Less R&R, More R&D

Here’s a question I want you to ask yourself: “When was the last time I experienced an original and innovative video game concept?” For some of you, it may have been quite recently. For others, it may have been years. Perhaps an examination of perspective is in order. I’m speaking in terms of genre diversification and gameplay mechanics, in particular.

Have big name game publishers grown complacent in their criteria for what passes as a "groundbreaking" game and a game that just sells? History seems to point in this direction; as the first person shooter genre began to take off with the advent of online multiplayer in console gaming, we experienced an influx of original IPs with a heavy focus on first person shooter elements. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was a big deal five years ago. It has only grown more popular over the years, as Modern Warfare 3 is reported to have brought in over $400 million in first-day sales, a record-breaking number that leads Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick to believe that this launch may be “the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium.”

Of course this is good news for Activision Blizzard and any other publisher looking to capitalize on a consistently profitable brand. After all – that’s just good business. But is it good news for the industry, in the long run? With publishers following the “rinse and repeat” method of big-budget game development, are these same publishers dedicating enough resources to research and development?

In a recent Gamasutra article by game industry columnist Paul Hyman, the issue of R&D is addressed in detail, where it is recommended that publishers with the capital available to invest millions in the development of a new console game with a large design team turn that investment towards a much smaller team of developers to promote “creatively ambitious and forward-thinking projects.” The basic idea is this: without the time and the resources to create conceptual games that the company can afford to scrap, innovation is stifled.

This is how indie game developers are beginning to break down barriers to entry in the entertainment software industry. With smaller teams (1-5 developers) capable of creating concept games at relatively low costs and effectively capitalizing on the “trial and error” method of game design by throwing out “prototypes” that are inadequate and keeping the ones that show promise, indie studios are demonstrating their ability to “think outside the box.”  And they are accomplishing this with a fraction of the budget applied towards developing and publishing a major console release. Imagine the possibilities if publishers were to set their developers loose on researching and developing a "groundbreaking" new IP instead of tying up their manpower rehashing old games to sell as new titles.

It’s Not “Just a Game” Anymore

Last week I discussed Jane McGonigal’s somewhat radical concepts that video gamers have a very real chance of changing the world in various positive ways. This week, I’d like to expand on that discussion with some conclusive evidence that entertainment software has one excellent real-world application that may change the way we view video games forever: education.

I can tell you with no lack of conviction that my fondest memories of my pre-collegiate education have nothing to do with the wonderful things that I learned. In fact, if there was anything I enjoyed about school before I began pursuing a degree, it was the chance to meet people, make friends, and grow with them. “Studying”? That was for the birds. “Homework”? I thought it was an oxymoron. I just wanted to have fun. As a child, I always thought I would have plenty of time to “work” and “study” in my adult life. Of course, I was right.

I always found myself wondering, “Why can’t education be more entertaining?” Some teachers can pull it off, but, overall, the learning process is a boring one for most. Until now, that is. Enter The Quest to Learn, “a school for digital kids.” According to the MacArthur Foundation, the organization funding this new wave school, the current state of the digital world has presented us with some powerful tools for promoting education among society’s youth. Enrollment begins at the 6^th grade level. However, if all goes according to plan, The Quest to Learn intends to expand this education through to the senior level.

I know what you’re thinking: “What about traditional areas of education like Math, Science, History, and English? What about Health and Wellness?” The Quest to Learn has it covered. The curriculum centers on four courses throughout the day that focus on all of these subjects, as well as an additional course that allows students to create their own video games. Each course presents students with a “quest,” and they complete these quests by engaging in digital and non-digital games that reveal answers to common educational questions. This method of delivering traditional education in a highly interactive and exciting way should prove to enhance academic retention across the board.

