Digital Distribution and the Death(?) of Rentals and Sharing

I have been thinking a great deal lately about what the rise of digital distribution means for the videogame industry. I have also been thinking about what it means, culturally, for videogamers. It is something I've been thinking about for a long time, because I've heard many game developers talk about how much videogame rentals and videogame resale hurts developers by depriving them of much more frequently needed funds.

I have also been thinking about my childhood, growing up as a moderate gamer who went on to be both part of the videogame industry, but also that academic industry that now generates people capable of thinking critically about and creating videogames. Seems like those aspects of the industry that encouraged me to pursue work in the videogame industry might have influenced others to do so as well.

One of those experiences was riding my bike to the video rental store where if I rented a game on Friday afternoon, I could keep it until Sunday morning. For a working class family without a lot of money, $4.00 for a weekend of fun was much more manageable than $40-50 for a game that I may or may not play for more than a weekend. My friends and I also took games over to one another's houses. It was a chance to see different games and play them for a short while. It was also an opportunity to perhaps demonstrate how far you had progressed in a game.

Now, here I am in 2009, thinking about all of those Wii-ware games and Xbox Live Arcade games that I have downloaded to my consoles. None of these games are sharable. I couldn't take an SD card over to a friends house and show them how great Lost Winds is. I could take my Wii over, which doesn't seem so daunting, but dragging a bulky Xbox 360 or PS3 seems another story. Not to mention that it just doesn't make that much sense. Of course I understand that with digital distribution comes the possibility of piracy, but what I'm talking about isn't that. It is a shared gaming experience of gaming with others.

Rentals become even more problematic. Presumably digital distribution means reduced costs and an opportunity for developers to sell games for less and sell more. I understand that many developers see videogame rentals as lost revenue, but that really isn't true. As a kid, I COULDN'T have bought any of those games. Perhaps instead my parents would have given me $4.00 per week to save for a new game. This would have meant that I could play 5-6 games per year instead of many. Playing all of those games gave me the background and vocabulary to be a game developer. Not having it would have meant my trajectory would have been very different.

So while I read articles saying that, "Digital content is the fastest-growing portion of the videogame industry," I have to wonder what the consequences of that will be ultimately.

Has Atari Changed Phil Harrison or Phil Harrison Changed Atari?

The unfortunate thing about my first semester teaching was that I felt as if I was never going to come up for air. The fortunate thing about that process is that it means I've been sitting on a pile of thoughts on a variety of videogame development and game industry issues that I've been following for quite a while now. Thus, the next several posts are ones which have remained, have persevered, as tabs in Firefox for nearly two months.

The first series of tabs are perhaps critically linked to the second post I'll be making, but fundamentally about different issues. In my dissertation, especially in the "MOD(ify)-ing Game Development Worlds" sections I talked about some of the critical issues facing the videogame industry. I also talk specifically about how those practices which are hurting the videogame industry are actually many of the practices which are being imported into other "industries," but most directly in other New Media industries. Those two particular chapters are titled:

• "Game Development Practice: A Postmortem"
• "The Game Industry Galaxy: A Postmortem"

Though I tease the Phil Harrison of 2007s Game Developers Conference and his "Game 3.0" slide from the Sony keynote, recent news reports have me wondering if he was really commited to the concept and his job at Atari has created an opportunity for him to pursue Game 3.0. The other possibility is that his experiences at Atari thus far have convinced him that Game 3.0 as the industry is currently structured will never be the lively world of Web 2.0 they wish it to be.

It was that question that got me to thinking about how perspective within the videogame industry has likely shifted how Phil Harrison thinks about what is good for the industry. Recently he's begun talking like me, which honestly is either a good sign or a really bad one for his career. Considering some of the nonconstructive criticism I've received from industry side people, I have to wonder if it was his transition to Atari that made him realize this, or if his departure from Sony had more to do with that.

At the same time, the nonconstructive words I have gotten are often not from "rank and file" developers. They tend to be people who deal regularly with industry executives and manufacturing companies. This is precisely the position that Phil Harrison is in, so I wonder greatly what has influenced this change in thinking and if suddenly it will become all the rage throughout the videogame industry? Or will this movement go just like the movement for improved QoL? What no one has really put together, or at least vocalized yet, is that the two are critically linked.

GamesIndustry.biz - Phil Harrison: It's Time for a Change in Games Development

Atari president Phil Harrison has revealed his belief that the process of game development needs to change, in order to make it a less risky experience overall, and one that will help to promote innovative and creative ideas.
...
"That's pretty much the definition of why projects fail - because you don't know what you're building, you don't know how you're going to build it, you don't know who you're building it for, but you've got 60 people working on it and they've all running in different directions - that's how most games fail.

