MY Games Industry Map?

This particular interview is interesting. I certainly think that yes community is going to play a major component in the future of the game industry. At the same time though there are going to be folks that want a good non-community experience from time to time.

There is also this thing with the release of GameIndustryMap.com in many respects just a flashier version of the long existing GameDevMap.com. I'm puzzled about his possessive use of "my" game industry map in the context of his discussion of community.

Overall he's got a lot of interesting things to say, and the connections that enable someone to actually get stuff done. I'll be curious what a year or two can bring.

David Perry: Publishers' Days Are Numbered

My game industry map has proved that to me; the programmer came to me and asked, "How would you like this done?" and I said the obvious, which is a storage database where you put the pins on the map with a search system, give me a category filtering system, country filtering system, and he goes, "Ok" and he coded it... that's actually a bad design, because in a world where you keep adding more and more pins and every pin has to go through Google and that's a very slow system. The more pins we put in the map, the slower it gets. Coming back from the show, they're going to really slow the site down. It's going to be horrific when people start whacking pins in there together, there's going to be thousands of them.
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I agree with him [Doug Lowenstein] completely. He said, "Anyone that's a member of the Video Game Voters network put your hand up." I'm a member. I promote the site and have written congress twice. So I completely support him and agree with him 100%. Our industry is really sucking when it comes to supporting such measures. You know when the industry is going to start noticing he's gone, when people don't fight that fight we will lose that battle and he took it to them, like he really was fighting very hard for our industry. It's very easy to bash him. People are bashing him now that he's gone and he can't answer for himself, but the fact is that guy took the most un-fun job in the world in politics and he fought and fought and fought to try to keep our freedom in making games, and I believe very strongly in not censoring games.
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No, we need better and better of what's good. We need a fricking killer driving game or a stunning first-person shooter. And if you think of a new genre, you should get a award for the year. You should be the guy standing up at the choice awards. Like, "You just made Guitar Hero and you've made a new genre for us. Thank you very much, that's a fantastic job and you should be applauded for it." It shouldn't be everybody needs to make Guitar Hero or they suck, which is just not cool. We'll end up with a bunch of random junk.

Miyamoto Talks, People Listen, Sorta...

So...

Miyamoto's talk at GDC was quite good. It ran long, only in part because it took nearly 45 minutes to get the gathered crowd into the building. It also just ran long, and folks started running out the keynote somewhere roughly 30 minutes into the talk. I must say that if I'd been doing a presentation after the keynote, I'd have been pissed. I guess my IDGDA talk was right before the keynote, which I understandably affected to some extent attendance... but I digress.

His talk was very interesting, but I wonder if some of the points were really driven home? Based off of what I've been hearing from informants in the last couple of weeks in their dealings with publishers, not much.

Miyamoto was really getting at several things, and I think they're both pretty darn important.

1. This whole public perception of games as violent/anti-social/etc. regardless of how right or wrong you think it is, is every game developers problem. This is the biggest one that I wonder if people really got it. In many ways he was talking about how in 1998 Nintendo was at the top of their game, and in 2004 they're a bit of an underdog. But it's also about the kind of games that are getting made and offered up to players. We're just not using enough imagination I think is what he's saying. We're going to need more genres and more different things rather than fewer to grow the industry.
   
2. Changing it or making it otherwise isn't going to be easy, or popular for that matter. This is where I wonder if developments like the formation of the Gamecock Media Group, Man!festo Games, or other alternative publishers are going to be necessary. For the most part the game industry has managed to cement itself into a model that creates the kinds of games he's talking about. This also makes for an interesting opportunity for Nintendo, though they're going to have to make good on new kinds of agreements, that I'm not entirely sure they're ready for. Look at Ian Bogost's comments on Water Cooler Games about independent developers (those probably most able and willing to take on Miyamoto's challenge) having difficulty getting development kits.
   
3. By choosing this other path, you actually have an opportunity to make games differently. Rather than pushing to but more and more and more content into a game, you can focus on getting the game itself right. This I think is at the core of precisely why Nintendo's refusal of NextGen is so interesting. In many respects they've said, make do with this for now, but be original with this new piece of the puzzle (the Wii-mote for those of you that are just tuning in).