It makes sense, when you think about it. After all, this is the 21^st century, the age of digital information and technology. Providing kids with in-depth exposure to this world at a young age is the best way to prepare them for the future. But the use of video games to improve education isn’t a concept that is only suitable in the classroom. Adults can use it, too. If you have ever had to sit through a ridiculous training video with that same old monotone narrator spilling the requirements of your job or the keys to work safety out before you in the most boring way possible, then you know where I’m going with this.

Organizations are implementing interactive software in their training processes on an increasing level. According to an article from Carnegie Mellon Today, there is even a game for training firefighters on proper response in an emergency situation. I recently took an assessment test at a customer service call center for a company that shall remain unnamed (don’t ask me what I was doing there), and I was confronted by a “video game” that features the applicant as a customer service representative taking various calls and choosing proper responses, filling out customer information, and taking orders for new products or services. It was actually pretty fun.

Children are not the only ones who learn well through play; we as adults can have fun and learn at the same time, too. Furthermore, I believe any learning experience is improved when it becomes entertaining. Who would have ever thought that video games were the key to unlocking our potential and presenting us with the most effective way to learn and retain information? Is this what William Higinbotham had in mind when he created “Tennis for Two” over 53 years ago to “convey the message that [the Brookhaven National Laboratory’s] scientific endeavors have relevance for society”? Well, maybe it was.

Jane McGonigal: A True Video Game Innovator

Jane McGonigal believes gaming can change the world. In her 20-minute TED talk, she discusses the opportunities that video games and gamers have to make a positive impact on society, and what skills we as gamers have been honing our whole lives that make us the perfect candidates for solving some of the world’s biggest problems. One of these skills, or what Jane refers to as “super powers,” is “Blissful Productivity,” or a strong desire to be productive. Think of the toughest game you’ve ever beaten, and you’ll understand exactly what this means. Remember the frustration you experienced?  Yet, you persevered, did you not? When a gamer conquers a difficult objective, the reward is in simply having been successful at seeing the mission through to its completion.

Another super power that Jane says every life-long gamer has is referred to as “Urgent Optimism.” You were able to complete that difficult task because you knew that it was possible. The word “impossible” has been stricken from every gamer’s vocabulary. This urgent optimism compels gamers to face some of the most unfavorable odds. But difficult situations are not even required for this optimism to really shine; gamers experience this optimism before they even play a game. This is the number one reason why pre-order sales of anticipated games are typically so successful.

Jane also refers to the average gamer’s ability to find “Epic Meaning” in every game. Furthermore, Jane believes that gamers become paragons of society, or the best versions of themselves, when playing games. Video games give gamers the motivation to achieve something meaningful. When we play a game, most of us understand that the character whose role we are assuming is out to do something for the greater good. Here are some examples: In the Mass Effect trilogy by Bioware, the hero battles an evil alien race to save the entire galaxy. Whether you as the gamer choose to be a “renegade” or a “paragon,” the outcome is the same. What about Mario? He first set out to save one princess from the clutches of the “evil” Bowser. He wasn’t out to save the universe, but his pursuit was noble, nevertheless.

Finally, and possibly most importantly, is every gamer’s ability to establish a strong “Social Fabric” with other gamers. When every gamer shares these abilities in common (Blissful Productivity, Urgent Optimism, Epic Meaning), it only makes sense that they would come together online and share in the bonds of heroism. Anyone who has ever played a cooperative game online with others, or even a team-based competitive game, knows how true this concept is. Online video games have brought gamers from all over the world together in pursuit of common goals. Online gamer values transcend ethnicity and gender. It’s all about sharing in the experience.

So what does this mean for the real world? It goes without saying that, as far as video gamers are concerned, these “super powers” are irrelevant if we cannot apply them to real world situations. The secret is in the game, of course. In 2010, Jane collaborated with the World Bank Institute and the World Bank Group to create an online social networking game called “Evoke.” Marketed as “A Crash Course in Changing the World,” Evoke was designed to motivate gamers towards utilizing their learned skills in gaming for real world applications. Players engaged the Evoke network by submitting blogs, videos, or photos that pertained to real world problems and situations. These submissions would then receive votes from other Evoke members, which created a point system for leveling up “Evoke Powers,” such as sustainability, entrepreneurship, and vision, to name a few. Top players earned professional mentorships, seed funding, and travel scholarships aimed at helping them achieve their vision of the future.

