Squeezing Blood from a Stone

I'm not really sure what to make of this "turning over" that Nintendo has done for China, Hong Kong, Brazil, Mexico, and Paraquay. Brazil will likely thumb their nose at Nintendo, who isn't really marketing their stuff there anyway. If it's being pirated it's a market that Brazil has created on their own. They've also got some interesting ideas about IP law and what is fair protection. But anyway...

The fact that China cares is interesting, because it really indicates a desire on their part to play in the game.

Personally I think that if there was a little adjustment for how much games cost in these markets, so they weren't so out of whack for the average consumer you might see piracy drop. You can only really ask people to pay what they're able to.

Nintendo offers praise for US Government

Every year, the US Trade Representative solicits views from companies about piracy in foreign countries as part of the Special 301 process. This year Nintendo gave evidence about piracy in China, Hong Kong, Brazil, Mexico and Paraguay.

According to figures quoted by Nintendo, more than 7.7 million counterfeit videogame products have been seized from over 300 Chinese factories and retailers during the last ten years.
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"Numerous factories, where tens of thousands of counterfeit Nintendo products were seized, escaped with only trivial fines or no penalty at all. And often these production sites continue to operate after products are seized," the statement continued.

"We're pleased the US government is pushing China to comply with its trade commitments in an effort to protect the lifeblood of the copyright and trademark industries."

China slams US piracy complaint

"By doing so, the US has ignored the Chinese government's immense efforts and great achievements in strengthening intellectual property rights protection and tightening enforcement of its copyright laws," the commissioner added.

On Monday, the US trade representative Susan Schwab said that piracy and counterfeiting levels in China remained unacceptably high.

The US said that despite China's promises to crackdown on fake software, DVDs, luxury goods, car parts and shoes, many of the goods were still widely available throughout the country.

China is one of the world's largest producers of counterfeit products, ranging from designer clothes, to pirated films and music, to luggage.

Many of the goods find their way into Europe and are knowingly bought as fakes by shoppers at markets and from street vendors. Firms claim that the poor quality copies dent their brand and divert profits and potenital clients.

Of Course We Don't GET IT... We Don't HAVE IT!

I recently read the lower two articles about American developers having a difficult time developing for the DS, which I at first wrote off to conservatism of US based publishing companies. However, then I read the article about a student DS development camp where students created games for the DS.

OK. So let me get this straight. People in Japan that want to learn to make games get a chance to work on the DS? Um, why aren't they doing this in the US? Developers here can't get their hands on DS development kits, let alone students.

Of course we don't get the system. We're not really being given a chance. What about a US development camp where people can go play and learn the DS hardware for a couple of weeks with Nintendo developers on hand to help them learn the tricks of the trade. Hell, why stop with just the US and Japan. You're not going to get the most interesting and innovative games unless you start to let more people into the magic circle of licensed developers.

Nintendo Exploiting Student Labor!

Nintendo Co., Ltd. is making games developed by students at its Nintendo Seminar 2006 available for download via the DS Station. Starting late last week and appearing every two weeks after that, the games are totally free. Games include one that has players swing a steel ball to destroy obstacles and help mice captured by cats or another one that has players shout things at inappropriate times. These games, like so many good things, are Japan only.

How Western game developers fail to score with Nintendo DS

The DS is, of course, a famously innovative console. And it seems that Japanese developers, who lean far less on movie licences or formulaic sequels (think how Mario is reinvented from console generation to generation) have been most able to get to grips with it.
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This is where things get really interesting – when you realise that the highest-scoring non-Japanese DS game is Tony Hawk's American Sk8land, in 16th position with (a very respectable) 84 per cent. We then have another Activision title, Ultimate Spiderman, in 34th place, and then another Tony Hawk's title, Downhill Jam, in 40th.

Western Devs Don't Get the DS

Tony Hawk, the West's great hope in DS gaming.

Gamers Get Older Too - Birth of Nintendad and their Wii-ones

You don't say. Those NES owners as they get older are still buying games and game consoles? Wow, I would have never expected that. I think they're still watching movies and listening to music too.

