other. This is true for running and this is true for other things in life.

In March, I was not as focused on my running as I should have been. I’ve been spreading my focus a little too thin. The plan for April is to wake up and go for a run or a walk first thing in the morning. The plan is to focus on writing code or managing business tasks for the rest of the day.

I plan on tightening up my diet over the next month too. So, instead of going out for dinner or drinks this month, I’ll be getting together with friends for coffee more often.

GDC 2008: Entrepeneurship: From Zero To Pandemic

Jamie’s recent blog post reminded me that I never got around to posting my notes from Josh Resnick’s talk on entrepreneurship. Jamie pointed to a great interview over at GameIndustry.biz.

Friday was the last day of GDC. I was planning on going to David Jaffe’s keynote in the morning. However, Jaffe was a no-show. Lucky for me, I went to Josh Resnick’s talk on Entrepreneurship. It was one of the best sessions the entire week for myself.

Resnick is an original founder of Pandemic Studios. A studio that is now about 10 years old. Pandemic is located in Los Angeles with a second studio in Brisbane, Australia. That is quite impressive for a decades worth of growth.

Pandemic recently partnered with BioWare and struck a deal with Elevation Partners. Elevation Partners is an equity firm that is famous for being headed by John Riccitiello of EA, Fred Anderson of Apple, and Bono of U2. Pandemic/BioWare went on to be acquired by Electronic Arts.

Resnick laid out 6 items that learned in growing the studio.
1) Build On A Solid Foundation
2) Choose The Right Partners
3) Invest In Talent
4) Create A Positive Culture
5) Run Your Studio As A Business
6) Take Calculated Risks

Although the above six items seem like common sense, Resnick backed them up with concrete examples. There were a number of real life anecdotes that were shared.

Pandemic focused on growth of the company from the start. Their first game was funded by Activision. They built their own technology and IP. There was a strategy to scale right away. They started with two teams on two different projects to mitigate the risk of a project being cancelled.

Resnick went on to mention that this is the best time to start a studio. Game development startups are going through the same renaissance period that web startups went through recently. It is very cheap to get up and running. There are many platforms that can be targeted. There are tons of new revenue models that can be employed to generate cash right away. There is also tons of cash available for startup capital. Game development is very sexy right now from the point of view of Hollywood, the music industry, media conglomerates, and venture capitalists.

At the end of the session, I asked Resnick a question about taking on venture capital. I thought his insight would be useful because of his past deal with Elevation Partners. His advice was to basically only take on venture if the source of funding understands media and entertainment.

So what did I learn? A lot of stuff I have been focusing on was validated. Resnick emphasized on building a long, stable runway. He talked about defining a vision for the company and defining roles before entering into partnerships. He also talked about how independents should focus on new platforms and revenue models.

DemoCampVancouver06: Gaming Edition

DemoCamp is an adhoc conference where anyone can pitch an idea for a presentation. The goal is to pitch your idea or demo and get solid, constructive feedback. DemoCamp attracts a diversity of people and as a result is a great networking event as well as a great place to take in new ideas.

DemoCampVancouver06 is taking place on April 10, 2008. It will take place at Workspace and start at 5:30PM. This time around DemoCamp will be focused on Game Development. Word on the street is that Sun Microsystems will have a presence.

I know what your thinking. What? Sun a gaming company? Sun is currently focusing on Project Darkstar for gaming. Sun Startup Essentials may also be pertinent for some.

I will be presenting on Bleeding Edge iPhone Game Development. I’ll go over the tools and the platform, the types of games that can be made, and if it makes sense for you from a business perspective. I’ll compare and contrast with XBox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, WiiWare, and other platforms.

Tools For Improving Focus

I recently did a talk for a group of friends on productivity and focusing. I thought that others may also find this talk valuable. I took my notes and put together a Keynote presentation with voice-over. Enjoy.

Let me know if you found it useful.

Rules of Communication: Not Trying To Be Rude

I am connected and online almost all of the time. I’m also known to send almost all of my phone calls to voice mail. I don’t reply to many emails either.

I’m not trying to be rude.

I am busy. You are busy. We are all busy. Myself and most of the people in my life are knowledge workers. That’s just a fancy term that means we turn content and information into something that is actually useful. This requires concentration and blocks of uninterrupted time.

So if you call and I send you to voicemail please don’t be offended. If you message me and I ask you, “Is this urgent?” Don’t be offended.

My attention is interruptible. It is interruptible only if the matter is urgent.

FYI or Actionable

So here are some tips. If you are sending me a piece of communication, please clearly mark what is FOR MY INFORMATION with an “FYI” tag. If you are sending me a piece of communication, please tag what is ACTIONABLE on my part.

Asynchronous vs Synchronous

Use an asynchronous method of communication if your request is not urgent. Email, Twitter, and Jaiku are asynchronous. Instant messenger and the phone is synchronous.

If there is a lot of back-and-forth required to settle a matter, use something synchronous. A good example is trying to set up a meeting time.

Escalate

If there is a long chain of emails to try to resolve an issue and we are running around in circles, please escalate to IM. If we can’t resolve the situation by IM, then please escalate to a phone call. And some meetings just need to happen face-to-face.

If you find yourself resolving the same issue over and over again please archive the resolution in something like a wiki.

Never Eat Alone

There is a very good book named Never Eat Alone, or so I’m told. I’ve never actually read the book but I try to share dinner with someone every single day. So, if you would like to see me face-to-face out there in meatspace, please schedule a dinner with me.