This facade spotted in Lyon this morning looks like a breakout game. Please do photoshop it.

Yesterday I gave a talk in Lyon for the video game/mobile game industry about the “near futures of digital entertainment”. Slide are available here (english) and ici (en français).

The talk started by a quick overview of research projects about mobile/pervasive gaming (location-based games, mobile tagging, etc) showing how this is difficult to throw to the markets (hardware/software issues + infrastructure problems…). I then tried to show some hints about what to do with examples that I find interesting and very down-to-earth: using the phone microphone, tv-phone tie in, etc. The point was to show people from the industry that they can do something almost overnight, not using ultra-tech fancy GPS solutions and stuff.

I concluded the talk with a mapping of the possibilities (in the form of an uncertainty cone):

The horizontal line shows the consumer market. When circles/things are close to the edges, it means that it’s not certain to be around before few years? The problem is to find what can turned them into more market-orientated products. For example, a way to bring location-based games closer to the market would be to forget the use of GPS but to let people self-disclose their locations.

In SFGate, there is a great forecast article by Jeff Yang about MMO evolution and South Korea.

He basically describes the success of MMO in Korea, showing how this “american invention” has been turned into a “a $15 billion market cap” due to two main reasons: “the nearly universal availability of broadband Internet, due to a concerted government effort to invest in its digital infrastructure
during Korea’s boom years of the early and mid Nineties“. And the “dramatic collapse of the South Korean economy in 1997” which led laid-off people to on-line game to avoid being depressed (!).

More interesting to me is this part of the article that shows how koreans/asians see the game industry, as something different from the European/American vision:

“E3 is a gathering for the old school videogame industry,” he says. “It’s driven by consoles, and it’s all about the retail channel — people pushing hardware and selling boxes. We think the future of gaming is very different. The Internet has given developers a real opportunity to play on a level playing field–to create a market where the best ideas win. And the breeding ground for the best ideas right now is here — in Asia.”
(…)
“We think the whole concept of spending $50 to buy a box, and then paying $15 a month just to try it out — that’s ridiculous,” says Hong. “In Asia, virtually all of the new games that are being released are ‘free to play’ games. What this means is that you can try a game out just by downloading it and registering. But if you
want certain enhancements — special items, more abilities, unlockable characters — you pay for those. About half of the revenues in the Korean games market today come from virtual item sales. People get hooked on the game, and they want to build up their characters beyond a limited level. Get it free, play the damn thing for free, pay for what you like. It’s an enormously powerful concept.“

In addition, Yang also presents some game design issues that seems very relevant:

““The entire Lineage experience was possible because of the ‘blood pledge’ feature,” says Hong. “It’s the key ingredient of the game –it forces gamers to build relationships and creates social hierarchies. (…) This counterbalanced relationship between “seniors” and “juniors” is written into the cultural DNA of many Asian societies
(…)
Sword of the New World as his magnum opus, a sweeping epic inspired by European Baroque style, set in a fantastic variant of the Age of Exploration. The game had been developed with a unique new concept in mind: Instead of creating individual characters, players would create families consisting of as many as 36 characters, of which three could be controlled at any time. “It’s very much an Asian concept,” says Hong. “Korean players, for instance, tend to create multiple accounts, so they can experiment with every class and skill variation. And because players would always complain about not being able to juggle all of their
different accounts easily, Kim thought, well, what about a game where you could have all these characters together? And making them into a family — all the characters in an account have the same last name — well, that’s very Asian too.”

Why do I blog this? some relevant material/data here to be employed as appetizers in discussion with game designers. I find interesting the way the korean do not make differentiations/silos between what is in the game industry and what is not, a recurring problem here in Europe.

The change of seasons in Animal Crossing (Nintendo DS) always struck me as an interesting example of digital/physical interconnection but there is a now a leap forward described in TR:

“Electronic Arts’s new sports game will have a novel level of realism: live weather that affects play.
(…)
With online play increasing in popularity, EA developers are focused on improving the user experience. “We try to add whatever technology, feature, or function to games that gives the player real-world experience,” says Kyle Hanley, a producer for EA Sports. With broadband Internet now widely available, the company decided to try to incorporate dynamic data into the games. (…) Developers at EA Sports made this capability a reality in
NCAA Football 2008 by integrating a live feed from the Weather Channel.“

Why do I blog this? I’ve always been curious about weather in video-games, that’s the sort of curious feature that is interesting to examine (and think about how to design for). In this case, I find it IMHO very intriguing and at the same time very trendy: the availability of data (”traces” left by humans or nonhumans) leads to design opportunities. What’s next? weather as new interaction partner (or as an opponent) in games where you can compete against the weather.