All in all it was a nice talk, though I wish he had driven home a couple of these points a bit more directly, because as it stood, it felt like a nice fire-side chat rather than the throwing down of a gauntlet, which is really what it was.

GDC: Miyamoto Shares His Unique Vision

...He said that he observed an important shift. In 1998, the top five selling games were Goldeneye 007, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Gran Turismo, Banjo Kazooie and Super Mario 64. In 2004, however, the top games were GTA: San Andreas, Madden 2005, Halo 2, Halo 2 Limited Ed., and ESPN NFL 2K5. All of a sudden, people were worried about the effect of games on people, turning them into zombies, he said. The reputation of the games industry was at stake.
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The second core element of Nintendo's vision, devotion to entertainment, means that every employee is able to focus on providing entertainment. Miyamoto said that Nintendo has a very good balance of engineers and developers, and there's a chance for collaboration all day long, "even in the bathroom." And it's all about collaboration. Even though Miyamoto has worked on every controller Nintendo has made, he stressed that it's all been a group effort.
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The third element, risk, is at the core of Nintendo's philosophy for the Wii. Miyamoto said that the bigger the challenge is, the bigger the risk. Nintendo took on the challenge of asking what a video game is. He said that Nintendo has taken a number of risks over the years but that none was bigger than the Wii. He acted as an evangelist within Nintendo, telling others not to think about what they might lose by abandoning the traditional controller in favor of the remote, but to think of what they will gain.
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Next, Miyamoto talked about prioritization. He said that in this industry, game designers are always complaining about "not enough," whether it's budget, time, etc. He said designers feel obligated to put in more and more and make the best graphics, but they need to prioritize.
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Ultimately, Miyamoto told the developers in attendance that "your vision does not have to be my vision." He added that the future of the industry depends on how today's designers apply their vision. But, he's been "given a lot of faith about the future of the industry" after observing some of the games at the Independent Games Festival, he said. Miyamoto said that we cannot forget about the human touch. He concluded, "If we can convert my wife, I believe we can convert anyone."

Dude, I so called this one (another XNA Post)...

Well, I called this one way back when the XNA Game Studio Express was first announced, or at least said it would be the smartest thing ever if every year Microsoft sponsors a game development competition. Now MS is going to have just about every hobbiest game developer or industry hopeful aiming to for Xbox Live Arcade based on content created in XNA GSE. Surely they're not going to guarantee Xbox Live Arcade inclusion based on the contest, but you can bet that if the winners do live up to the kind of content quality standards they're hoping for, they'll be showing up.

I really think that this platform could be an interesting boon for the Indy Games world. While I don't think it's the only thing the game industry needs to be doing to foster innovation, it's a great idea, and its really based on the model movie studios have been using for a while. Let the hobbiest's and hopefuls play. It behooves you have more people involved in creating things rather than fewer (which current licensing regimes do).

XNA Game Studio Express: Dream-Build-Play Competition

"Create an original game using XNA Game Studio Express. You could win fantastic prizes and global envy! The contest doesn't start till January, but get a head start and download XNA Game Studio Express for free today.

UPDATE:

Ok, then someone has to go and make a stupid comment, as well as some smart ones...

So there is a lot here to comment on, but let me say a couple of things.

1. Not allowing people to use C++ and being forced to use C# is stupid. It's not about "productivity" in this case, it's about getting more people to use an MS run language.
2. I think YouTube is a bad example, there are a few more barriers to entry into this market other than a computer and a webcam or video camera.
3. We should also be asking professionals to make some contribution to pushing their work to be "edgier", which isn't to say it should be about "[s]hoot-em-ups with political characters," that's a pretty weak concept of edginess. As a matter of fact, that is edgily unedgy.
4. (last one) CS programs have bigger problems than games can solve. Part of it is their curriculum. The other thing that needs to be made clearer is that the "recruitment crisis" has to do with design, art, and management as well. For some reason code is the focus for the game industry.

Done.

