Gaming at the Margins

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Gaming at the Margins

• Warren Spector
• Montreal International Game Summit
• November 2, 2005

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Potential Unlimited

• Take players places theyve never been before
• Allow them to do things they couldnt do in any
  other way
• Walk a mile in someone elses shoes

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Yet, I Despair

• Players settle
• for the mediocre
• for the rehashed
• for the non-interactive experience masquerading
  as interactivity
• And developers and publishers?
• We give players what they seem to want

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But this isnt a rant

• Things arent all bad
• Just partly bad
• Okay, maybe mostly bad
• We live in the Best and Worst of Times

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Best

• Powerful new hardware
• Sky high sales
• New business models
• Notably subscription based MMOG's
• Big media interest
• Audience diversification
• Double digit growth projections
• Cultural cred

6
Worst

• Powerful new hardware
• Skyrocketing development costs
• Rising marketing costs
• Glut of product
• Sales not keeping pace in most cases
• Big media interest
• Developers are older than our audience
• Poor quality of life
• Jobs being sent overseas

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Mainstream or Marginal

• Best of times or worst of times?
• Futures in our control
• Depends on how we answer critical questions
• Answers?
• I dont have them
• But I do want to talk about questions and choices

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Critical Questions Ahead

• How will we deal with the upcoming explosion of
  platforms?
• What sort of content will we provide our changing
  audience?
• What will we learn from the business success of
  online multiplayer gaming?
• Will we even bother to address gender, legal and
  generational issues?
• What is our place in world culture?

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Crossroads

• Heaven or Hell?
• Mainstream or Margins?

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This is a joke, right?

• Vaudeville
• Broadway theatre
• Radio drama
• Sunday funnies
• Video arcades
• Comic books

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What Kind of Crossroads

• Cultural Crossroad
• Generational Crossroad
• Gender Crossroad
• Hardware Crossroad
• Regional Crossroad
• Social or Solitary Crossroad
• Business Crossroad

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Culture

• The world is paying attention
• Articles and reviews in mainstream press
• Games become movies, movies become games
• Teen violence
• Its all good, right?

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Baby Boomers Who Dont Get Games

• The cultural gate-keepers fear us
• They dont understand what we do
• They dont understand why their kids find games
  so compelling
• They look at games and what they see shocks them
• (Which is of course one reason why their kids
  love games so much)

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The Choices

• Should we worry about parents who dont get it?
• Should we fear government or judicial
  intervention?
• Should we do things differently to mollify the
  worry-warts of the world?
• Or should we just hunker down and keep doing what
  were doing?

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The Outcome

• Continue as we are
• Contribute to coarsening of culture
• Possibility of government intervention
• Cultural irrelevance
• Knuckle under
• Sillly rabbitgames are for kids!
• See comic books pre-1954 and post-1955
• Third way
• Broaden range of content, game styles

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Diversification

• Age
• Older gamers
• Older developers
• Gender
• More women playing?
• More women in development?
• Ethnicity
• Were failing

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The Choices

• Should we reach out to older gamers and older
  developers?
• Should we reach out to women gamers and
  developers?
• Should we reach out to Asian, African-American
  (and African!), Hispanic, Indian, Middle-Eastern
  gamers and developers?

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The Outcome

• Continue as we have
• OIder gamers go away
• Games really ARE for kids
• Women go away
• Games really ARE for boys
• Non-white/anglo/North American people go away
• We ignore a huge potential audience
• We miss out on potential new game styles
• Honestly, though, outreach is hard and I dont
  see an easy alternative other than

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Internationalization

• Sales
• Development
• Off-shoring of jobs

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The Choices

• Should we ignore the problems off-shoring causes?
• Should we make local games for local people?
• Should we ignore foreign development competition?
• Strangely, maybe we should

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The Outcome

• No downside to internationalization?
• Bring it on. Competition makes us stronger.
• Maybe we even change the way we operate

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Social vs Solitary

• Massively Multiplayer Online Games
• Here to stay
• Revenue, revenue, revenue
• Mini Multiplayer Online Games
• Alternatives to traditional dev models

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The Choices

• What can singleplayer/small-group games learn
  from MMOs?
• Can we tap into MMO delivery systems?
• Can we tap into MMO billing systems?
• Can we find new game styles that lend themselves
  to online distribution and new billing models?