Some excerpts from the WSJ about the Nintendo DS (by Yukari Iwatani Kane):

“Behind the fastest-selling portable videogame player in Japan is an unusual shift in the culture of gadgets: People are clamoring for it not just for games, but also to keep a household budget, play the guitar, and study the Buddhist scripture Heart Sutra. Since its introduction in 2004, the DS, which responds to writing and speech, has spurred software makers to fill the Japanese market with an eclectic array of reference guides, digital books and study tools.
(…)
Of the 500-odd DS software titles released or in the works so far, only about 200 are traditional videogames.
(…)
More than 60% of the DS units were bought by people who don’t think of themselves as videogame users, Enterbrain said.“

And the difference of strategy between Nintendo and Sony:

“Nintendo’s big rival, Sony, isn’t following the DS into books and references. Sony is trying to attract new game users to its PlayStation Portable machines with easy-to-play games such as virtual tennis. It says it will continue to focus on games that show off its high-quality screen and advanced technology.“

Why do I blog this? some interesting figures and arguments about the success of the DS to be used in some future work about gaming foresight. 200/500 is an intriguing ratio… definitely not followed by Sony.

Some interesting quotes from Ernest Adam’s foresight about the future of gaming:

“Games that depend on that depend on location or travel? Useful in theme parks, Laser Tag, etc. Not ever going to be a major segment. Compare # of video gamers to # of paintball players.Compare # of video gamers to # of paintball players.
(…)
In the long run…… Mobile phones will not drive out other devices. Other devices will absorb mobile phone capability. Just as everything now contains a digital clock, someday everything will contain a mobile phone.
(…)
In 30 years, In 30 years, how how we play has not changed
- Handheld/mobile on the bus to school
- Console in the living room
- PC in the home office or kid ’s bedrooms bedroom

Convergence will be partial, not total.
- A computer monitor is better than a TV.
- Handhelds cannot cannot contain the best hardware.
- A PC is a poor machine for group play.
(…)
The all-over VR body suit: Only as a very high–end option for fanatics“

Why do I blog this? some interesting thoughts here, need to use that material later on, quite like the very pragmatic approach.

No time to parse it yet, but the latest issue of Communications of the ACM is about “creating a science of game”. As Michael Zyda points out in the introduction:

“Today’s game industry will not build a game-based learning infrastructure on its own. It got killed in the early days of edutainment (2000–2004), and shareholder lawsuits continue to prevent game industry executives from attending conferences where the topic of games for education might be headlined. So, computer scientists must be responsible for making this happen and not wait for the risk-averse to come around.

To be able to deploy the new medium for societal good, we need a well-defined R&D agenda.
(…)
We hope these articles influence your personal research in the direction of games, helping you understand why computer science must be willing to support games’ R&D and societal missions. It’s been great fun for me to waylay these fellow games researchers and educators into sharing their ideas and insight. Their work represents initial steps on the continuum of research and education necessary to create the new science. With them, we position ourselves to begin to understand and repurpose this vibrant interactive medium.“

Why do I blog this? this exemplifies the interesting trend lately towards “game for social change” that include serious gaming or interesting initiative such as worldwithoutoil (although this topic is not addresses in the CACM issue).

Some rough issue about the near future of gaming, prepared for a workshop for a client:

With regards to the notion of gaming, the video game market/industry is COMPLICATED
- Because the notion of “games” is expanding from game console/computer games/portable games to serious gaming (e.g. simulation, training applications), web-based games, mobile gaming (e.g. electronic sudoku, mogi mogi), electronic toys and robots (e.g. Nabaztag, Leapfrog products), social platforms (e.g. Second Life, Habbo Hotel) or alternate reality gaming. We now think in terms of “Digital entertainment”.
- Because it is composed of different industries, which have different business models, constraints, rules, target groups and timescale/work practices.
- Innovation in the field tend to be sustained by outsiders (for instance Habbo Hotel designed by Finnish company Sulake Games, that already has 50 millions users),