Jane isn’t the only one who feels that gamers and video games can have a positive impact on society. According to the Entertainment Software Association, there have been many games in recent history geared towards educating the public on a myriad of various social, educational, and political issues. These games focus on issues such as raising overall awareness on the issue of Genocide in Sudan (Darfur is Dying) to educating children on world hunger (Food Force).

Personally, I believe video games will always serve as an excellent source of entertainment, first and foremost. However, that does not in any way dilute the power that video games have insofar as educating the masses. I have always been a hands on learner, and I believe I would have absorbed a great deal more of my K-12 education had it been presented to me in an interactive and entertaining way. It’s about time that society accept this one important truth: not only are video games here to stay, but also the number of real world applications for interactive software is staggering, and we need to utilize this potential immediately.

Supporting The Entertainment Software Association

Support. It’s a single two-syllable word that most people are aware of. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary partially defines the word in the following ways: “2a (1): to promote the interests or cause of (2): to uphold or defend as valid or right (3): to argue or vote for.” Throughout history, many great people have accomplished extraordinary things, but no one person or entity has achieved these goals on their own.  The Civil Rights Movement, while arguably ineffective at changing the attitudes of many U.S. citizens towards issues of race, still put an end to racial segregation. Names like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks may take up a large amount of space in our minds when we think of the Civil Rights Movement, but those individuals would not have been able to bring about positive change without the support of thousands of like-minded people who promoted non-violent civil disobedience. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was able to bring the United States out of one of the greatest economic depressions the nation has ever seen, and he did this in relatively poor health. He could not have done this without the support of the American people, who were so confident in his leadership that they voted him into office four consecutive terms.

Global industries also rely on the support of internal organizations for numerous reasons. This support comes in the forms of trade and professional organizations that conduct research on specific industries in which they operate, employ educational programs for law enforcement agencies to better enforce government regulations, and actively promote government policies that improve industry operations. For the video game industry, we have The Entertainment Software Association.

The main focus of The ESA is to combat piracy. According to The ESA, the estimated cost of piracy to the entertainment software industry was $3 billion in 2007 alone.  But this number is only representative of pirated games that are being sold at heavily reduced prices around the world. It’s simply impossible to tell just how much the entertainment software industry loses to Internet piracy, where peer-to-peer file sharing sites host “cracked” uploads of the most recent PC and console video games.

It is for this reason that The ESA takes such an active role in developing its anti-piracy programs. In its most recent report, The ESA details the steps it is taking to put a stop to global piracy. Such steps include sending notices to ISPs and their clients pertaining to infringing game files, of which there were roughly 8.7 million in 2010, offering training sessions to about 1,800 law enforcement officials in three different countries, and educating the younger generation on the danger that piracy presents to the entertainment software industry. This is the role that many trade organizations play for other sectors of the entertainment industry, because it’s no secret that the film and music industries are suffering similar losses due to copyright infringement.

While the organization’s anti-piracy efforts may be the most crucial of its operations, they certainly are not the only programs implemented on behalf of the entertainment software industry. The ESA also offers annual reports that offer some pretty interesting information on sales and demographic data that most video game publishers and developers probably drool over. For instance, the knowledge that 25 percent of 2010 game sales came entirely from digital purchases might influence developers to increase the amount of downloadable content available for their games, and perhaps even make their products more readily available for download through digital distribution channels like Steam, On-Live, the Playstation Network, Nintendo Network, and Xbox Live Marketplace.

