see our interview with richard garriott… father of RPGs… and… “lord british”

See our interview published in “World Gaming Executives Magazine”on page 24, with Richard Garriott, a founder of Portalarium and inventor of the “Ultima” franchise in RPG gaming… reflect upon the future of gaming, RPG and immersive worlds in a social, mobile world…

http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1vpkr/WGEMAGGameDevelopers/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http://free.yudu.com/item/details/479025/WGE-MAG–Game-Developers-Magazine-Issue–3

http://wge.assets.moshenltd.com/wge-mag-version-3.pdf

Richard Garriott - a/k/a "Lord British"

check please…mobile electronic payments are the missing plumbing we need

(eyeball time: 2.2 minutes unless you fast-scrub the video)

the dea skinny on what’s happening:

www.google.com/wallet

by now you know we are not anybody’s lapdog (we tastefully forgo using the rap music alternative submissive relationship adjective here so please note our class).

look, you have lots of stuff to track and worry about out. so we bring this to your attention because it is one of the most non-glamourous but important things you need to track so pls listen up:  it’s how you get paid. we have discussed micro-payments and all the other plumbing needed to power games and all other forms of digital entertainment. but let’s get real. digital entertainment isn’t a big enough tail to wag an electronic commerce payment solution dog. even with facebook credits. but retail business-to-consumer sure as hell is…but you already knew that. besides amazon’s, apple’s, ebays’s and paypal’s legendary contributions in the digital payment space, google now makes it possible to purchase stuff on a mobile basis in physical retail outlets with their initial wallet offering.

google, with mastercard, is blazing a trail here with no help from our friends at the telcos. verizon just delayed allowing google’s electronic wallet solution on the samsung galaxy phones. we won’t waste your time or your pixels on a deep dive on this, the la times already did a brilliant job so check this if you need more.

the stakes:

think of it this way. basic trans-platform digital currency. digital currency which works the same in ALL worlds…on all devices and all services the same way: game worlds, movie worlds, tv worlds, music worlds, real world restaurants, stores and any point of sale. the same consolidated financial transaction records and interconnected devices. beyond paypal, ebay, second life world lindens or game coins, frequent flyer points,  way beyond amex, visa or mastercard or even square up. the ancient long-gone roman empire sorta pioneered this concept with the “coin of the realm” idea. the euro, which ain’t so hot these days, is a build on it since charlemagne.  the stakes are so huge it would be an insult to even try and convince you because you are already there.

we believe telcos are in a unique position to move the mobile payment world forward, despite the vision-impaired executives at verizon (who would now go work in the netflix marketing department where they belong). players like sprint already are leading as a small mighty mouse as usual in this area,  but asia, as with most things, is way ahead of the u.s.a. on this. so we don’t see them doing it in the u.s.a. we believe all new digital payment innovation will come from asia, driven by a.) smart innovators, b.) a mobile computing-based population of 4 billion people, c.) lots of great mobile device manufacturers who work well with infrastructure players like telcos.

the dea takeaway:

if your are a creative industry content creator or publisher, get educated fast in this area and built these digital payment solutions into everything you build at the service layer. bet on multiple tables and allow your customers multiple payments options. don’t worry about accepting diners club though. we think that is over. (as they say in japan, “we just told a joke to you [now laugh or I lose face]”

if you are a telco executive, try and forget that fact, “think differently” to quote our patron saint steve jobs, and do something your industry never does: innovate. no more excuses about massive capital deployments, security, etc. that is just too lame a set of luddite excuses. all cell phones now have security built in and players like google have baked it in already. wake up and answer the phone! hellooooo! you guys need to lead. you finally woke up to the net at the turn of the century, after pushing stupid failed isdn concepts for decades, don’t make us wait on this for pete’s sake! this is huge! what are we missing here? and revise your tariffs now to make it work and don’t be so greedy like you have been with sms fees which are so high they have completely stifled innovation.

if you are a credit card player like mastercard, visa, amex, etc. continue to make the smart moves you are making with micropayment and mobile payment companies. if you don’t, risk adjustment notwithstanding, you will lose. but the good news is that you guys get it. sorta. keep pushing and spending. this is the future and you know it.

if you are a retailer, check out new alternatives in the payment space. small businesses are loving square up despite some of its severe limitations. monitor google and the phone companies if the later ever start elephant-lumbering forward soon.

serious games…seriously ?*!? get out of here, really?