In the short term, the picture is actually slightly simpler:
- Even though the news are quite wii-centered lately, do not forget that other big guys (Microsoft and Sony) still matter. The tech-driven aspects of the game industry are still important and we still don’t know how users will react to the new game controller.
- Sequels (e.g. Pro Evolution Soccer 5) and blockbusters (e.g. Zelda, Super Mario) continue to be important because players still acknowledge their value based on the history.
- However, pay attention to game breakthroughs (Elektroplankton, Spore) with disruptive gameplay, which are trying to set new trends of original game design.
- Look at the evolution of MMORPG and how the number of player evolves over time; look at how a new job appeared: community manager: a subset of the game designer activity, focused on sustaining and developing MMOG communities.
- Try to understand the computer/console game business model (distributors/publishers/design studio) that put an incredible amount of pressure on innovation, leading to neverending sequels. Then think that the most innovative gameplay are designed by new actors (Sulake Games, In-Fusio).
- Even though user-generated content is more a matter of videos (You Tube) or pictures (Flickr), the game industry begins to be impacted. And rumors says that Nintendo might provide development facilities on the Wii.
- Gaming seems to pervades every moments and places of life (mobile gaming, location-based applications) BUT the home is still the most important location of digital entertainement. Where would be the locus of entertainment in the future?
- The Wii re-installed some physicality in gaming, what does that say for other playful environment based on movements/gestures? What are the other scales that matter?

Why do I blog this? these are some raw notes that I used in a workshop about the “near future of entertaining technologies” a while ago, starting point for break-out groups to work on scenarios. Material provided to participants was also:
Play Today - an Experientia report on the latest trends in electronic toys and games
Alice Taylor’s presentation at Aula
GAMERS IN THE UK: Digital play, digital lifestyles. (BBC report)
The Wright Stuff by Will Wright (PopSci)
MMOG Chart subscriptions
Where Game Meets Web, Raph Koster Speaks Out, an interview of Raph Koster by Bonnie Ruberg (Gamasutra)
Participants were also encouraged to read webglogs such as Terra Nova.

Gamasutra features a very interesting interview of game designer Raph Koster about various trends regarding innovation and the video game industry (at the GDC07 his talk was interestingly entitled “Where game meets the web”). His claim is that the video game industry is “doomed because the web is stealing their thunder“, which is an impression I share. Looking at the statistics shows that some web games such as Webkinz, (2.5 million uniques in December), Toontown or Club Penguin (4.5 millions uniques in december) attract more than MMOs. Why is that? mostly because they “don’t think of them as being part of our industry“, which oh-so-true given that they often feel more concerned by 3D engines, realism and AI. When chatting with companies about Habbo or Toontown, I have often encountered people telling me that “nah this is not in the video game industry so this is not our problem”.

Some key excerpts I found relevant:

“ there’s something up with the ways we do our development practices. The web principles are release often and fail fast. We don’t do that. We plan for two or three years, putting something together and then dumping it out there. With the web guys, it’s just a whole different method of operating. Flickr patches every half hour.

I think we have to look at the current game industry as being a subset of big media, and big media is running into some issues lately. It’s not that they’re going to go away, and it’s not that they’re going to have less power. Well, maybe they will have less power in some ways. But what’s happening in the other industries, like film, TV, music, publishing, is we are seeing a radical redistribution of power–where the money is going and where the eyeballs are going. Some of the industries have adapted better than others. We shouldn’t kid ourselves; we’re in the exact same boat. The only reason that isn’t happening even more with us is that our industry isn’t relying on proprietary record play. Can you imagine if there was a standardized platform games, if PC were it, what would happen to the games business? The answer is, we’d be screwed.
(…)
The one thing the web makes sure of is that there are enough content creators to make any given content creator irrelevant, or superfluous at any rate.“

Why do I blog this? I share Koster’s concerns and don’t really know how this will evolve. Personally I do think that the Web is a great platform because of (1) availability of a critical mass of users, (2) presence of open standards, (3) fast development process, less cycles.

Mobile gaming - the troubled teenage years by Stuart Dredge (Receiver #17, end of 2006) offers an interesting perspective on mobile gaming in Europe.

First about figures, the authors describes the mobile gaming situations as a teenage troublesome period:
“According to industry analyst M:Metrics, 4.2% of UK mobile users downloaded a mobile game in August this year. This figure was 2.6% in Germany, 4.8% in Spain, and just 1.1% in France“.

To understand the situation, he looks at “what traits characterised mobile gaming’s infancy” and sums it up with the concept of “familiarity”: the fact that mobile phone users were provided with retro-games (tetris, pacman…). They proved to be popular because they appeared as safer choices on operator portal and websites (than unknown new games). From the user experience point of view also:

“
Creatively speaking, there is another reason why these retro games are so well suited to mobile. They have simple 2D graphics and constrained playing areas, which work well on a small mobile screen, and also four-way digital movement, which suits the mobile keypad. Pac-Man and Tetris are not just familiar to users, their gameplay experience does not disappoint when translated to a phone, in stark contrast to some attempts to port modern-day console games with their 3D graphics and analogue controls.“

This is extremely interesting, especially given than lots of energy is devoted to creating 3D stuff on tiny screens.

