April 15th, 2008 Posted in Business, Games, Programming, Vancouver, Work | No Comments »

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.