(eyeball time: 1.5 minutes but you might read much faster if you took evelyn woods’ speed reading course in 1961…)

the dea skinny on what’s happening:

www.seriousgames.org

when you think of video games you thing of…well, fun. entertainment! yeah, that’s the ticket!  but there is a whole other world of  “serious gaming” out there.  a “serious game” is one that intends more than entertainment for its players. “serious games” focus on simulating some part of a real world system. according to dr. jane mcgonical, author of  reality is broken (buy book), they include business training games, marketing/advertising (known as “advergaming”), disaster preparedness games, flight or driving simulations, games that help patients understand how their bodies work, and so on. they allow players to test and experiment with systems.

an “alternate realty game” (a/k/a an “ARG,” you buzzword aficionados) on the other hand, is an interactive, trans-media narrative that evolves in response to what its players do. an ARG is truly a trans-media game in that it often involves multiple media and game elements and game mechanics to tell a story which evolves based on participants’ responses and with characters designed by the games designers. ARGs are internet-based an interesting because they have been able to attract large numbers of players in collaborative efforts to solve very difficult puzzles and challenges. jane mcgonical built an interesting game at institute for the future almost 4 years ago called “world without oil“ in which participants gamingly collaborate on solutions to live without oil. ARGs tend to have a pro-social “change the world” focus in many cases, although not always.

the  serious game initiative is focused on exploring how the public sector can forge productive links with the electronic games industry in projects involving training, health, education, and public policy. several members of the initiative produced an initial and highly useful taxonomy of serious games which mapped out the landscape as they see it in a presentation in 2008 [ their presentation may be downloaded here on the “connections” page of our site].

the stakes:

this newly-emerging niche in the game world is very powerful. today, for example, the u.s. department of defense spends $5 billion us annually on building “serious game” simulation games, according to the defense acquisition university. that includes everything from large u.s. air force flight simulators to warfare strategy  “kill” simulators developed by the u.s. army. “full spectrum warrior,” a commercialized “shooter” game was originally developed for the u.s. military. ea games’ “medal of honor” and a whole genre of single and group shooter games like bungie studios’ epic  “halo 3“are part of that military simulation game genre tradition.

but there is a gentler, perhaps more peaceful set of serious games in the marketplace today in a large number of categories: heath and wellness, training, education, science & research, production and work used by a variety of organizations such as corporations, government, healthcare, industry and ngo’s trying the save the world. while the u.s. government is by far the largest spender on serious gaming ($ billions), the corporate business market is spending much less (under a $1 billion u.s.), this space will be expanding quickly in categories like “advergaming”. car companies like mini cooper and jeep have games on their sites to promote brand experience, as do insurance companies such as progressive. increasingly, serious gaming and ARGs will be woven into our lives everywhere with tie-ins to facebook, google and yahoo games and many other trans-media venues.

the dea takeaway:

“serious gaming” will continue to evolve in the government and defense community on a massive scale and probably set the pace for major large spending efforts on complex simulations. they have the seemingly unlimited fountain of government money to fuel it as well as an entire “beltway bandit” group of private sector companies clustered in washington, d.c. and government-sim biz city orlando, florida, sucking up billions of our tax dollars. we have, in effect, what we are calling a gaming industrial complex, to paraphrase dwight d. eisenhower, when he coined the term “military industrial complex” in the good old 1950s.

the ARG movement, which is very new and still being born, may take major steps over time to accomplish what dr. jane mcgonical is seeking….games to change the world.  after the arab awakening in spring of 2011, which lead to political change and turmoil in tunisia, libya, eygpt and syria as well as the english rioting and looting, which occurred  in the summer of 2011, new attention is being given to the power of crowd-sourcing tools like facebook and social media. maybe ARGs will become effective tools to change reality as well. why not gamers?