Then the article deals with the near future and what is needed:

“Developers are focusing on creatively working within the restrictions of mobile phones, taking inspiration from the simple gameplay mechanics of the retro games, while creating new and original IP for mobile. (…) All these games use mobile’s constrained screen and less-than-ideal controls as a strength rather than a weakness.
(…)
there’s also a need for mobile to find its wings as a gaming platform, with developers figuring out how to create games that make even more use of the singularities and strengths of mobile handsets. In the developed world, most mobile phones sold today have cameras inside, for example. By definition, they are connected – both through GPRS or 3G connections, through short-range wireless technologies like Bluetooth and in an increasing number of new handsets, Wi-Fi too. Operators can track a handset’s location using its Cell ID, and handsets are beginning to appear with GPS chips inside too. All of these features can in theory be used for gaming. In practice, there have been severe technical challenges to developers tapping into them in the past, but these are being solved as users upgrade to newer phones.
(…)
An extension of this connectivity – and an area that Microsoft is also focusing on – is cross-platform gaming. This could be a mobile phone user playing chess against someone on their PC or interactive TV, for example
(…)
Finally, there’s location.“

And he also has a good point saying that “should not take away from the fact that millions of mobile gamers will continue to play Tetris, Monopoly and even Snake, no matter how sophisticated their handset is”. There are different users, with different needs and interests.
Why do I blog this? some good elements here about the opportunities in mobile gaming, that resonates with the talk I did last week in Barcelona about the very topic.

Musing in the train this morning with Frederic, we discussed a near-future laboratory topic: offline-gaming that Julian describes more thoroughly here. This is also helpful for the presentation for Mobile Monday I am working on.

Let’s start with Julian’s notes (the near future laboratory method is about knots):

“Can there be “offline gaming” where the screen disappears to the point of it not even being necessary? Where you sort of ambiently know that you’re gaming in the sense that your actions and activities “offline” will register in the game world once you get back to your normal human computer later? Can you still be gaming while you’re doing a run to the market, without being consciously and actively “in” the game while doing the grocery shop? But still, knowing in the back of your mind that, hey, cool! I’ll get my shopping done and probably get a +2 power up!“

This said, it led Frederic and I to think about 2 main axes: the connection to the network (yes, the internets) and the use of the mobile device display as the output. Therefore, we have this simple 2×2 matrix that set the design space for mobile gaming opportunities:

Strictly speaking “offline gaming” should only refer to game played out of the network but we started using it for the square “no network/no display” (maybe because “off-the-screen-offline” is not really nice to pronounce). I’ve also put “crossmedia gaming” to represent games that (for instance) can be played on cell phone and then brought back to the computer either to benefit from a larger display or an access to the network (or a larger bandwidth…), that is the case with V-migo. Instead of using the crossmedia term, one can also say that a constant access to the network is hard to reach, thus even synchronous situations are alternance of sync/async moments.

Besides, the fact that the squares are empty on the picture above does not mean that nothing has been done in them; however I have to admit that the “offline gaming” square is maybe less crowded.

Now, that would be the way to design offline gaming interactions? let’s wait a bit to gather some thoughts (but the use of motion is one of the avenue here).

TR dealt with mobile gaming few weeks ago (because of the GDC). The article was about the (possibly) biggest problems in the field: a lack of standards:

“The mobile-phone environment unfortunately has been driven by the service providers, and they have different demands for what technologies can and can’t be used,” says Michael Zyda (…) “It’s a crazy era, much like the early days of computing, when each manufacturer was making their own operating system and there weren’t standards for interoperability,”

TR describes the fragmentation caused by hardware and software issues: presence of different physical controls (button placement), different software platforms… leading developers to test it on “12 platforms” (I quote it because my feeling that the correct number is 1000). The problem being that… companies do not really want to standardize stuff (”They want to lock you into the way they do things”), so it’s still about walled gardens. Game designers (like the ones at Shufflebrain) then rely on networks rather than on cell phones.
Why do I blog this? stuff for my presentation next week at Mobile Monday, Bcn, about mobile gaming (and its crux need for new metaphors).

An interview of Dr Malcom Davis, a lecturer in Defence Studies with the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London, in which he describes his research interests hugely relevant to modern combat game design. Most of the interview is about the spatial environment: the importance of urban environment (”Most warfare in the future will take place in complex urban environments, where house to house fighting”) its realism (”What is missing is the chaos of battle”), the missing notion of embodiment (”consumer military simulations are never going to be totally realistic because ultimately people don’t really die or get injured, and thus the fear element is never going to be there”), the lack of mixed settings (”what is missing, particularly in an urban environment, are civilians mixed in with military forces”).

