Entries from February 2008 ↓

It really beggars belief, when the world economy is coming off the rails and we are involved in two wars, that the Government is putting time and energy into suppressing video games. When there isn’t any problem.

They are changing the law so that every game needs to be classified by the BBFC, just like films are. Here are a few reasons why this is stupid:

• Television is more violent and has more sex than video games. Even an early evening soap opera like Eastenders has a lot more of both than the vast majority of games. So why don’t all television programmes require a BBFC rating?
• This will apply to boxed cardboard and plastic games at retail. Everyone reading this knows that this is a dying business model. The industry is moving online and it is impossible to implement BBFC ratings online. The government are wasting their time. However the decline in high street retail will be speeded up.
• There is no problem here to be fixed. As games have been increasing in popularity child crime rates have been going down. The Government are only acting to try and look good politically.
• All the parents I know let their children play games from much higher age ratings, even parents who work in the industry. Because as parents they know that no harm is caused, otherwise they wouldn’t allow it. That the government knows better than parents is patently ridiculous.
• No matter what the Government do they will not stop the youth of this country playing GTA IV. They are seriously wasting their time even trying.
• The BBFC can’t do the job. There are a lot more games than films and many games have 20 or 30 hours content. And if they just cherry pick the “bad” bits out of games then they are not seeing them in context so will come to wrong decisions. The BBFC will need to be at least 100 times bigger than it is now to do the job properly. Do the government realise this?
• There is a thriving independent, homebrew and mod development scene. Some of which grows to be mainstream and which adds enormously to the art that gaming is. This will be crushed by the BBFC bureaucracy.
• Other governments, especially in Europe, have now recognised video games as the art form that they are and are putting effort and money into encouraging the industry. The British Government, by doing the opposite, is damaging the country economically and culturally.
• This puts an extra burden and extra time pressure on games publishers. In an industry where most games make a loss this extra burden is unacceptable.
• It also puts shopkeepers in the unfortunate position of having to police this stupid policy with the threat of big fines if they make a mistake. This is inevitably going to cause a lot of problems for them.
• The kids will continue to buy from Amazon using their parent’s credit card. The Government is powerless to stop this.
• This is the nanny state saying that they know better and imposing their will on the people. This is always a bad thing.

Most disappointing to me is the way that much of the industry has rolled over and accepted this. Presumably they think it is OK to suffer some pain to get the matter over and done with. They are wrong. Once the Government see that they have a soft target to kick they will keep on kicking it. This is the thin edge of the wedge.

For those that don’t know: “First Tuesday is a professional networking forum for established technology entrepreneurs and companies seeking venture capital, investors and related service providers. Founded in 1998, we now have 38,000 members and our 10 branches across Europe host meetings on the first Tuesday every month.”

On the first Tuesday this February the subject of the London seminar was “The Opportunities in 2008 for the UK Games Industry”, so I went along. It was very well attended with game industry, city and traditional media people, many of CXO level. There was social networking before and after the seminar which was very valuable.

The seminar itself was started by Phil Elliot of Gameindustry.biz with a look at the facts and figures of the industry. For anyone who likes this kind of stuff I can recommend VG CHARTZ which provides a wealth of up to date data. Not only that, it has a lively forum where this data is analysed. Unfortunately there is a low signal to noise ratio due to typical fanboyism, but if you filter that out there is much value.

Roger Walkden of AWOMO gave us an enthusiastic sales pitch for something that looks like a combination of Second Life and Steam, unfortunately he doesn’t have Counter Strike to launch it with. It looked good, I hope they have the stamina to see it to fruition.

Amongst the other talks a very brief presentation by Dick Davies of Ambient Performance caught my attention. They create private virtual worlds for business and the military. The possibilities here are, quite literally, infinite. It is when I see things like this that my faith is restored that video gaming is still at it’s very beginning, that it will become by far the biggest media in the world and that we have a huge amount of innovation to come.

Considering that the seminar was about this year’s opportunities it was a pity that there wasn’t a little more attention devoted to the emerging mobile platforms of nGage and iPod/iPhone, the effects of industry consolidation with the growth in big media investment and the convergence of social networking and gaming. But you can’t cover everything and what they did cover made the trip more than worthwhile.

And a little clue emerged about what Rupert Murdoch is up to, the guest list for this event included Corporate Development Director, News Corporation.

In just six months this blog has gone from zero to being a Technorati top 100,000 blog (out of 112 million) with readership frequently topping 2,000 a day. From all over the world. Including many senior industry executives and game journalists.

It helps that there aren’t that many blogs written by people with real industry experience on the publishing side. This contrasts with the development side where there are a plethora of truly excellent blogs, many of which are listed on my blogroll. Having worked on the global launch of lots of games I hope that this blog can bring to you some of the joys and anguish that go with the job. Also I have been privileged to work with a lot of exceptional development talent who have created many number one games. Lessons they have taught me find their way onto the pages of this blog.