see our presentation,Transmedia Gamification Opportunities for Serious Gaming dea Presentation @ Serious Play Conference, Seattle 08-23-11 and under our “connections” page.

e3 & the state of the game industry (and why sony gets it despite hacker issues)

e3 2011

(eyeball time: 3.0 minutes but you might read faster…but if you check the cool video links …god only knows… you are on your own…)

full disclosure: we have no business or commercial interests with sony. this is an independent assessment.

the dea skinny on what’s happening:

www.e3expo.com

o.k. so we are at e3 in los angeles with all the pimply gamer geeks and tons of scantily-dressed video game demo bimbos hired to make geeks-who-can’t-talk-to-girls feel better about themselves and buy more games and looking at everything and finding no big breakthroughs this year. you were smart to stay home. sure, there are more microsoft kinect-enabled titles. sure there astounding looking 3d/hd graphics making major video titles look like, well, movies you direct. and yes, there are hand-held 3d nintendos and new psp (psvita) units coming out as well as the 100th. version of “medal of honor 4” and “halo 4” with ad-on pack features as well as a million new shooter games which all look the same. blah, blah, blah. sighs.

the bigger picture is this: the entire video game industry had negative growth this last year, down 2-5% depending on whose unreliable numbers you look at. and that is because it is in the middle of a major disruption, moving from a predominately console-based world of $60 games to cloud-based free-to-play cloud based, mobile social games and a much more complex gaming audience being fueled by older baby boomer and women. yes, the blockbuster shooter titles will always be there and aren’t going anywhere soon. but interesting enough, traditional players like ea are finally get it and are doing something about it as are brick-and-mortar-but-on-online retailers like gamestop who are transitioning their business models brilliantly so they don’t become the next blockbuster video roadkill in the game retail space (more on them later and elsewhere).

but for us, sony is one of the most interesting companies navigating this transition and is best-in-class at managing the elephants-can-dance paradigm shift, tipping point, black swan, creative destruction transition thing (enough cliches there for you?) going on in the video game world today. despite all the hoopla around the playstation network security break-in (don’t gloat buddy, you are next on the hacker’s list- just ask Nintendo), and its slow growth on psp game console sales, sony is well-positioned to play on multiple tables with different content, service and hardware offerings: traditional console games for the trans-media living room (ps3+), mobile gaming devices psp (new psvita), pay-to-play games on the Sony Playstation Network and the newer Sony Online, sony’s MMO cloud offering you have heard about lately for all the wrong reasons.

the stakes:

the key ingredient for success for managing through an industry disruption, like the one facing the video game industry today, is the ability to build new franchises while preserving or actually cannibalizing existing franchises. what makes sony different from others with its 75+ million plus subscribers on all their gaming platforms (compared to Microsoft’s XBox’s console-based approximately 25+ million users)  is that they have separate segmented offerings by platform type. they are playing on many tables and are ready if the MMO cloud world takes over beyond their current small base of around 800k users. but what we also love the most is sony’s ability to make bets on new, innovative indie game developer video game content (such as “flower” discussed on this site and a video preview is available to your left on the video menu). they provide developers with a free set of game development tools and support indie game developers more than any other major industry player. (see www.indiecade.com) their virtual world capabilities on the playstation network enables your Sony avatar to enter and play different game in different virtual worlds, something only once-promising star “second life” enabled. in short, sony, unlike any other industry player is well-positioned on many tables to dominate over time.

the dea takeaway:

for general management & biz dev people: we get that making millions is very, very hard to do and that established cash-cow franchises are hard to move off of in order to explore seemingly much less certain bets in new spaces which your management team may not believe in or support. the old cash cow franchise always dwarfs the potential new one almost every time, even when the cow’s milk slows down and stops flowing, ergo no interest in anything but short term thinking. but all the evidence shows that when companies or product lines fade, die or fail, it is because everyone is in collective denial and running to the legacy revenue mattresses. net net, make some wide-ranging bets like sony has and think deeply about where things are going. think partnering on a revenue-share basis or licensing if new spaces are spooky to you.

