Call of Duty: Again...and again...

I'm probably going to make some people angry with this post, but what I have to say needs to be said, even if it only serves to satisfy my own sense of justice. Do you know why Activision decided to downplay the "Call of Duty" portion of "Modern Warfare" and "Black Ops"? Obviously, Activision has employed two separate design studios in the making of its CoD games (Infinity Ward & Treyarch), so maybe that's one reason. Also, while they may appear to be similar on the surface, the Black Ops franchise is different from the Modern Warfare franchise in various ways, so maybe that's the reason. You know what I think? I think Activision knew they were going to milk this goldmine for all that it was worth, and they didn't think that you, the fans, would be pleased when "Call of Duty X" hit the shelves in November, 2013. That would basically be the same thing as telling you, "Hey! It's the same game, but we can't sell the other ones for $59.99 any more because everyone already owns them!"

But, before I start bashing on what is obviously a successful, enjoyable, and immersive franchise, let's take a look at the perks that these games have to offer the gaming community.

• Call of Duty is easy. Point and shoot. Turn up that sensitivity. Play for a few hours online, and you're good to go. This is the reason that so many casual gamers who will tell you they don't play video games will still spend several hours a week playing Black Ops II. They're not lying, it's just the only game they play.
• Call of Duty is fun. There. I said it.
• Call of Duty is realistic. Gone are the days of pumping an entire clip into your nemesis and watching him run away to later shoot you in the back when you're busy pumping another clip into his buddy. It only takes a couple of shots, really. Don't bother with that full-auto. Three-round burst is the way to go. 

Okay, I'm done digging for reasons to defend this game. To be fair, these are not the only games that follow the FPS formula for fun. Kudos to all of you gamers who take time out of your busy day to give Battlefield a chance. I admire you. EA Dice really has done well for themselves. But what is in store for the future of gaming? New Intellectual Property is a huge risk nowadays when you consider the fact that most gamers are simply biding their time until the next CoD release. If you're planning on releasing a brand-spanking new shooter, you might want to think twice (*cough*Respawn*cough*). Can West and Zampella hold their upcoming mystery game up to their brain child without it perishing under the scrutiny of the teabagging horde? They're like modern day Frankensteins, with Call of Duty being the monster.

Whatever Respawn plans on unleashing, I hope it can put a scare into Activision. Get them to shift gears and try something else for a change. That's karma, and I like karma. Am I the only person who is aching to see if those poor developers at Infinity Ward and Treyarch will ever have the opportunity to give birth to the next big thing? Do they even want to? What would happen if they decided not to release "Modern Warfare 4" this year? Would it be so bad?

Ouya: Seriously Misunderstood?

If you recall my previous post, I discussed the importance of digital distribution and new media in general in terms of bringing back artistic expression - primarily the non-commercialized kind - and opening the door for content creators. Now, I'm not sure if you noticed, but that post was surprisingly scarce on the topic of video games. That must have been surprising. Fortunately, I have every intention of addressing that subject in this post, but it may not be what you would expect.

So, a quick recap is in order. We know that Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo hold all of the power in the console gaming war, to a point where no other company has really even bothered to try breaking down the barriers that this monolithic trifecta has erected in the console manufacturing industry. Why? Well, it's all about money, folks! Let's assume I'm an independent developer, who has just created a really cool game, but I don't really have the financial backing to publish it. So I choose digital distribution, but I would really love to have access to the console gaming market, as my game interfaces better with a controller than with a mouse and keyboard (let's just ignore the existence of PC joysticks, for the moment). But Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo don't like the price tag I want to put on it, and once they've told me what it's worth - not near as much as a big budget AAA game from 2K Games, I would wager - they tell me how much I must give them for each digital copy sold. While anything beyond that is speculation, something tells me it's not a pretty number, due to the amount of disgruntled Indie developers digitally distributing their games through console markets.

Enter the heroic underdog, Ouya. If you haven't heard of it, Ouya is a new company that managed to net over $8.5 million in Kickstarter funding for its self-titled prototype game console. Now, this console has been met with mixed responses thus far, including critics who do not believe there is a market for the Indie-developed games that Ouya claims it will feature. Personally, I love innovation, and this is exactly what I was referring to when I spoke about putting power back into the hands of the content creators; in this situation, the content-creators are the "little guys," the ones who have been bullied into following a tried-and-true method of game design that, while fun and engaging, is bringing true innovation to a stand-still for the sake of hitting the jackpot with each subsequent release. Our creative talent is being snuffed out as we struggle to have the next Call of Duty title ready to launch by the holidays.