So, it's kind of interesting, but it's also pretty obvious. For a lot of us that grew up with the NES, SNES, and every system between, it had a major impact on our lives. It doesn't really surprise me that we're going to attempt to introduce our kids to the entertainment form.

What is interesting about it is that I have to wonder what effect this will have on the demographic of gamers. Hopefully it's a father & son/daughter thing, and not just a father & son kind of thing. Of course with the rise of the Nintendo DS and Wii, and more moms and daughters playing with these systems, there may be a major change in demographics.

Anyway, the article isn't that interesting, but points at the pervasiveness and spread of the console technology.

Video games grow up as adult ownership increases

Video games aren't just for the kids anymore. More than one in three U.S. adults who go online, or 37 percent, own a video game console and 16 percent own a portable gaming device, Nielsen//NetRatings said on Tuesday.

The majority of those console owners, 71 percent, are married, and 66 percent have at least one child in the household.

"As game consoles have become increasingly sophisticated, families have incorporated them into their centralized home media centers, which include the television, digital recording device, digital music player and the PC," said Carolyn Creekmore, senior director of media analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings.
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Going into the current console war, analysts had predicted that adult gamers who grew up with the Japanese game maker's products -- dubbed "Nintendads" -- would want to introduce their children to Nintendo games and be a key market for its new machine.

Q&A: Impatient Shoppers On 'Why Wii Want A Wii'

Several things about the Wii continue to amaze me.

1. It continues to be hard to obtain. Given that every single component of the Wii is easier and cheaper to manufacture, and by all accounts yields should also be higher on all of it's components yet it cannot meet demand.
2. Either stores are actively lying to consumers about their knowledge about stock, or they're keeping the information in the hands of a select few, leaving other workers to deal with frustrated consumers. In this age with real time ordering and inventory systems, it is simply false that stores do not know when a shipment is coming in. Employees may not be made aware, but someone somewhere knows. Why not provide some info? Just because Target has a back door into their system is the only reason consumers have turned to them more than any other retailer. It's good for business for consumers to know that they can get what they want.
   
3. Wii Parties!
   

Frustration Factor... Rising?

One notable factor for those queuing was frustration, since Wii demand has way, way outpaced supply, leaving many shoppers steaming. “For about a month and a half now I've been trying to get one, and it's just impossible to find,” commented one shopper. “You have to come right when the UPS driver delivers it, and Best Buy refuses to tell you whenever they are getting in shipments. They lie and tell you that they have no idea when they are coming in, when they obviously do know when they are coming in.”

Another couple noted similar experiences: “We've been to at least fifty stores checking for at least three weeks, and we haven't found one yet.” The relative ease of finding games for the Wii is additionally frustrating many consumers, while the console itself and further Wii-motes have been more or less unattainable.

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)

Demonstrating the Game Industry as Index

I read this article, having just had a discussion with some folks here about the difficulty in finding the kind of talented help needed by game companies. While this article is (a) all over the place and (b) unclear on specificities , it is quite good at painting a picture of what's going on with work here. I've of course snipped it up a bit, and I'm sure something is lost in that trans(formation/lation). But, it illustrates why I think the game industry makes such a great lens/metric/index into work in a global economy at this current moment.

What is the difference between creating educated "employable" professionals ("employees") and highly skilled corporate assets (I'll use the term "associates" here, a term I'm borrowing from my wife)? I think the answer goes hand in hand with, "We're just not finding enough of the right kinds of people," that I hear from game developers here all the time.

Many people getting hired here to work in games, "employees," are costing companies a significant amount of time, money, and energy to turn them into "associates." What happens when your future working force is actually not coming out into the field with the kinds of skills that you need them to? You have to educate them yourself. I'm also extremely curious why more intern-ing or co-oping is not being done here. It's rare enough in the states the people actually do these sorts of things (though their schools may encourage it, and students ought to be pursuing it more) and it appears even rarer here.