Gamasutra - Atari's Harrison: Democratizing Development is an Industry Must

Harrison compared the low-cost game creation movement to the Net Yaroze development platform for the original PlayStation, which resulted in a number of "fantastic games", per Harrison, being developed by international teams during the 1990s.

He clearly thinks that bringing amateur and indie developers into the fold with tools such as Unity addresses a real need within the games industry at large. "The comments that I was making [during my keynote] were primarily from an industry perspective."

"Managing the funnel of recruitment, training, educating, and getting the skills shortage, skills gap closed, is kind of an industry-wide problem... "

Harrison concluded: "I was primarily making that comment from an industry perspective, but from an Atari perspective... I think we would want to work with creators of all types, and that's why I'm so interested in Unity, because it does democratize development."

Gamasutra - Atari Boss Harrison at Unite 08: 'Fail Early'

Harrison's keynote, in which he noted that he 'wanted to be here' due to his enthusiasm for the tool, rather than any commercial/strategy interest, evangelized Unity as a tool that could potentially change the game industry, referring to the first time that he saw Unity running in his web browser as "a transformational moment."

Atari lite-C

The Definition of Remix/Fan Culture and Co-Production

Several folks from the Grady College at UGA pulled together a fantastic assortment of student work Thursday of this last week called "Gradyfest." I went in with very little in the way of expectations, but I was simply blown away. Not only was I blown away, I found myself thoroughly enjoying the evening. What perhaps impressed me the most was just how indicative many of the Grady creations were so indicative of Fan/Remix Culture in ways that are simply indescribable. One creation in particular caught my eye and ear. I cannot for the life of me remember the title of it, though the production "company" "Level 84" certainly sticks in my head considering something about 8 and 4 sticks out at me from writing my dissertation, or perhaps it was playing a game released in 1985 in the United States on a little grey box. Though there are not any video clips online at the moment, there are a few images which can be found online. Of course my particular love for the production process leads me to post this one:

The image links to the Flikr set of other production shots. I wont give away too much, as I know many of the students are hoping to get their creation aired in other places and it is simply delightful to discover the "underlying system and structure" of this creative collaborative creation. I guess just looking at the cast might do that, but I digress. Congratulations to everyone featured in the event, and to those groups in particular that simply made incredible creative contributions.

Level 84 Info:
Executive Producer: James Biddle
Directed and written by: Zack Goulet
Assistant Director: Rachel Kohl
Directors of Photography: Megan Mitchell, Rebekah Cheyne

Mark- Kiley Dorton
Louie- Bryan Redding
Amber- Elly Prothero
Big B- Brandon Wentz
Toad- Gary Holbrook
Hammer Bros- Jordan Thomas
Henry- Rob Kohl

New Hope for Broader Collaborative Efforts in the Game Industry?

[Cross Posted from IShotTheCyborg]

Yes, usually I am writing about how no one in the videogame industry is sharing much. This time, however, I am happy to be writing about a new collaborative effort amongst one game company. Fitingly, its the same company that back in 2003 wrote about how much they benefited from a similar sharing opportunity. The following is a quote from the original Gamedeveloper Magazine Postmortem for Ratchet and Clank:

Sharing technology with Naughty Dog. ... Naughty Dog didn't want anything from us other than a gentlemen's agreement to share with them any improvements we made to whatever we borrowed plus any of our own technology we felt like sharing. In an industry as competitive as ours, things like this just don't happen. (Price 2003, pp. 55-56)

So perhaps a little "gentleman's" head nod toward Naughty Dog in all of this as well. Personally, I'm ecstatic to see this kind of thing beginning to happen. Its about time really. In their own words:

Joystiq - GDC08: Insomniac opens up to dev community with Nocturnal

At a GDC press conference, Insomniac Games (responsible for Ratchet & Clank and Resistance: Fall of Man on PS3) has announced a ground breaking initiative to open up their technologies for the development community at large. Through the "Nocturnal Initiative," Insomniac Games is attempting to break the common development practice of keeping technological advances a close-guarded secret. As they noted, "developers spend resources solving problems that have already been solved."

