Entertainment Technology Advisor

Well, if it is one thing those Qualcomm folks know how to do it is how to throw a party or two or three. Unfortunately I had to miss the best one, BREWfest, hopefully I'll get to make it in 2009!

The partying aside, there was a tremendous amount of information presented during BREW 2008 so I'll spread it across a few posts so I don't write one massive post. I do have a tendency to go on a bit!

While this was a developer conference with the typical nitty gritty discussions, Qualcomm made a big splash to communicate its vision of the next evolution for the wireless industry. As cell phones have become an indispensible tool around the world the industry is looking at how it can continue its unprecedented growth and penetration.

According to CEO Paul Jacobs the next revolution from the mobile industry is taking broadband wireless to the consumer. Currently costs dictate that wireless broadband is for the mobile road warrior, the sales person who needs to be constantly connected to customer information, the corporate executive who relies on email to keep global operations running, the tech worker who is collaborating with development teams around the world at all hours of the day.

According to Qualcomm those days of exclusivity are about to end. With concepts ranging from onboard wireless broadband for lap tops to onboard wireless broadband for consumer electronics the company is pushing cellular networks as the content pipeline. Data limitations, cost, infrastructure deployment, these challenges are not minor, but the siren call of all access all the time is where mobile operators can compete even if data rates are slower. A whole new generation of users are accustom to having their information in their hand and accessibility across platforms is how to take that generation to the next level.

This opens a huge can of worms for content and tool developers! But it also means new opportunities.

More later!
Christine

I have some more musings on the ION Conference. I do jump around a bit so pay attention! Conference organizers did a great job of highlighting the console business in an effort to include an important and growing part of the business. However, the PC contingent was loathe to let go of its status as “the online gaming platform”. There was intense discussion amongst the development community at the conference about the online aspect of PC gaming recharging the PC segment and rekindling growth in revenue. While that may happen and we hope it does, there are significant issues with the concept of PC gaming reviving.

First is the fact that PC gaming is not really expanding to other markets in the way console gaming is expanding. By this I mean that traditional PC gaming has not appealed to women, older gamers, and others who do not generally participate in gaming. They are taking up casual gaming in droves, but they really are not flocking to hard core PC games. The majority of growth in online gaming has come from international expansion not a broadening in the gamer base. This presents a huge obstacle for increasing PC gaming’s revenue.

Other issues include the continued focus on how games look rather than game play. It really doesn’t matter if a beautiful game is single or multiplayer if the game play stinks. It’s apparent from the quick appearance and disappearance of many MMOGs that game play is not always the priority when developing the title. This has plagued the game industry for a long time and online PC gaming is not immune. I believe it is a bigger pitfall for PC games because of the constantly increasing abilities of the PC and the temptation to focus on how the game looks.

In another interesting topic area, enterprise technology providers were circling the conference looking for opportunities to bring their technologies to online gaming. With proclamations of billions of dollars to be made in online gaming CRM, database, and other infrastructure titans were looking for their “in” with game developers. The unfortunate fact for some is that game developers just are not going to pay enterprise prices for infrastructure technology when most seem to believe they can build it “just as good”. Some probably can, but there is an opportunity to show developers that enterprise grade technology can address scalability and reliability issues very well.

Another issue that piqued my interest was the seeming lack of use of or interest in Web metrics and measurement technology. With so much user information available gamer behavior and activity should be obvious to online game developers and publishers. It may have been that developers just didn’t want to discuss their customers’ behavior, but it genuinely sounded like a significant portion of valuable information on activity was being ignored. As those in the audience with experience in web metrics asked questions about data points some developers seem genuinely disinterested in those measurements. I think there is a lot to be learned in those metrics and utilizing a Web metrics specialist could help develop key business tactics for most online game developers and publishers.