Ouya is giving Indie developers the opportunity to bite back by injecting their games into the homes of consumers on a relatively affordable console. Call me an optimist, but I believe the open-source software will help Ouya achieve success in the long run, as well. The best part is, Ouya is attempting to penetrate the console gaming market around the same time that the "Big Three" of video games will be releasing their next generation of consoles. Bold, Ouya. I like boldness, too.

So what do you think? Will this innovative piece of technology pack a punch, or will it fizzle in the face of the indoctrinated masses who just want to play the next Modern Warfare?

How Digital Distribution Can Bring Back Artistic Expression

We’re finally nearing the end of a digital revolution that has been going on for over a decade. I’m sure everyone remembers Napster. Not the one that charges people for music, but the one that created a business model based upon copyright infringement and started handing music over freely. Maybe, if you’re young enough, you don’t. In a nutshell, it was the great divide between content providers and content consumers. People had been used to purchasing compact discs for so long, and, seemingly overnight, they had the entire world’s worth of music at their fingertips. If you give someone something for free, it becomes very difficult for him or her to go back to paying for it. If you want to know more about it, you can check out this Wired article from back in the day.

Still, the music industry made it work. Knock out the peer sharing networks and develop digital distribution platforms (iTunes, Amazon, etc.) for consumers to purchase, at a nominal fee, single songs they actually want off of their favorite artists’ albums instead of dropping $20 for an entire album of garbage so they can have access to one or two songs. This method transferred over to the film industry well enough, though it needed to be tweaked a little bit. Subscription based services such as Netflix and digital distribution platforms such as Zune are working hard at accomplishing the physical-to-digital transition.

But what is happening with video games? Console developers still hold a lot of the power in the game industry, because they developed solid methods for combating piracy. Sure, you can still play pirated games on consoles. You have to modify them to do so, first. Then you can kiss your Xbox Live membership goodbye, because that gamer tag gets banned as soon as you log on. Some people are willing to accept that for the ability to play illegally acquired games, but most have just bitten the bullet and continued to purchase their games, either through retail outlets or through digital distribution platforms like Steam, PlayStation Store, and the Xbox Live Marketplace, so that they can feel the thrill of “pwning” some guy in a different country that they’ll probably never encounter again. But this is “old news.”

Let’s examine what is happening from the standpoint of the content creators, for a moment. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard someone complain about the commercialization of expression through art. With music, the record labels had all of the power and were able to determine whether or not a song should be distributed simply based on whether or not it would sell to the masses. Is that fair? Something that may speak to me on a spiritual or emotional level may mean absolutely nothing to the world majority. Does that mean I should be robbed of that experience simply because that work of art is not a moneymaker?

For decades, the balance of power has been extremely one-sided, and the content creators (authors, musicians, film directors, game developers) have been at the mercy of the people with the resources to distribute that content  (publishers). To be fair, those publishers take a risk every time they decide to invest in content. But, since we’re on the topic of “fair,” it’s also worth mentioning that it never used to be so difficult for content creators to share that content with the world until they were faced with competition that intentionally and maliciously pushed them out of the loop. It’s about time that the content creators stood up for what they believe in instead of bowing down to publishers, right? In the words of the great Howard Beale, “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take this anymore!”

I believe this is the real golden opportunity represented by the digital revolution. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll see that it has already been happening. I’m not talking about Bieber becoming a YouTube sensation and being picked up for a recording contract. I’m also not referring to Zynga and their free-to-play social games that aren’t much fun at all without the seriously overpriced micro transactions. I’m talking about bridging the gap between the consumer and content creator. Content creators don’t have to pay outrageous fees anymore, because digital distribution has virtually no overhead. They can produce their own material now, with affordable software and hardware that, while not perfect, gets the job done. Just kick a commission over to the distributor, and the power is back in the hands of the artist, the director, and the game developer.

The Business Plan: Make A Change

In my most recent post, I discussed valuable tips from capital investors Martin Zwilling and Shervin Pishevar in regards to securing investment funding for your new venture or project. I’d like to expand on that discussion with some practical applications of this professional advice. Without spilling the beans on the details of my own venture, I will highlight some useful ways to beef up your business plan when pitching to investors with references to my own business plan.

