Entertainment Technology Advisor

Game Middleware & The Economy

Christine — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:18:27 +0000

The mantra at the beginning of 2009 was that the game industry was recession-proof. That concept died a spectacular death just a few short months later. What does that mean for the game middleware industry? Nothing good. The second half was brutal for some providers as the game pipeline dried up. Developers and publishers became extremely skittish about taking risks on anything but known entities. That helped send the industry into a spiral as gamers looking to spend money did not find the slate of titles very interesting.

This has brought growth in the game middleware industry to a screeching halt. Instead of looking for the next great console game many publishers and developers are looking toward casual and mobile gaming as a way to make money while investing little in game development.

The silver lining in this cloud is that middleware makers will continue to innovate through these tough times. Those that come out the other side will have product ready and waiting when developers and publishers start ramping up their console and PC pipeline. When that happens time to market will be critical. Developers are likely to come knocking looking for help to get their games out the door as quickly as possible.

In our latest report Middleware for Interactive Entertainment 2009 we forecast the impact of the economy on the leading sectors of the game middleware market including game, physics, artificial intelligence, and network engines. We also provide detailed analysis on the number of games and SKUs released each year and insight into what game engines are in use in these games.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Mortgage Meltdown Enough to Change Game Developer Thinking?

Christine — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:51:22 +0000

For over a decade the game middleware industry has been fighting the attitude from game developers that they can make their own technology better, faster, and cheaper. While that is a debatable position, it is not a debatable attitude. But, could it be that the meltdown of the financial industry will have the unintended side effect of making developers more willing to purchase off the shelf middleware solutions? I know, crazy. But before you start asking me what I am smoking and where I got it let me lay it out for you. A big developer/publisher cancels a game. The team could be deployed to another game, but the developer decides they are going to take the opportunity to say good bye to team members that are making “too much money” (now remember this is from the developer/publisher’s point of view not the guy making the money). So, for the next game they bring in a new team member just out of school whom they can pay much less. Short term gain maybe, but they lose all of the experience from that team. Where does that team go? Well, how about a new independent development studio. They are popping up all over, and what they know is that they do not have the engineering resources to build a game engine, AI, physics, interface, and so on technology to develop a game. They have a small window of opportunity before they have to start filling out applications to the local Starbucks. That means they have to buy the technology.

Add in new distribution opportunities and models and you have new cycle of independent game developers who just might be more open to middleware this time around.

I may be crazy! I’d love to hear what you think.

Christine

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Visualization & Simulation News Round Up - Feb. '09

Christine — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:53:43 +0000

Here are some of the announcements coming from the visualization and simulation world:

Autodesk
Autodesk Completes Acquisition of ALGOR, Inc.

Presagis
Presagis Brings Visualization Expertise to Texas A&M University

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

3D Modeling & Animation News Round Up Feb '09

Christine — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:13:49 +0000

Here's a round up of the announcements from the 3D Modeling & Animation world:

Autodesk
Autodesk Introduces Softimage 7.5 Software
Australia, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Frost/Nixon, Milk, Valkyrie and More: Autodesk Technology Helps Artists Shape Movie Magic
Super Bowl XLIII: Autodesk Technology Key Player in Commercials

Bunkspeed
Alibre, Inc., Bunkspeed Announce Global Distribution Agreement: Alibre rolls out Bunkspeed’s HyperShot to Worldwide Reseller Channel
Bunkspeed Introduces Free HyperShot for SolidWorks Plugin: HyperShot SolidWorks Edition only $795 for a Limited Time
Castrol Edge Super Bowl Ad Brought to Life Using HyperMove

NewTek
NewTek Unveils New 3D Technology

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Entertainment Middleware News Roundup - Feb '09 Part II

Christine — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:33:48 +0000

Natural Motion
NaturalMotion Releases morpheme 2.0 with NVIDIA PhysX

NDS
Tele Columbus and PrimaCom Choose NDS MediaHighway
NDS End-to-End Solution Powers and Protects Mediascape’s New Digital DTH Service for the Philippines
NDS, News Corporation and Permira Announce the Successful Completion of the Transaction to Take NDS Private

Nuance
Nuance Announces Mobile Developers Program
Nuance Unveils NVC 2.0 For Mass Market Mobile Devices

OC3 Entertainment
Video Game Technology Used to Help Children with Autism

Ocean Blue Software
Ocean Blue Software Launches the World’s First Application and a Complete Software Product Designed to CI+ Specifications

OpenTV
OpenTV Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2008 Results-- Achieves First Year of Profitability

PathEngine
SDK Release 5.19

Qualcomm
MediaFLO USA Set to Expand FLO TV in More Than 100 Markets in 2009

Trinigy
Trinigy Announces Entertainment Stimulus Package

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Entertainment Middleware News Round Up - Feb '09 Part I

Christine — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:01:32 +0000

Here's a quick round up of what middleware companies have been announcing this month:

+7Systems
MrJoy Taps +7 Systems to Automate Game Balance

Dolby
Dolby Previews New Technology for Mobile Entertainment at Mobile World Congress
Dolby Laboratories Reports First Quarter Fiscal 2009 Results

Emergent
Emergent Game Technologies Raises $12.5 Million in Funding

Ensequence
Ensequence Awarded U.S. Patent for Technology that Enables Interactive TV to Scale, Transform Ads

Fonix
Fonix Software Available in Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. Video Game
GaozhiSoft Acquisition Update
Fonix iSpeak -- Spanish, German and French now available for the Apple iPhone 3G

GameSpy
Gamespy Announces Major Upgrade to Atlas Competition System
Gamespy Technology Launches New In-Game Commerce Engine, Direct2Game
Scaleform and Gamespy Launch Comprehensive In-Game Lobby Solution

Minerva
Latens and Minerva Networks extend close integration of CAS and IPTV Middleware
Minerva Adds Three New Channel Partners in Latin America

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Brew 2008

Christine — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:29:49 +0000

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

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

More on ION 2008

Christine — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:03:05 +0000

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

Original post blogged on b2evolution.