IBM attended the Digital Hollywood Spring 2007 summit in sunny Santa Monica, CA. June in Los Angeles is very pleasant, then again, coming from San Francisco, June there is pretty nice too! So it was with a heavy heart but a piqued intellect that I shunned the golden beaches of Santa Monica for the lovely air-conditioned conference rooms of the Loews Santa Monica Hotel and Resort.
Most of the sessions were by default focused on non-game media like television and film, but with the growing importance of the Game industry and its cross-over appeal to studios of all sizes, there were more games-focused panel discussions than ever. Here’s my personal take on just a few of the sessions, where they think the games industry (and its intersection with Hollywood and technology) is going, and whether I agreed with them.
Monday 2:30 session: “Revolutionized Digital Workflow"
Though focused on film and television production, this panel certainly had some relevance to game studios as well. The panelists seemed to agree that it wasn’t really about digital workflow technology, but more about business processes and business models choices being integral to choosing the right technology and the right usage of it to digitize the workflow successfully. We here at IBM completely agree: we love technology, but if you’re not picking it for the right business reasons, you’re just going to make bad decisions or not use the technology appropriately for your business.
There’s a need to figure out how the technology truly impacts the business, and not just expect cost reductions to actually lead to reduce costs. We all know creatives have a way of “filling” up the gains made from technological advances, constantly pushing the boundaries of the technology and what it allows them to do, with the result being that costs windup being shifted rather than completely disappearing. It’s a basic law of physics: by observing a process you change it; technological changes to a process result in the process itself changing, not just “going digital”
Successful workflow transformations are more likely if you pick a starting point that has the highest/most pressing business pain for digitizing workflows, and build success from there. Don’t try to revolutionize the entire workflow right away (“boil the ocean”).
A lot of what kept the panelists up at night would certainly resonate with game developers: mastering content for multiple formats and channels (managing the pipeline), workflows that can handle content to scale from mobile (low bandwidth, low resolution) through HD (high bandwidth, high resolution), no meta-data standards, and other legacy technology choices that have had unintended impacts on today’s environment.
Tuesday morning panel: “Hollywood and the Digital Consumer”
While also focused more on TV and film than games, a few interesting tidbits do apply to the games business: How do you search near-infinite variety of content? Certainly was discussed within the context of YouTube, but think about IGN, GameSpy, Xbox Live, Sony Online, and other digital distribution of games, games will soon run into the same problem: how can you find what you’re looking for in a world of near-infinite variety?
Some ideas: Collaborative filtering. Look at what people are doing rather than what they’re saying (tagging). Also: Communities of interest: folksonomy, social indexing, social networking, tagging, blogging, word-of-mouth, etc. Also: Move away from the network or channel format, more towards Search Engine Optimization and keywords, better Meta data, Widgets for advanced navigation, scripting and bots go out and find what you want, etc.
Tuesday 2:15pm panel: “Virtual Worlds”
Now things get interesting.
Clearly the panel felt some kind of tipping point has been reached. The Majors are finally taking games seriously, from GameSpy/IGN now part of Fox Interactive, Disney – with Buena Vista Games (and the simultaneous launch of their Pirates of the Caribbean game with the 3rd installment of the movie), Vivendi’s High Moon Studios (and IBM’s recent Cell workshops with them), MTV running a Virtual Laguna Beach, and more examples.
And it’s not just business. We know universities have been interested in game development curricula for a while. Now comes word that Vancouver has now set up a 4-unversity-sponsored Masters of Digital Media program (University of British Columbia, Simon Frasier University, Emily Carr Institute and BCIT). Graduates get an accredited degree from 4 universities!
(side note: apparently Vancouver has the highest per-capita concentration of digital animation, special effects and games studios/employees in the world??? Can someone confirm/deny that?)
Tuesday 3:50pm panel: “The Virtual Worlds and MMO explosion”
Hmm, same topic, different panel. What was their take?
Stan Long from NCSoft proposed that there is no “right” business model, they all can work under the right circumstances. He foresees a continuation of plenty of innovation and trial-and-error on different business models in the industry.
The Disney panelist sees a broadening of games beyond “core”gamers, proven by Wii success and casual games. He also sees the continued growth of web-based multiplayer games (like Urban Dead) and other social games will continue to broaden audience.
David Christensen of Sony Online panelist sees the same thing. More developers will try to capture the players who don’t need 30/hours per week of game play, which also portends the continued growth of game play as socialization.
Matt Boswick from MTV panelist sees today’s generation behaving very differently than previous gamer generations. He doesn’t see a separation between “gaming” and “socialization”, nor “virtual” vs. “real” world. Fantasy, social interaction, and entertainment are all part of the same continuum, and are fluid for this new generation. I agree, and I think it puts to lie the notion that there’s this growing “divide” between “virtual worlds” like Second Life (“we’re NOT a game!”) vs. online MMOs.
The panel also discussed growing competition as more games coming out than ever before, but the amount of time “hard core” gamers have to play isn’t growing nearly as fast. That also supported the argument that there’s a need for developers to support the broader market (mass market) games, which also has profit and revenue model implications.
One of the things that struck me in this and the previous panel was a “professional vs. crap” content dichotomy. It seems everyone was stuck in the paradigm of “if it’s not professionally produced by a studio, it’s crap” mentality. While I agree that the 80/20 rule applies here (80% of games are crap) I think it misses the point. Web 2.0 and The Long Tail have shown us is that that’s besides the point. While there will always be a market for blockbusters (products of sufficient quality and mass appeal), the new distribution economics and archiving/search capabilities of the Internet allow for a mass proliferation of economically viable niches. You don’t HAVE to produce a GuildWars or World of Warcraft to be profitable. You can produce games of sufficient quality to meet the minimum requirements of your niche(s). While I think it spells huge opportunities for the market (just look at how the Wii took everyone by surprise, including Nintendo, with all the major game publishers and studios rushing to fill the unexpected demand), it also spells disaster for those game publishers stuck in the old blockbuster-sell-it-on-DVDs-through-WalMart-and-Target model.
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