Also of interest:

“ the enemies of the future will always be trying to threaten or degrade our military-technological advantage, and one of the best ways that they can achieve that is by attacking our information systems, and the networks which generate the ’sensor to shooter’ link. Thus it is important not to make an assumption that the data-links and networks will survive for very long. We have to be able to fight and win when the networks go down.“

Why do I blog this? some interesting ideas here about spatial environment (how is it lived) and translation from gaming to reality.

Some notes taken after viewing the LIFT07 talk of Sampo Karjalainen (Sulake Corporation): “Open-ended play in Habbo” (video).

Sampo described how Habbo is a virtual hang out for teenagers, an open environment in which you can do things, no clearly explicit goal. A bit like Second Life but browser-based (more accessible) and not in 3D, it targets teenagers. Figure are quite amazing: 7millions unique users every month, medium age: 13y.o. gender distribution: almost 50/50.

What I found pertinent is the spatial aspects of Habbo Hotel. Sampo differentiated the following “spaces”.

1) Public rooms: designed by Sulake, most of the users go here, chat online with existing friends, meet new friends and “be together”+ Games inside Habbo Hotel compete/cooperate: gaming rooms, kissing booth, photobooth (polaroid-like), changing room (exchanging you clothes as quickly as possible) with the rules of the games usually explained as sticky notes on the walls.

2) User-created rooms: the most intriguing aspect and the one that makes users come back:: user’s own room: every user can create their own room (design, furnitures, pets, rare items bought with habbo credits) and people express themselves. So there are also wharehouse in which people store collected items (so that the value of the items then goes up).
Some activities emerged: virtual horsetable (people dress up in brown, black… play the horse and the other ones take care of them… they type in chat what they are doing “I am burshing you…”, they kind of roleplay, we did not provide any items to support this but they do it), adoption houses (rooms in which you can get adopted by another user and people the role of mothers and child).

3) Activities expand outside habbo:
- traders go to online auction like ebay or in schoolyards,
- community websites (writing articles about what is going on, values of items, some user-created games). Sulake tries to support this: helping people to set their own webpage

Then he described some guidelines to have this “open ended play”. His point is that users do create lots of interesting content for other users. It is a source of new stuff every hour every day and Sulake would not be able to create so many things. The strategy was rather to provide tools for people. How can we design to support this type of play? what is needed to support it?

Some practical ideas:
1) you need something to play with, some type of objects/type of environment. Not necessarily huge amount of items but rather the possibility to combine them in various ways. (Examples: Mii, Legos, chats)
2) intuitive interaction: if you enable the user to move and rotate/edit, it supports the play much better than what we have in classic interaction with a browser. It’s also good to keep the user interface very invisible (to not cut the flow of play).
3) set up a mood for play: nobody will laugh if you do sth stupid, it should be less utilitarian
4) foster all kind of user-create goal. traditional games tend to have one dimensional goals but here it’s much more interesting if the user select what he/she wants to create. The range of things that can emerge is then higher
5) still define and test likely use-cases: you need to have some ideas of things you expect to see, and test them
6) the shared social setting: it becomes much more interesting when people can comment on things created by others (for the creator and the others).

Why do I blog this? Working on some future project ideas, these insights from Sulake are very relevant in terms of studies that concern spatialities in virtual worlds. It makes me think of practices in MOO back in the 90s.

An interview of Warren Spector on Gamasutra. Some excerpts I was interested in:

Gamasutra: You’ve been a long time proponent of single player roleplaying experiences, what do you think of MMOs?

WS: Honestly, I don’t much care for them. If I’m going to have a social experience, I’d rather have it in person. I feel like a blind, deaf and dumb person watching a movie while I’m playing an MMO because the social experience is really shallow. Again, this is one of the things I’ll end up talking about at the GDC, but I’m, perhaps to a fault, a story person. I really need narrative. The level of narrative that people have been able to achieve in MMOs has been so shallow. I’m one of those people who doesn’t find anything interesting at all in leveling up, finding a +3 sword or paper-dolling a character with a purple cloak. That doesn’t appeal to me in any way as a human being. Put that all together and the play experience of MMOs is on par with roleplaying back in ‘87. In all fairness, my wife is a World of Warcraft addict.
(…)
I think if someone solves the problem of “I don’t want to interact with 10,000 of my personal friends, ever, and somehow make 10,000 people all be the hero of a compelling story,” then I’ll be a lot more interested in that game style.

Why do I blog this? even though I do not agree with him, it’s interesting to hear his argument about MMO. His background in writing might explain this stance and the way he thinks about game design is a different approach that can be good to take into account. (There is a lot more to draw in this interview)