Simultaneously, "associates" are actually assets. They mean more to a company, so it is in their interest to invest in them. I've seen this at my US field sites. Companies seem to be realizing the value of their people and their skills (by and large, there are of course notable exceptions), but I think that broader political, economic, or educational analysis is not understanding that human labor is different than it was a few years ago. You can't really take a software engineer (or artists, or designer ...) straight out of college and toss him in (well, you can, if you really want to) and expect to get much out of them. There are countless other systems, sub-systems, code bases, tools, software packages, etc. that must be learned before they're worth anything significant.

That's part of this article. The other aspect is also important to keep in mind, too. I'm not focusing on "jobs for the underprivileged, the undereducated and the underskilled," but it too makes total sense, and could use some analysis in The States as well.

Engaging India: Demographic dividend or disaster?

With the average Indian now just 23 years old, and with over half the population under 25, many see potential for a big demographic dividend and India likes to projects an image of a vast, English-speaking population of bright and ambitious engineers and scientists.

The reality, for the time being, is actually very different. As things stand, India’s demographics are going to be a source of profound social upheaval in coming years.

I was talking the other day to Dr Ifzal Ali, the chief economist of the Asian Development Bank. His analysis of the situation was bleak. India, he warned, with its working age population set to increase by 71m to reach 762m in the next five years, was heading towards an employment crisis that could lead to social breakdown and a rapid collapse in growth rates.
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The first, in his view, is that there is a “huge global oversupply of labour” resulting from the growing integration of India, China and Russia with the world economy. The second is that this global oversupply has come at a time when companies around the world are pursuing competitiveness with “ideological zeal” and creating fewer new jobs per unit of extra output.

Now the idea has traditionally been that in a global economy it will be the lowest cost country that will win a race to the bottom. As Swaminaphan Aiyar, the economist, has put it, globalisation has for the first time in history made poverty an advantage. As companies are forced to scan the world for ways to cut costs, the lower the wages in any one country, the more competitive it will be, all other things being equal.

The problem is that in India all these other things are not equal. To ride the globalisation bandwagon, a country has to create a good investment climate, in terms of regulation, law and order, physical infrastructure and availability of skilled human capital. India is a very long way from doing any of these things.
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The point I’m trying to make is that unless India makes a dramatic investment in its human capital, its demographic advantages will turn into a demographic disaster in the form of a massive unemployable labour force.
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Although India produces millions of graduates annually, the raw numbers, as company after company finds in its recruitment drives, are a misleading metric for employable skills.

While 3m students graduate from Indian universities each year, only about 25 per cent of engineering graduates and 10-15 per cent of general college graduates are considered suitable for employment in the offshore IT industry, according to a recent study by Nasscom.
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He added: “Our education system is not producing enough people with the skill-sets our economy needs. This could seriously stymie India’s economic growth.”

cent oThe lobby group has warned that the Indian IT sector faces a shortfall of 500,000 professionals by 2010 that threatens the country’s dominance of global offshore IT services. Shortages are kicking in even though, according to Nasscom, only 10 perf an estimated “addressable” market of $300bn for global offshoring is being tapped today.

With the industry as a whole struggling with annual employee turnover rates approaching 40 per cent, wage inflation is rising. Reports out this week in the Business Standard indicate that a shortage of skilled labour has resulted in salary increases of 22 per cent during the first half of fiscal year 2007 for the corporate sector as a whole, That figure is the highest it’s been in over three years, with the biggest jump coming from service industries, including banks, airlines, IT and telecom companies; where salary bills have risen by 30-50 per cent in just a year.
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But none of these, however, has jobs for the underprivileged, the undereducated and the underskilled. A million mutinies are bubbling up across the country, with the most alarming being the ultra-leftist Naxalite movement, and they are deterring much-needed investment.

India will need to create jobs in large-scale, labour-intensive manufacturing to stop these protest movements from turning into something more serious. Only when there are massive Chinese-style factories making Barbies, Kickers and Gap shirts for a global market will there be jobs for those potentially otherwise tempted by extremism.

(7.5)