for game developers: think about the fact that while building casual games for Facebook and the apple and android app stores looks attractive and easy, realize that your odds of making it are probably slightly worse than getting signed as an indie rock band at SxSW with 10,000 other bands playing at the same time. check out the big players like sony and see how you can fit in their ecosystems.

for more information, please contact us at 512.825.6866 to discuss the issues more fully and the specific impact & implications to your business. it’s free!

micro-payments can make you rich… (when advertising is not enough and you are creative and greedy…)

(eyeball time: 2.5 minutes but you might read faster…)

the dea skinny on what’s happening:

asian game companies like nexon have known how to mint money with micro-payments with “free-to-play” games for years. it is their core business model with hundreds of millions of users worldwide.  but there is a wider opportunity for social networking, net tv and gaming companies, digital advertisers, content, technology and infrastructure companies to leverage micro-payments for enhanced revenues. advertising revenues can’t pay for everything in the universe. even product placement has limits – last year only $25B us was spent on them. thinking creatively about micro-payment strategies on a much wider basis across content types, applications, technologies and infrastructure could pave a road to riches for many, if everyone can just shed their very provincial and limited thinking on the matter all can get rich. maybe, if you read this.

the stakes:

billions of dollars (or second life lindens if you prefer). free-to-play gaming companies have made millions using micro-payments. we are thinking of games like nexon’s dungeon fighter, maple story, zynga’s farmville on facebook, lord of the rings online, and even small linden lab’s second life. while they have pioneered the field (although porno probably leads in this area with video chat and “dating and mating” services), there is a huge opportunity for many companies to enhance revenues by using micro-payments. it is very simple. think of anything you can sell in small amounts, say $1 to $50. in games it typically objects players need like cars, guns or clothes. but in social network, gaming  and net tv environments it could be anything you can think of…say…an old yearbook picture, an object related to an organization like a t-shirt, any object you want to gift a friend from a book to a song or food, a coupon, a promotion, household or pet products…just about anything you can sell on the net. and all within the context of specific content or context situation while another activity is underway (e.g, a game, a social network conversation, a net tv viewing experience, a document, email, etc.).

the processes. well, you need to be able to do a number of things: users & subscription management, inventory, offer and store management, offer presentation & discovery, auctioning (optional), transaction management, wallet, payment, delivery, clearing settlement invoicing, and reputation management. those are just a few areas you should be thinking about.

the plumbing. while you can build and roll-your-own micro-payment environment on your own with the usual suspects (i.e., credit card companies, paypal, banks, etc.) there are several global full service providers who can help as well and this is a very partial listing at best from the gaming world but plumbing is plumbing. [nb: we don’t have a dog in this fight or any interests in any of these companies. we are independent.] but these companies have figured out how to integrate micro-payments in context of an another simultaneous interaction which is going on with the purchase/payment transaction. they all do different things but check them out to get going. in europe, check out digital river’s fatfoogo, zaypay international, and dialxs. in asia, try ppay .and in the usa/canada, check out usemyservices, instapayment, live gamer, mochi media, livegamer, gamersafe. we don’t vouch for any of them but that a start for you. you want more info., hey, call us.

the dea takeaway:

most usa gaming companies with some minor major exceptions, have their heads in their heads in the sand on this. as usual, asia leads on the and most americans don’t get out very much and don’t understand they don’t lead here. asians get it big time. many usa game companies say they have studied the mirco-payment opportunity casually but have convinced themselves that the audience will feel exploited and that “hard core gamers” will feel ripped off; “it’s for casual gamers only” they tell themselves. they have also convinced themselves they can’t make money on mobile phone platforms with high SMS payouts. although many are open to the idea, they not attacking it aggressively or creatively. message to game companies: wake up and smell the coffee! it’s ready!