One of the aims of this blog is to help the reader engage their grey matter. Hence the presentation is often from “left field” with subjects treated differently than they are elsewhere. This is a considered and deliberate policy, as a marketing person I hate anything that is “me too”. It is far better to stand out from the crowd.

A special thanks to those who have contributed here with comments. The articles are often, by their very nature, the start of a debate. And it is the comments made by readers that carry the debate forward creating extra value for everyone. Please keep up the good work.

It is not easy finding a valid new topic to write about every day. Yet some days I have written three articles. It depends on the ebb and flow of both inspiration and news. Regular readers will know my hobby horses. Piracy, industry consolidation, stupid censorship, emerging platforms and the need to raise marketing and management standards. But these are important issues for this industry at this time so it is critical that they are addressed sufficiently.

Whilst this blog is not aimed at the legion of fanboys that are out there I am sure that some find their way here. Like everyone they are welcome, though I am sure that they disagree with a lot that is written here. It goes with the territory of being a fanboy.

So thanks once again, I hope you are enjoying this as much as I am. 

We are getting used to irrational and misinformed criticism of video games. Janice Turner of The London Times thinks that games are “crack cocaine of the brain” and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has blamed them for knife crime. In America Mass Effect has attracted vocal criticism from people who haven’t played it. Cooper Lawrence on Fox News and Kevin McCullough on Townhall.com for instance.

And now we have the ultimate in ignorant anti games paranoia. They are going to destroy the environment. It will come as no surprise that this gem of wisdom comes from Fox News in this highly distorted piece of journalism.

We have to ask ourselves if there is any coincidence in that many of these attacks come from media owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation? And News Corporation is one of the very few global media companies which still have no interest in games. Has Rupert become a Luddite dinosaur in his old age? Or are we about to experience a 180 degree switch in the attitude of these media when he finally makes his move into game publishing?

Just recently Hillary Clinton has been doing badly in the primary elections. For everyone with any interest in video games this is excellent news. Because she is one of those politicians who attack video games to further their own career. Her official website says that a priority as president would be:  ”Protecting children against violence and sexual content in the media and studying the impact of electronic media on children’s cognitive, social, and physical development.”  What this looks like is that she wants to take away our rights and freedoms.

But she has a long history of this, she asked the Federal Trade Commission to “take immediate action to determine the source of graphic pornographic and violent content appearing on the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas video game.”  And “determine whether an Adults Only (AO) rating is more appropriate than the current Mature (M) rating for the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas video game given this new, alarming content.”  She has said that she is going to ”author a bill to create a federal law that would “put some teeth into video game ratings.” ”

Everyone reading this knows that hers is a massive over-reaction. Teens come across far worse things in their daily life than GTA. Youth crime is on a downwards trend and there is no proof that video games cause any harm. In fact the opposite is true, there are lots of studies that prove that video games are beneficial. You would think that Hillary Clinton could find better things to do with her time.

So why is she (and Gordon Brown on this side of the Atlantic) attacking an entertainment industry that does no harm? The answer is politics. They are doing it to create an image for themselves. By attacking games they think that they look strong, decisive and caring. All at the same time. And that the voters will like this which will enhance their political careers. We know that it makes them look stupid, misinformed and opportunistic. It should be harming their political careers. They are attacking an industry that provides employment to many tens of thousands of people and entertainment to hundreds of millions. And they are attacking it purely out of their own self interest.

Why aren’t they doing something about books like Tess of the d’Urbervilles (a great classical work of English literature) which contain sex and violence yet have no age rating whatsoever? Surely they aren’t being hypocritical?

When I was at Codemasters I followed closely the announcement of Steam by Valve in 2002. The growing pains, the successes and the opening up of the platform to other publishers. Steam was so clever, so obvious and so clearly the future that I would have liked Codemasters to do a “me too”. Unfortunately the directors had other things on their minds. So I tried to get them to at least put our PC games on Steam. And they didn’t.

Since then Steam has gone from strength to strength and it is now one of the most important platforms in the whole video game industry. With 15 million active users, probably about the same number (or maybe more) as Xbox Live has. But every Microsoft Xbox 360 purchaser gets a month’s free membership of the Xbox Live gold service. So Steam is outperforming. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the spend per user is far higher on Steam than it is on Live.

Gabe Newell, the MD of Valve was one of the Microsoft millionaires and was the producer of the first three versions of Windows. He has said that he wants to have every PC game on Steam. Why not? Each one is just a bit of space on the server so the marginal cost of each extra game is minimal. However the utility this provides for a Steam user is fantastic. The ability to sit down and, on a whim, play any PC game. Outstanding stuff.

Now Valve have made a simply stunning announcement. They are making a whole pile of powerful and important development tools available to the development community. For free. Steamworks includes real-time stats, anti piracy, auto-updating, community and matchmaking utilities. This is an amazing gift and will save PC developers very many millions of dollars. But it is not altruism. The effect of this will be to make more and more PC development Steamcentric. And to raise industry standards for all the mechanics behind a PC game.

