Entries from March 2008 ↓
March 10th, 2008 — News analysis and background
The game industry has been wedded to the boxed cardboard and plastic retail game product for over 20 years. To the point that many people think that this is the industry. Everybody also knows that web gaming is growing and will be important in the future. But this is not the reality. The reality is that web based gaming is already bigger in terms of number of players and hours played. And that advantage is increasing at a phenomenal rate. Boxed games will soon be insignificant in comparison. Here are some of the numbers.
These numbers are simply staggering and are a reflection of the huge business advantages of online games.
- No piracy. This incredibly important. People will steal games instead of paying for them. This has killed the PSP as a platform to develop for and has destroyed PC boxed games. It could just as easily invalidate the business model of any console that relies on boxed games.
- Instant distribution. When you launch a new game it is available straight away worldwide.
- Far lower costs. No manufacturing or distribution costs. No retailer’s margin. At a given price point your earnings can easily be double.
- Servicing niches. A boxed game has to be mainstream to get shelf space, this holds back innovation. Online you can try anything and reach your customers worldwide with it.
- No publisher advantages of scale. Conventional product favours massive global publishers as has been proved by music and film. Online removes these advantages of size. Small publishers can enter the market and thrive.
- Long sales window. Traditional boxed games can stay on a retailer’s shelf for just a matter of weeks. Online games can continue to generate revenue for years. This makes niche products far more viable.
- Added power of online marketing. All anyone has to do is click your marketing and they can buy your game without leaving their seat. If they want to buy a boxed game they have to make a trip to a retailer or wait for Amazon to deliver. Both of which are obstacles to purchase.
So if I were investing in games just now you can see where my money would be going.
March 7th, 2008 — Practical information
Some people think that Wikipedia is the sum of all human knowledge. With 9.25 million articles it is certainly big and the fact that anyone (supposedly) can add to this store of knowledge should make the content exhaustive and authoritative. There are several articles in Wikipedia that I was a central player in. And from my expert position I can see the flaws in these articles:
- Liverpool Software Gazette. This was my idea. I published and funded it and edited several issues.
- Imagine Software Where I was Operations Director in charge of sales and marketing, inter alia.
- Codemasters. Where I was one of the first employees and was in charge of marketing, inter alia.
- Dizzy. The repeatedly chart topping game brand which I did the marketing for.
So I thought that it would be good to apply my intimate knowledge of these subjects by contributing to Wikipedia. I had already written articles involving all four subjects and those articles are on this blog. So the simplest thing was to add the permalink for those articles to the External Links section of the Wikipedia entries. Then anyone researching could drill down and get the extra knowledge. So:
You would think this is what Wikipedia is all about. People who are experts on a subject adding their knowledge to the collected expertise of the encyclopedia. So you may be surprised to find that the editors deleted these entries. I wasn’t, though, I had already been warned that the Wikipedia editors are now a destructive force standing in the way of knowledge. That deletions of quality expert additions is now the norm and that a lot of people have given up trying.
Which is a great pity. The enormous problem that Wikipedia has is that it is a monopoly and like all monopolies it is deeply flawed. If they had to face up to competition they would have to get their act together. So it is good to hear on the grapevine that this is a project that Google is planning. In the interests of human knowledge let’s hope so.
March 6th, 2008 — News analysis and background
- Keith Vaz is an idiot. He said that players can rape women in video games. How is he allowed to represent people in Parliament when he doesn´t know what he is talking about? There is plenty of rape in books which have no age rating and plenty of rape in films which do. Why doesn´t the idiot do something about them? If you read the quote he is even confused about the different consoles. How can someone so ignorant be given any power at all? He is pathetic. This is just like when Gordon Brown said that games cause knife crime. These people are not fit to govern.
- SCI/EIDOS restructures. The new management have done what is necessary with a 25% reduction in the workforce (which will be a pain to implement with stupid British employment law), a move to product quality and a change to a studio system. Jane Cavanagh and her team have left a messy legacy of ineptitude which will take a lot of cleaning up. Personally I would have sold or got rid of the publishing side of the business to become just a developer, then the sales and distribution rights to each product could have been sold off to the highest bidder.
- Microsoft licenses Silverlight to Nokia. Another significant step on the route to the universal portable device. More phone manufacturers are rumoured to be imminent sign ups. Ultimately there will be a lot more game consoles in people´s pockets than in their homes.
- Warner get rid of music DRM. A very significant move in the online distribution of entertainment IP. It will be very interesting to see what happens next.
- Take Two executive chairman Strauss Zelnick thinks that it will remain independent. And he is wrong. The economies of scale for boxed chart games are so great that the industry will consolidate down to a handful of publishers. This is inevitable and we are watching it happen right now. There are only two ways out, online distribution and niche products. Then you bypass the economies of scale.
- Rumour of Xbox 360 price cut on 14th of March. Which will come as no surprise to regular readers. This is the year of the HD console price war. And Microsoft need the benefit of price elasticity of demand more than Sony do. Also, by not having a hard drive in their base model they can cut sooner and further.