XNA Express will start YouTube for games, says Microsoft's Satchell // Gamesindustry.biz

"Where our vision's really heading is taking that YouTube concept and bringing it into games. Think about a Community Arcade, being able to share your own games with the whole community on Xbox Live."
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Satchell went on to claim that a vibrant amateur development community would help head off the recruitment crisis threatening the videogame industry, citing "disturbing" admissions figures for computer science courses in the US - which are falling by 30 per cent year on year.

"If you can give people a way to communicate, to talk about content, to rate it and express what's cool, then you start a virtuous cycle, because more people want to get involved, more people create content and more people comment on it," he said.

"I absolutely believe we will find new stars in this industry from that community. I know publishers will be watching for what's cool and who's doing it."

According to Satchell, users will be free to create edgy videogame content that professionals couldn't because it would be "too risky".
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Commenting on the decision to use C#'s managed code, as opposed to the native code used by most professional developers, Satchell noted that with ballooning budgets and team sizes, priorities in game development were changing.

"We're all concerned about performance in gaming, but in the future, in five to ten years' time, productivity is going to be more important than performance," he observed.

GDC Stuff

I realized, that I had not yet said anything to many that I'll be at GDC (which is the Game Developer's Conference). After my extreme disappointment from last year at not being able to go, this year is actually going to be a perfect opportunity for me to either fall flat on my face, or meet, speak and work with a new variety of developers, for I've actually got two talks! (EEK!)

One is in the Business and Management track, and the other in the IGDA (International Game Developer's Association). I'm actually plotting to get together with developers from India at GDC already. With the shut-down of E3, I'll be curious if GDC attracts a different kind of crowd than it has previously.

GDC is run by CMP and is very professional oriented, so I've tried to make these talks very relevant for the people who I've already learned so much from. I think these kinds of academic and industry collaborations are crucial, and in particular, I think it reasserts the value of different kinds of social science in a world that is increasingly unsure of its relevance. By and large this is reflected in the game industry's attention to psychology, but to few other social scientists. You can see this same kind of focus in the game studies programs that have been developed in the United States as well. If you're not making a game, what do you matter? This has not been the case in the Scandinavian countries, but that is because they are cool like that.

Game Developers Conference 2007 - Casey O'Donnell Speaker's Page

Mapping Your Corporate Geomorphology
Speaker: Casey O'Donnell (PhD. Candidate, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Date/Time: TBD
Track: Business and Management
Format: 60-minute Poster Session
Experience Level: All

Session Description
This session takes concepts from geology and geography and mobilizes them for managers to analyze their companies. This metaphor provides managers with a set of tools for understanding how teams are composed, how to effectively manage those teams, and how to encourage fruitful collaboration. Different mappings are used to illustrate the ways managers can examine how a company is arranged: physical, discipline, technology, organizational hierarchy, or project. The goal is for managers to be able to answer the question, "Why does our company look the way it does?" as well as "How can we effectively change our typography?"

Quality of Life in a Global Game Industry
Speaker: Casey O'Donnell (PhD. Candidate, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Date/Time: TBD
Track: IGDA
Format: 60-minute Lecture
Experience Level: All

Session Description
The rise of game development shops across the globe, and the increased use of offshore and inshore outsourcing could have developers feeling like they are losing leverage in making arguments for good quality of life practices. But, do globalization and the ability to outsource work really abdicate the need for quality of life both at home or abroad? This lecture examines the ways in which the hidden costs of poor quality of life, such as, staff churn, rework, schedule slippage, and lost sales negatively impact bottom lines. It looks at the benefits of good quality of life and correlates with some of the sales numbers of different studios. Mechanisms for approaching management are discussed, what are they interested in hearing? Is making the argument to management purely a numbers issue, or is management interested in other metrics? Each of these areas is also examined in the context of globalized game production, and provides developers with new levers for making quality of life arguments in this context. Developers will find this session useful to petition for an enhanced QoL environment.

(30.0)

Mii Avatar on the Wii eh?

This will be interesting. I wonder if Wii owners/players will start carrying around their Wii-motes with their avatars on board so that when they wind up at a friends house they can play Wii-games with their personalized Wii-vatar.

Fils-aime details Wii Channels // GamesIndustry.biz

Users are able to create their own avatar using the 'Mii' channel, which can then be stored in the Wii remote control and imported into games.