I have to admit that if I were a publisher of PC games I would not bother any more with the plastic and cardboard boxed game at retail business model. It is too much work and it opens you up to so much piracy that you are shooting yourself in the foot. It is a concept that has reached the end of it’s life. Now it is far better to give the game away for free like EA are doing with Battlefield Command. Or use Steam. It will be very interesting to see which of these two mechanisms works best.

So Steam has the potential to become the standard global platform for PC gaming. This is absolutely massive. There are a lot more PCs in the world than there are game consoles. Also the barrier to publishing is very low on Steam. So we would see all sorts of great, amazing, fantastic new stuff which otherwise would never see the light of day. This is the opposite of the console gaming model which has a massive barrier to publishing and which lays a dead hand of censorship on games, both of which contrive to stifle innovation and so hold the industry back.

Of course Valve could make Steam available for consoles. Now that would be interesting.

In the meantime the value of Valve as a company is immense. Gaming is growing to be mainstream entertainment and will become bigger than television and film combined. There is a very good chance that Steam will become one of the most important cornerstones of this immense industry. I wish I owned 0.001% of Valve!!!

Some readers may think that I have gone mad talking about outdoor recreation. But don’t worry, the above are the pseudonyms of two bloggers who publish secret inside information and gossip from the games industry. And they have often been correct with their stories. With growing notoriety they are both obviously getting anonymous tip offs from inside the companies (mainly from marketing?). But some of those tip offs are leading them up the garden path. So what they publish can be wrong. I am a member of a private forum for industry professionals, some of whom have admitted that secret stuff has leaked out this way. And others have pointed out where these blogs can be very mistaken. So don’t take them as gospel.

Surfer girl can be found here. And here is a sample of the inside “information” that she posts:

1) Next year’s Star Wars MMO, not being developed by BioWare or Sony Online Entertainment, will launch simultaneously for PC and consoles alongside the debut of the first Star WarsTV series in fall 2009, of which the storylines of the game will tie into. Those Artistic Lucases already have a second online title planned that I’ve heard has nothing to do with Star Wars.
2) Road to Sunday – football + Grand Theft Auto = one bizarre game called This Is Vegas
3) Yeah, Boom Bloxis not only as amazing as it looks, but is this year’s best third-party Wii game. If you have a Wii and like puzzle games, Mark Mothersbaugh, and/or content sharing, I recommend playing this.
4) That Shrek game is a music game, an absurd music game.

weissmuller.The title that Randy Pitchford was hyping today a video game adaptation of Willa Cather’s One of Ours featuring a science-fiction twist and is set in the Halo universe.
barker.For the Blu-Ray release of There Will Be Blood, Backbone Entertainment is working on “an epic milkshake drinking adventure” that will feature the likeness of Daniel Day-Lewis, it will take up an estimated 5GB and feature at least twenty hours of slurping action, plus multiplayer. A demo of this will be available on XBLA and PSN.
scott. Fox Searchlight, Crave Entertainment and 7 Studios are collaborating once again for Juno: The Video Game, the most realistic teenage pregnancy simulation to date, for Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC, and Wii. Crave could not get Ellen Page for the game, so in her place will be Jamie-Lynn Spears. For portable fans, a track-and-field title set in the Junoverse will hit DS and PSP.

Also, if you get the chance to interview Jamie-Lynn Spears, please ask the following:
“Hey Jamie-Lynn Spears, you’ve had a show on Nickelodeon, someone got you pregnant, what’s next?”
Regardless of her response, print the following as her response:
“A romantic comedy?”

UPDATE: Okay, so there’s apparently some truth to two of these stories, which proves I’m terrible at making up things.

UPDATE TWO: There is no Juno game, despite what people say.

She has a second blog here.

Skater boy has a much more professional looking site that can be found here. And here is a sample of his inside gossip:

- Someone told me that the Wii-exclusive Metal Gear title is somehow related to the Game Boy Color’s Metal Gear: Ghost Babel.

- Criterion’s Black 2 will feature a full compliment of online multiplayer modes (with co-op a possibility), unlike it’s predecessor.

- I don’t know the current status of the game, but during Rockstar Vancouver’s first brainstorming sessions for a follow-up to Bully, one of the ideas they came up with was a very similar title starring a female counterpart to Jimmy Hopkins. They (at least semi-seriously) referred to this game concept as, I kid you not, Tough Cookie.

- Luxoflux should be ready to show off their new game at E3 at the latest (it’s not another True Crime, thankfully).

- On a related note, Vigilante 8 Arcade is still coming to XBLA later this year.

- PROPE will be unveiling their original Wii game “before TGS.” Sega has optioned the publishing rights.

- Just Cause 2 looks much better than the first.

- Marvel Universe Online and Untitled Marvel Fighting Game may both be dead and buried in shallow graves, but Raven will still have Marvel: Even More Ultimater Alliance (tentative title) ready by next Spring.
 

The nature of these things is that they will eventually be found out and their real identity revealed. But in the meantime their sites can be mildly amusing. As long as it’s not your secrets being revealed to the world.