for social networking companies, there is a huge opportunity that goes way beyond anything facebook has done with zynga and the farmville-style franchise. there are a million things that could be turned into micro-payment revenue sources. as yoda says in starwars “do or do not, there is no try.”

for content, context, service, application, technology and infrastructure players, think about how you can build the relevant features into your offerings. get moving now.

ditto for net tv and digital advertisers. it turns out that when a customer is provided a micro-payment offer, it increases interactivity, “stickiness,”, “dwell time,” and “virality.” customers don’t see this as a “rip-off”. if they did nobody would be using gmail with its ads or any other site on the net with any kind of promotion. throw away your old assumptions and explore this space.

for more information, please contact us at 512.825.6866 to discuss the issues more fully and the specific impact & implications to your business. it’s free!

e3 and the future of gaming (for maybe the next 12 months or so ;-)

(eyeball time: 3.0 minutes but you might read faster…but if you check the cool video links which take forever to load…god only knows… you are on your own…)

e3 los angeles 2010

dea is LIVE FROM E3 in la

the dea skinny on what’s happening:

http://www.e3expo.com

in case you didn’t get the tweet, e3 is the big momma of all industry gaming shows in the usa. every major game developer, hardware platform provider and distributor shows up at this huge industry show in los angeles each year to show their wares. this week, we attended e3 and notice several longer term patterns in the video game industry. overall e3 looks like a 1950s automobile show in detroit. mostly all men with scantily clad blonde barbie dolls doing demos. ironically, women are the fastest growing segment of the gaming market but the testosterone geeks don’t get this in the industry. (check out www.womeningamesinternational.org) and because we are americans, the shooter/killer games rule. but there are amazing new directions starting to emerge (check out the flower video and interview with kellee santiago, ceo of thatgamecompany in our video gallery…that is where it is going!)

what is most notable also was the absence of zynga, the popular facebook provide of social networking games like farmville, mafia wars, etc. this show is very old school, mainstream industry, brought to you by the entertainment software association.

also duly noted as missing-in-action were all the mobile game players – publishers and cell phone, tablet and mobile device industry players. just not there and they represent the fastest and largest gaming platforms out there…according to the un’s itu, there are nearly 5 billion mobile phones worldwide. and not a single vendor of note at e3!

1. major publishers continue to take names and kick ass with mega titles in hd

you need to see the new games being rolled out..they look like movies you control. take the time and click on some of the links…(the commercials are a pain but the demo’s worth it) the use of hd tcnology makes old time game look obsolete. we are on the primitive edge of full simulation machines. check out lucas star wars II: force unleashed, (you remember the film maker…now games are his main activity), activision’s call of duty: black ops, or square enix’s the third birthday (featuring a new woman here ala lara croft but realistic). Yeah, they are all killer games but that misses the point about the technology and the direction simulations are taking. reality is really real these days…

2. user interface experience is morphing

ok, so the big headline at e3 is microsoft’s xbox 360 release today of its new interactive user interface called kinect (project code name “natal”). this is redmond’s answer to nintendo’s wii interface except it is more revolutionary….no devices! users simply move in front of the set and infrared sensors pick up movement and are incorporated into the game. it is pretty primitive  today but one can see where this is leading. sony playstation 3 is appealing to hard-core gamers with 3d technology although the jury is still out on 3d displays (due to side effects of headaches, etc.) and tv content producers and networks are dragging their feet on 3d programming which will affect adoption. but these are the first primitive steps into immersive user experiences at low price points (kinect is $150) and have deep implications across all industries for applications involving interactive use experiences from product sales and customer experience to education.