So there is my two cents on the ION Conference 2008. I can’t wait to see what the organizers present next year!
Christine

Last week’s ION Conference was highlighted by an interesting collection of business and online game development conversations. From the middleware side of business networking solutions were well represented with sessions from Big World, GameSpy and Simutronics. Unfortunately the casual discussions around middleware came back to the tried and true “middleware doesn’t provide what we need” or “if I use off the shelf middleware my game will look the same”. Those comments were a little disheartening given the efforts many companies have made in trying to overcome this attitude. Part of the difficulty seems to be the perception that middleware companies are focused on the console market and solutions for PC gaming, the traditional platform for online gaming, do not fulfill their needs. This attitude shows just how much work Big World, GameSpy and Simutronics have to do to reach out to developers. While GameSpy has achieved broad acceptance in many PC games there is considerable work to be done in penetrating the development market even further.

While PC developers were hard on middleware providers, the attitude towards online console gaming in general was even more harsh. The impression that developers had of console online capabilities versus the true capabilities was stark. Again, this likely goes back to the PC oriented nature of online gaming. However, some developers swore up and down that XboxLive games and PC games could not be played together despite the launch of Shadowrun with the ability for Vista and Xbox 360 players to play against each other. Despite challenges with business models or the number of Vista users subscribing to Games for Windows Live, the fact is it can be done. Beyond this assumption, discussion of the number of online gaming subscribers seemed to summarily dismiss players using consoles. Microsoft claims to have 12 million members, yet these were rarely counted in discussions of how many players are online.

The assessment of the Playstation and the online gaming capabilities from the platforms was even harsher with little credit given to Sony for developing an online strategy. Some developers completely dismissed the Playstation platform as a viable online platform. This despite successful games such the Socom series dating back to the beginnings of the Playstation2.
The complaints were not totally unfounded, but the continuing prejudice consoles receive from the online gaming community was very apparent in some of the discussions coming from online developers.

For toolmakers the definitions of online gaming are becoming more important with the dividing line between immersive games and browser based games becoming more significant. Developer after developer sang the praises of Flash and creating browser based games that required little if any effort on the part of the player to use. As Flash becomes more robust and the importance of ease of use remains high on user requirement lists, browser based games will pose more of a challenge to toolmakers hoping that rich worlds will be the games of choice for the growing online segment.
More in a bit…
Christine

Hi all,
I sat out SIGGRAPH this year. Hate missing the show but the non-L.A. events always seem a little deflated. New Orleans was fun but, then again, that's probably because it was in New Orleans. San Antonio, not so great. Orlando, a few years back, was okay I guess. Maybe my enthusiasm for trade shows in general is waning because I haven't even checked to see if the event will be in L.A. next year. I imagine so, and I'll probably go if it is.

Nevertheless there were a few notable announcements. Here's a few:

Updated 3D tools:
Luxology: Modo 202
Autodesk/Alias: Maya
Autodesk/discreet: 3ds Max 9
Avid/Softimage: Face Robot
NaturalMotion: morpheme [pdf Release]

Misc:
NVIDIA: Quadro Plex,NVSG Scene Graph ,Gelato
Khronos Group: OpenGL 2.1 Spec, ARB Handover, New Members, Collada Support
VICON: VICON MX

Oh, I know, I probably missed a couple - but please note that the *.01 upgrade announcements were deliberately excluded from the list above.
More later,
M

Hi all,
Guess I'm not the only one that thought that E3 2006 was a little lackluster. Today the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announced that E3 2007 will pretty well ditch its big-money, big-hype exposition component in favor of a “more intimate event focused on targeted, personalized meetings and activities”. Big surprise.

That has been the real deal at E3 for quite some time, of course, and the expo has long been pretty much 'bread and circuses' for the unwashed masses. The real work of the show, meanwhile, taking place behind the scenes in the 'secret' meeting rooms and hospitality suites that expo-goers and normal media rarely get to see.

Expos are important when you have a lot of vendors and/or a lot of outlets that need to get together to discuss deals and exchange contact information for later followup. When industries consolidate the usefulness of the format begins to evaporate: witness Comdex, the Western Cable Show, and many others for past precedent.

When there are a handful of main publishers dealing with a handful of main distributors most of their communications can be handled by a long day of phone calls - of course it's always good to get together for a nice face-to-face and some after-show drinks (I know some of the wooing goes beyond that, but hey, this is a family-friendly site.)
More later,
M