First and foremost is the social media factor. If you haven’t discovered the value that a strong social network has for your business yet, then I’d suggest you research some success stories that have resulted from smart social media utilization. After reading through the confusing yet inspirational email composed by Pishevar a few times, I decided to add some more kick to the social media portion of my business plan, especially as it pertains to marketing efforts. I did so by adding a “Gamification” segment.

We’ve discussed Gamification in the past, and there’s no denying the fact that this concept of making every day life less boring by adding gaming elements to the mix is catching on with businesses on a global level. If utilized properly, Gamification can bolster a social marketing campaign by providing visitors with incentives to delve deeper into a company’s products and services. For example, instead of offering promotional codes to Facebook account holders simply for “liking” my page, I will encourage them to go one step further and truly discover the company with a brief but enjoyable social game that allows them to earn discounts by inviting other friends to play the game. While this strategy may seem somewhat lacking in imagination, it still provides me with a unique opportunity to educate my target market without forcing them to dig for information on the company. What’s really cool about it is that you can inject whatever content you choose to in social games, such as embedded links to various landing pages on your website. It also creates a self-perpetuating method of driving more traffic to your Facebook page through invites to friends.

Of course, there is also Zwilling’s advice on providing logical and reasonable numbers that clearly demonstrate return on investment. This can be accomplished easily enough by mass amounts of research. Here are some questions that I have attempted to answer throughout the course of my own business plan: How are similar products and services selling in my target market? What sales strategies are my competitors using and how effective are they? Finally, what are my advantages over my competitors, and how can I capitalize on those advantages and turn them into net income? These questions are best answered in the financials, sales, and operations sections of the business plan, assuming you are following some type of “successful business plan” template.

Of course, I have chosen these areas to make changes based upon the advice of the professionals because I believe they are key points in my business plan. How I intend to market my business and generate revenue are two questions that any investor will ask, and they represent what I feel are the greatest strengths of my business. Naturally, just as each business is different, so too is each business plan. So, it’s important to understand every aspect of your business before finalizing your business plan and presenting it to investors, because it will allow you to pinpoint the strengths of your own business and what you feel will be the most important aspects of the plan that will really drive it home for investors.

Easy, right?

Gaming Entrepreneurs, Meet The Investors

I will be the first to admit that, as much as I have enjoyed playing video games in my time, the only game I ever created was a C++ text-based Pimp Quest spinoff in my sophomore year of high school. I have an idea of the sheer amount of time and hard work involved in developing a console or PC game from the ground up. But I am far from capable of creating the next big MMORPG.

Let's talk dollars and cents, for a moment. Assuming my cruddy, embarrassing sophomore project could have a value attached to it, I might get away with charging $.01 for it. A penny, no more. It might have taken me three hours of solid work to make the game, and I believe minimum wage at the time was $5.15 or so. In the realm of game design, I was worth less than that. How much do you suppose the developers at Infinity Ward were paid by Activision? The publishing giant shelled out $42 million to 38 employees when the legal fiasco first took off, so I imagine their time was worth far more than mine.

Let's say you're a designer who has just put a team together and launched your start-up game development studio. You have an awesome concept and the right group of people to make the idea a reality, and you don't want to waste time struggling through the channels to gain recognition and build funding for this awesome game. But you want to compete with the giants like EA and Activision, not work for them. So what do you do? At this point, it's safe to assume that this game will cost you hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of dollars.

Maybe, if your idea is original and appealing enough, you have some excellent plans for marketing and selling the game, and you can demonstrate a superb understanding of the industry and why your game will sell so well, you might be able to land seed funding from an angel investor or venture capitalist. Now there's a right way and a wrong way to approach an investor and ask if you can use a large amount of their money to satisfy your business needs. Shervin Pishevar and Martin Zwilling are two investors who have been on both sides of the business pitching table, and they offer some useful information to those who are willing to pay attention. If you plan on going after their money, you might want to take their advice, first.

Shervin Pishevar received his B.A. in interdisciplinary studies from the University of California at Berkeley, and is the managing director at Menlo Ventures. He founded the Social Gaming Network , and has raised over $50 million in capital for other start-ups. He has invested in over 40 companies since becoming an angel investor, and it's safe to assume he has read through and rejected far more business plans. Pishevar is also an immigrant entrepreneur. His unique perspective as an immigrant provides him with equally unique ideas, such as recruiting entrepreneurs on a global level. In a moving email to friends shared on Tech Crunch in 2008, Pishevar reveals the depth of his entrepreneurial spirit, as well as the depth of his focus on social platforms.