- Casual gaming reached 145 million people in 2007. The AAA boxed cardboard and plastic business model is coming under severe threat here. Like everything else in our industry casual gaming is still in it´s infancy. There is a massive amount of growth yet to come.
- Social networking in mobile phone gaming set to boom. No surprise there then. Social networking and gaming are inextricably linked. It is part of the fundamental nature of gaming.
March 5th, 2008 — Marketing Tips
So to our second set of factors, this time there are 9 to make a total of 17. Feel free to add any more you can think of in the comments.
Age rating. Fundamental really. Don’t get caught obviously trying to attract customers who are too young to buy the game. It is a bit like cigarette adverts next to schools. Society does not approve.
Availability of assets. Videos, demos, renders, interviews etc. The more of these you have the better, you cannot have too much. You don’t get five magazine front covers (As Colin McRae 2 did) without the right assets. This means you have to get on very well with development so that they understand the value in doing the work to create them. Also hold people’s hands with tact when they are doing interviews. Don’t over-brief them. But encourage them to stay on message.
The platform and marketing peculiarities of that platform. Every platform is different to market for. You must take into account technical peculiarities as well as customer demographics and attitudes. Also your relationship with the platform holder and what you can do for each other.
Whether it is a sequel. And how well the previous iteration did. Games can succeed after a long hibernation, Prince of Persia did. The danger with sequels is to be complacent, think that it has all done before, rely on the brand and just market by rote. This isn’t the best way to look after your IP so you must be vigilant not to fall into the trap.
Whether it has a licensing ties in. This can be a massive help or a real pain. Some license holders tie your hands so tight that you can’t market effectively. Others do everything in their power to make your game a success. A lot of this is down to personal relationships with the license holder. So work on your interpersonal skills.
Celebrity possibilities. As an industry we are nowhere on this. OK magazine doesn’t ask David Beckham what his current favourite game is. We should use celebrities more because people relate to people and that empathy makes marketing so much easier and more powerful. One thing to beware of is that celebrities have very limited time so you have to plan with great care to get the most out of what you have. For instance using that time up making them travel is just plain stupid. You go to them.
Does it have muliplayer and/or online capabilities. These completely change the dynamics of a game in the market so they should completely change the way you do your marketing. Online elements mean you can really add power to your online marketing. Your community people can go to town on this.
How does it integrate with and use Live, Home and Steam. These are becoming key, critical factors in the market. They are things that your customer should be told and which may even find you customers. You need to make sure that your presence on these sites is optimised for marketing as well as game playing reasons.
Budget. Saving the biggest one till last. The answer is always “more”.
Finally all you have to do is to repeat all 17 factors for every market you sell the game in.
March 4th, 2008 — News analysis and background
A feature of physical therapy is the tedious repetitiveness of the exercises involved which can turn off even the most determined. So it is great that therapists all over the world have discovered the Wii as a tool which replaces this tedium with fun, thus making the therapy far more effective.
At WakeMed Health in Raleigh, N.C., stroke victim Billy Perry said, “It really helps the body to loosen up so it can do what it’s supposed to do.” Playing tennis and boxing has helped Perry regain strength and feeling in his left arm. Used this way the Wii helps with balance, hand-eye coordination, reflexes and concentration. All whilst the patient is having fun. Clinics using this are also finding that it is great socially. It is great to see medical professionals discovering things that gamers have known for decades. All that has happened is that the Wii interface has made the gaming more accessible to a far wider range of people and by requiring larger actions has increased the physical input necessary.
Wiihabiltation has become, relatively, as big a craze in medicine as the Wii is in the home. Any quick online search comes up with a large number of medical facilities that are doing it. As always the academics are poking their noses in, for instance the University of Minnesota to doing a study that will measure patients’ function before and after their Wiihabiltation. Just like you need academics to tell you what bears do in the woods.
Overall this is fantastic for everyone. For the patients who get better, quicker. For the medical profession who now have a new tool that is very effective and (in the world of medicine) very cheap. And for gaming which can be seen as beneficial to society.
March 3rd, 2008 — Marketing Tips
Jagex are the publisher of the very popular MMO Runescape which is mainly played by kids. A feature of the game is catching sharks. Yet out there in the real world sharks are being fished to extinction. They are fished mainly in an especially cruel way where their fins (the valuable bit) are cut off and then they are thrown back into the sea to die slowly, which can take weeks. So Runescape is sending out all the wrong messages to it’s vast player base.
Sharks are now more endangered than whales. Yet ecologically they are far more important. It is the sharks that keep the oceans healthy by removing all that is diseased or otherwise unhealthy. So by featuring shark fishing in this game Jagex are putting themselves firmly on the side of the bad guys.
So this gives them a great marketing opportunity. They can take the sharks out of the game (and anything else that is endangered) and replace them with something that is sustainable. They could do this in “consultancy” with a high profile environmental organisation like Greenpeace. Then use a good PR company to place the story. This should get on national TV news in several countries. The coverage would be massive.
So many millions of people who are currently unaware of Runescape would be informed about it, this in itself would be excellent. But in addition the brand image would be considerably enhanced. And maybe it might do something to help the sharks.
If anyone is interested in registering their opposition to shark fishing there is a petition here.