PR Newswire - Highly-Acclaimed Independent Videogames Developer Insomniac Games Announces 'Nocturnal Initiative'

"The Nocturnal initiative is designed to encourage greater communication and information sharing among the development community because it will ultimately enable us all to create better games at a lower development cost," said Mike Acton, engine director, Insomniac Games. "And, in the end, it's all about making great games."
...
"We feel that the time has come to share what we have learned, and learn from others to improve our solutions to the common problems that present themselves when making a game," said Geoff Evans, an Insomniac senior tools programmer who helped develop and launch Nocturnal.

Insomniac is allowing developers to use elements of its proprietary third-generation PLAYSTATION(R)3 (PS3(TM)) tools chain source code for any purpose, for free. Source code makes up the technological building blocks that drive software development. It is often closely guarded by companies as they create their technology. However, this has led to many functions and pieces of code being re-written time-and-time again, wasting resources across the industry and ultimately affecting consumers' gameplay experiences.

There is an important distinction to be made between unique problem solutions that really give you a competitive edge and just being intellectually stingy. Thus far the game industry by and large has been parsimonious. I do not really know if this kind of initiative will have enough momentum to change the game industry, but I certainly hope so.

I'd love to see an emergent set of standard APIs and protocols which could be supported on numerous platforms. It would make the lives of developers much more predictable. Console manufacturers in preparing their new devices for the market could ensure that these base level technologies were supported. Of course now I'm waxing hopeful rather than realistic.

Nocturnal Website
Insomniac R&D Pages
Gamasutra Coverage

Bibliography:
Price, Ted. 2003. "Postmortem: Insomniac Games' Ratchet & Clank." Game Developer Magazine 10.6:52-60.

Biological Determinism, Gender, and (Video) Games

[Cross Posted from www.ishotthecyborg.com]

Well, I’m supposed to be revising my dissertation, but now that the New York Times has blindly picked this up, I can’t really help myself. I first stumbled upon this article a while back on Joystiq.

Joystiq - Science Says: Men’s Brains get More ‘Reward’ from Gaming

The study, which looked at 11 men and 11 women, asked participants to play a simple territorial point-and-click game while hooked up to an fMRI machine. The men in the study showed much great activity in the brain’s “mesocorticolimbic center,” which is associated with reward and addiction. … Yeah, yeah … tell it to the Frag Dolls.

Yeah, and tell it to the ladies I coach hockey for. “You just can’t enjoy it on the same level as us boys.” Not a good idea. I love the fact that the NY Times doesn’t even manage to pick up on a fatal flaw in this study, which even Joystiq commenters notice: sample size. I INTERVIEWED more people in my dissertation research and my research is qualitative. They managed to examine only 22 people, 11 boys, and 11 girls, all, “young adults.” Not to mention that fMRI research is one of the most unproven areas of brain research.

Which instantly begs the question: Isn’t the brain a complex feedback driven device? Wouldn’t age and training impact this? How do young children differ from young adults and adults from young adults? How do the brains of self described “gamer girls” differ from those of the other young adults? Perhaps to be addressed in a future project, but state those limitations NOW.

This study really becomes an excuse for letting women and girls slip through the cracks. “They just don’t get it. Add more bouncing boobs!” Think I’m reading into this to much? Check out the lead researchers comments:

Science Daily - Video Games Activate Reward Regions Of Brain In Men More Than Women

The findings indicate, the researchers said, that successfully acquiring territory in a computer game format is more rewarding for men than for women. And Reiss [the lead researcher], for one, isn’t surprised. “I think it’s fair to say that males tend to be more intrinsically territorial,” he said. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who historically are the conquerors and tyrants of our species-they’re the males.”
…
Reiss said this research also suggests that males have neural circuitry that makes them more liable than women to feel rewarded by a computer game with a territorial component and then more motivated to continue game-playing behavior. Based on this, he said, it makes sense that males are more prone to getting hooked on video games than females.

However, the brain is a social organ. It’s “neural circuitry” is both biological and social. It’s circuitry is developed over time through experiences with an outside world. Yet, this argument falls back on a biological deterministic argument. Boys are just better wired for this. Go cook and gather girls. Women were flayed if they acted like boys when all the conquering was going on big guy.

What about girls and women who are raised in environments where it is OK to be competitive? I suspect there is a reason that the majority of the women on the USA Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey Team grew up with brothers that played hockey and parents that encouraged them to pursue it. Just this weekend my ladies had referees telling them that, “If they weren’t careful they might hurt themselves,” because they were skating too fast and playing too hard.

But, “science” says they just don’t get it, their neural circuitry isn’t right.

*sigh*

NY Times - “Patterns: A Video Game, an M.R.I. and What Men’s Brains Do”