While I encourage you to read the email, the point that I took away from it was that any new venture should place a great amount of focus on current trends in social technology. In 2008, in the middle of a lonely night away from home, the one thing on Pishevar's mind was his family, and how easily he could connect with them through Facebook, no matter where he was in the world. Today, the trends are shifting towards mobile gaming, which is simply an evolution of social gaming. If your game has a unique and innovative social factor, be sure to drive that home with investors, because it shows you've done your research and you know how to play nice with the rapidly changing technological landscape.

Martin Zwilling boasts an impressive track record serving in various business capacities over the past 30 years, and now serves on the selection committee of two different angel investor firms. He maintains a blog on Forbes.com, and recently published his first book, Do YOU Have What It Takes To Be An Entrepreneur? Zwilling shares some slightly more practical advice for entrepreneurs seeking investment capital in his blog post, "Top Ten Investor Turnoffs Around Business Plans." In this post, he highlights some simple mistakes that many entrepreneurs make that immediately exclude them from consideration, including grammatical errors, a business plan that lacks an executive summary (or consists entirely of an executive summary), too many appendices, and negativity, in any form. I think the most valuable piece of information to be taken from Zwilling's post is the most obvious tip: don't forget to show the investor how they will recoup their money. If you cannot show them how your game will make money, they won't bother investing in it.

Any business plan should consist of certain sections that are key to getting the "plan" across; how will you market it?; how will you sell it?; to whom will you sell it?; and where is the money going? Keep in mind that most investors will care about the product or service that you are offering, but not as much as they care about you. So be sure to do an adequate job of selling yourself and your team, as well. If an investor has confidence in you, they will have more confidence in your business.

Gamification: The Social Media Perspective

Over the past several years, there has been a very interesting development in the relationship between entertainment software and everything else, particularly with social media. I touched on this software love affair in my first entry to this blog, but I think it’s time to address this subject from a different angle. In case you’re in need of a social gaming update, it is pertinent to first examine some of the recent developments with the original social gaming giant.

Screenshot

According to Reuters, CBS News, Edge, and just about everyone else concerned with technology investments, Zynga is in some pretty serious trouble with it’s stockholders; trouble that has been mounting since it’s IPO back in December that valued the company at over $7 billion. Apparently, social games are taking a back seat to mobile games as more consumers turn to the Android and iOS smartphone markets. Despite this disappointing news, it appears as though Zynga is searching to reignite consumer interests in one of their more successful mobile titles from OMGPOP by having CBS transform it into a game show. Of course, I’m referring to Draw Something. Celebrities playing video games with the average Joe on primetime television? It might work. 

While playing a video game on a social network for the sake of competing with your friends and having fun may be falling to the wayside, an increasingly popular form of social gaming has been on the rise. Enter the concept of “gamification,” the process of applying game mechanics to activities that are completely unrelated to games. For the sake of brevity, this post focuses more on gamification from a social media marketing perspective.

Like many marketing innovations, gamification is simply the answer to a question that every business has asked at one point or another: “How do we successfully engage our customers with our brand?” The theory is actually quite simple. If it’s fun, people will want to experience it. Now, we’ve already discussed what makes a game fun. Once the fun factor has been established, all that remains is to plug a unique representation of your brand into the equation. Let’s take a look at how other companies are embracing video games in an effort to reach a wider market:

Marriot – Last year, Marriot provided potential employees with an opportunity to show off their skills on Facebook. They did so by playing the My Marriot Hotel game, which allowed players to take on the typical challenges of a restaurant owner in a Farmville style interface. The goal was simply to make the restaurant turn a profit. While doing this in a game is obviously far less stressful than doing so in real life, many of the techniques and strategies applied in the game would be helpful in real life scenarios.

Screenshot

Domino’s Pizza – Domino’s is also raising brand awareness on its Facebook page by offering the public a free game, apparently dubbed “Play Today!” If you recall, one important element that must be present in a game to create a fun environment is a reward system. Domino’s rewards players who defeat the fourth level of their social game by donating $1,000 to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. That must have provided players with a self-esteem boost. The really crazy thing about this game is that you don’t even have to “like” Domino’s or relinquish more personal information just to have a go at it. Nice job, Domino’s.

Toyota – In an effort to promote their new sports car, Toyota launched Social Network Racer on Facebook last year. This nifty app allowed players to customize their experience with data retrieved directly from Facebook profiles, and compete against other Facebook friends in an online racing simulator.