3. the network is the game not the box now

“the network is the computer” sun microcomputer’s then-ceo and founder scott mcnealy prophetically stated well over 30 years ago. well, it is true now. the game console is slowly going the way of the doodoo bird. even giant activision get 70% of it net operating profit games from non-console games. new companies are rolling out network device independent online gaming platforms where you simply buy a subscription for multiple  gaming experiences, much like buying a movie ticket. check out onlive.com for an example of one of the new players….and they are cross-promoting with at&t…why? because scott mcnealy was right. online gaming has HUGE implications for network providers as well as all pc and chip makers…

4. the asians are doing amazing things but the gringos don’t get it (as usual)

ironically, the biggest publisher at e3 is a korean company named nexon. they dwarf everyone else in terms of users and represent the future of the gaming, social networking, promotion, advertising, micropayments, branding and the attendant infrastructure for years to come. how big?  try this: today microsoft brags it has 20 m users worldwide on xbox 360. nexon has a huge portfolio of “free to play” games (you play free games and make small payments of $1-3 us for accessories like clothing, cars, etc.) one of their games, dungeon fighter has 200 million subscribers and 2.5 million simultaneous users. their second biggest title maple story has 100 million subscribers with 1.5 million simultaneous online users. american game executives right this off saying it is china which is in one time zone and doesn’t matter. hey dudes, the world is flat and nexon is making billions of dollars and growing exponentially in a market whee us gaming was down 10% – 20% and it wasn’t the recession that did this. wake up and smell the coffee you auto-centric americanos. to dismiss this under the banner of different cultural adoption and usage patterns misses the point completely.  you need to get out more and see the world. something is going on and you don’t know what it is…ok…rant over…you get the point. asia is driving gaming innovation ni this space. check out tainengmiao.com, d2home.com, and cddmb.cn to get  a sense of this. there is a major game industry in chendu, sichuan province and all over china, as well as nexon’s native korea.

the stakes:

huge. billions. and the biggest thing is that the us gaming industry is a laggard. there are major opportunities in all segments for layers within the traditional gaming inustry and outside it….advertisers, sponsor, hardware and communications infrastructure and more…in all the categories above.

the dea takeaway:

1. major publishers continue to take names and kick ass with mega titles in hd

the increased use of high rez image and motion means major opportunities not for just chip makers like intel, amd, and nvidia, but also for all processor-related industry players at the hardware level. for network service providers it is a double edged sword..more revenues for more bandwidth-management players like cisco (good) but more major capital spending for players like telcos such as verizon, at&t, sprint, t-mobile, etc. (bad for telcos but good for cisco).  for content players like major film studios, there are obvious trans-media tie-in’s and licensing plays (see “prince of persia” piece we did on this). ditto for brands, advertisers, etc. and there are myriad niche service and digital advertising integration lays as well too numerous to go into here.

2. user interface experience is morphing

this area is very exciting and has deep implications for game industry developer and hardware and chip manufacturers. but the largest and most interesting opportunities lie in adapting his technology for new customer experience and cross-industry applications. imagine an atm or online service experience where you interact virtually as one of a set of optional user interfaces. microsoft’s kinect (based on the root words ‘connect’ and ‘movement’) says it all. citibank already uses video conferencing at its drive through branches. this could be the next wave and applied for many net-based interaction applications. 3d…not ready for prime time.

3. the network is the game not the box now

game over. the net wins. if your business is console based, those thin, cloud-based client interfaces spell the inevitable day your consoles will not be needed except as game controller interface hardware devices and that, my friend, is a zero-margin business over the long haul. with all respect to everyone from activision to ubisoft, get in gear to transition. this has radical implications for our product distribution strategies. now you can go distribute directly over the net to millions of subscribers worldwide like nexon already does and cut out your distributors! it is a scary world out there! the network providers need t be ready for this growth and for mobility, in particular.

4. the asians are doing amazing things but the gringos don’t get it (as usual)

hey, get out and get educated. book a trip to china, korea, japan, and india. ’nuff said. monitor developments in these countries even if it is difficult and things look too “hello kitty” for you at times. hey, we told you about nexon. this is truly where the innovation is taking place, not the usa. we will try and help there also.

for more information, please contact us at 512.825.6866 to discuss the issues more fully and the specific impact & implications to your business. it’s free!