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The Outcome

• Two separate businesses
• Boxed retail gets crushed (eventually) by direct
  distribution
• Only by embracing both online and retail
  distribution do we succeed.

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Hardware

• Powerful new consoles
• Prettier pictures
• Interesting experiments? Please
• Even bigger teams, longer timelines, more
  expensive games
• Dont forget about handhelds, PDAs, cell phones

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The Choices

• There are none.
• One funding source
• One distribution system
• Spend what it takes to be competitive
• Or dont play in the big leagues

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The Outcome

• Rich get richer
• Prettier games
• MAYBE some interesting experiments
• Im not holding my breath
• Tough(er) times for independent developers
• Mid-Pack and marginal publishers will go away
• This is going to get ugly

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The Crux of the Biscuit

• ITS ALL ABOUT THE CONTENT!

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Self-Imposed Constraints

• We limit ourselves in content we provide
• Gameplay
• Genres
• Visual styles
• Thematic approaches
• Sequels, Licenses, Me Toos
• At least we offer players a LOT of the same old
  thing!
• Apologies to Katamari, Parappa, Vib Ribbon, the
  Nintendo DS and Will Wright

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The Choices

• Stick with the tried and true
• GTA clones are making money hand over fistall
  we have to do is keep making them until players
  tell us to stop.
• Try something new. Anything. Please.
• Theres PLENTY of room for innovation!
• New fictional contexts that imply new gameplay
• Tough AI problems, collaborative storytelling
  problems

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The Outcome

• Short-term success leads to long-term failure
• Stagnation is not our friend
• By the time we realize gamers are sick of GTA
  clones itll be too late
• All you guys with money (EA) take some chances,
  will ya?
• Our future depends on you!

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Solving the Best/Worst Dilemma

• Find a way to encourage a true indie movement
• We went from ALL indie to NO indie in just 15
  years
• We need new ways of funding games
• We need new ways of reaching players
• We need to support games in the no-mans land of
  2-10 million

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Indulge the Crotchety Industry Veteran

• In which I rant for a while about The Good Old
  Days
• See, if I really wanted you to read this I
  wouldnt have made it so dark against the dark
  background

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Almost done now

• The game industry is totally broken. Were doing
  everything wrong
• Me, at the Rant Panel, GDC 2005
• For our future to be secure, we MUST
• Find alternative funding and distribution models
  that allow innovation and narrowcasting
• We have to embrace RD, rather than squash it.
• We have to allow more people, with more varied
  interests, to participate in game creation
• We have to broaden the range of acceptable game
  content
• All of which adds up to appealing to a more
  diverse audience.

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Not Just Business as Usual

• The old ways aren't working.
• Online and mobile games are important, from a
  creative and business standpoint
• New hardware is going to shake things up
• We have to rethink development methodologies
• People are going to want to play games on more
  than one platform
• Boxed games sold at retail cant be the only way
  we reach players.
• Our audience is changing and we WANT that

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Endgame 1

• You. Are. Artists.
• Artists ask different questions than business
  people
• Thats a good thing
• Ask more questions

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Endgame 2

• No one knows what theyre doing
• Thats why we have conferences like this one

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Endgame 3

• The Mayan calendar ends in 2012. The world is
  coming to an end in seven years!
• --Walton Simons
• (http//www.waltonsimons.com/)
• What do you want games to become in the last
  seven years of their existence?
• No, not the FEMA guy from Deus Ex

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Demand More

• From yourselves
• From the people you work for
• From the games you make
• From the games you play
• Lets pick the right paths at the crossroads and
  ensure ourselves the brightest of futures.

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Questions/Comments?

• wspector_at_junctionpoint.com