If you’re thinking that it’s necessary to hire an independent or freelance game developer to create a game with beautiful graphics and a unique user interface in order to properly gamify your brand, think again. In some cases, simply scoring users based on a number of factors and stacking them up against the scores of their friends is enough to prompt a reaction. If you haven’t come across Identified yet, now is a really good time to check it out. Identified is a social network “extension” that ties in to your Facebook profile. Registrants enter educational, occupational, and social information using a very simple interface, and Identified provides them a score. That score is then compared to the scores of Facebook friends, and is also visible to potential employers or other potential network contacts. I’m ranked 18^th out of my friends based upon the aforementioned criteria. I am not satisfied.

Screenshot

This passive competition still provides enough encouragement to users to expand their social network, and the networks of employers, in an attempt to get a better score than their friends. Is it a game? I’m not sure, but it’s competitive. Oddly enough, it’s also fun, because it provides me with an incentive to increase my online presence and expand my social network. Perhaps this is why Identified raised $21 million worth of capital investments this month to gamify the network; the very simple format that it has implemented thus far is already fun and engaging, and I’m curious to see what the future has in store.

So, maybe the relationship between entertainment software and social media is souring in the realm of monetization. Yet the two seem to be growing towards a mutual relationship with marketing and branding. For developers, I think this is pretty good news. It means more paying jobs from companies you would never have expected to form a relationship with. It could also mean more depth for your game players. What do you think, developers? Will next generation consoles support virtual orders of live pizza deliveries during gameplay? 

The Effect of Sound

Okay, here is the truth. I love video games. I enjoy playing them, I enjoy talking about them, and I enjoy studying them. But I'm also a huge fan of music. Technically speaking, I know far more about the creation of sound and music than I probably ever will about the video game design process. Last month in part one of Mind Games I discussed the importance of music in video games. For the sake of brevity, I left out an aspect of significant importance during that discussion that I intend to address today: sound effects.

In his Gamasutra feature, "10 Tips: The Creation and Integration of Audio," journalist Tristan Donovan recounts the advice of several sound professionals in the entertainment software industry with an undeniably effective list of audio know-how. With tips detailing the role of sound in the process of immersion to the importance of involving the audio team in the design process from the stage of infancy on through to post-production, Donovan and his panel of sound professionals offer some incredibly helpful tips for both novice and veteran game designers alike.

Artisthousemusic.org

Full Sail University Director of Game Development Rob Catto offered a more simplified explanation of the role of sound in modern video games in an interview with Artists House Music a few years back. During the interview, he comments on how the inclusion of more senses will increase the factor of immersion in the overall user experience. What do we know from previous discussions? I'll save you the trouble of guessing by simply stating that immersion is very good. 

So how do sound effect enhance immersion? That's actually a good question, because a game that properly utilizes sound effects is one that doesn't leave you wondering "what was that sound?" In most cases, it should be a natural experience, and immerse players in an almost completely subconscious fashion. In order for sounds to have a natural feel, they should be appropriate for the situation. For instance, if you're roaming through a mansion riddled with zombies, a common sound effect might be the shuffling of feet around the corner, or a series of emotionless and painful groans coming from the other side of a door.

Here's another good example: in Grand Theft Auto, sound collectively plays a huge role in immersing players in the gameplay. The next time you load up a GTA title, pay close attention to the typical sounds of a big city: the passing of cars on pavement and the honking of their horns; the shouts of cab drivers and conversations of other pedestrians; the occasional sound of sirens and gunfire, somewhere off in the distance. It's a noisy and chaotic city, just like any realistic city of relative scale. There is really not much music at all until you hi-jack a vehicle and start blaring the car radio. This jumble of sounds and complete lack of music serves to further immerse players because it so closely resembles reality. It makes sense.

So it really all boils down to immersion. Just as the visual and mechanical experience must coincide (when I push the button I want to see my character react accordingly), it is equally important that the sound effects tie in closely with other elements of design. Designers shouldn't waste time on sound effects that don't matter, but they should not be too quick to write off a seemingly trivial sound effect as unnecessary, either. Finally, sound effects should be consistent throughout. I may cross an abandoned intersection over a hundred times without ever noticing the sound of my character's footsteps, but if I miss that sound even once, it may have an adverse effect on my experience overall. From a designer standpoint, you shouldn't fret that I didn't hear it the first hundred times; that means you have accomplished your goal, and I am thoroughly immersed.