Also, thanks to the efforts of The ESA and The Entertainment Merchants Association, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of video games in the case of Brown v. EMA. To make a considerably long story short, this means that video games are now officially protected by the first amendment. In case you’re wondering, this is very good news. Developers no longer face restrictions of content in their video games due to unfair segregation from other forms of art and entertainment (e.g. films, books, music, etc.). I think now is a good time to return to our examination of that two-syllable word we were talking about, again. Just how successful would the entertainment software industry be without the support of trade organizations like The ESA? Furthermore, what can you do to support them?

Infinity Ward Developers Pursue New Customer Satisfaction Methods

In my most recent post, I discussed the rising success of EA DICE’s upcoming title, Battlefield 3, and the efforts of their community manager to ensure that the consumer’s voice is heard in the design studio. This week I decided to examine their competitor, Activision Blizzard, and some of the details surrounding Modern Warfare 3 and their methods for improving customer satisfaction from a developer standpoint.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, MW3 producer Mark Rubin talks about some of the changes they have made to the Quake 3 engine, the technology being utilized by Infinity Ward to develop MW3, which has been re-written to the point that it’s basically a completely different development kit. For instance, fans of the series may or may not be enthused to learn that the design team at Infinity Ward will be able to alter MW3 long after it hits the shelves and, subsequently, consumers’ homes. To clarify, this is not the same as “patching” a bug; this means changing the way the game functions.

It’s important to remember that video games have always been about having fun. So before you decide to start crucifying developers for making crucial changes to the balance of your favorite weapon or the explosion radius of your frag grenades, remember that their goal is to satisfy the consumer, and not all consumers have the same idea of “fun.” This is especially true when you consider there are over 40 million people playing Activision games online.

Of course, post-launch alterations are not the only feature that the design team is focusing on to improve customer satisfaction. They are also paying much closer attention the leaderboards and improving methods of identifying and banning those players whose definition of “fun” includes cheating in online multiplayer games. Fans of MW2 who may remember the “ammo glitch” and “nuke boosting” problems should be satisfied to know that there will be less unsportsmanlike conduct this time around. This is a necessity for any game design studio implementing online multiplayer in their projects with the ultra-competitive attitudes that are common among game players today.

It’s obvious that this is not the extent of Activision Blizzard’s methods for addressing customer satisfaction and quality control; MW3 will be the eighth installment to the Call of Duty franchise, and each title has thus far sold more copies than the last. As far as Activision Blizzard is concerned, that’s a trend that is not expected to change with MW3, set to release on November 8. When a brand has become as self-sustaining as CoD has, is it safe to assume that the simple act of releasing a similar title is customer satisfaction in itself? 

EA DICE Giving Back to the Community with Battlefield 3

In case you haven’t already heard, Battlefield 3, the EA DICE title just over a month away from release, won “Best of Gamescom” this year at the highly accredited exhibition of the same name. Among the nominees were some pretty powerful competitors, most notably Activision-Blizzard’s Modern Warfare 3, a game that received no awards. If there is an ongoing battle between fans of either franchise, then that’s an explosive factoid for future conversation.

While it is obvious that the creation and marketing of a game that can warrant such a prestigious Gamescom award and reach 1.25 million preorders so many weeks before release is no small feat, it requires a team effort. Global Battlefield Community Manager Daniel Matros is only one member of DICE, but he puts in a lot of work to raise brand awareness.

In a recent interview with DeltaGamer, Matros explains some of his responsibilities as CM, including customer satisfaction. It is Matros’s job to ensure that the design team hears the community’s voice, in an attempt to enhance the end-user experience with the utilization of constructive feedback. He also organizes a monthly podcast with BashandSlash.com for Battlefield 3. The contexts of these podcasts typically consist of developer and staff interviews geared towards educating listeners, as well as news of the upcoming game. Unfortunately, these podcasts require a little bit of digging, which can be somewhat of a nuisance to anyone interested in hearing the entire collection.

While the efforts of Daniel Matros and the remainder of EA DICE are sure to produce a quality video game, the general feelings are that it won’t be enough to outshine Activision-Blizzard’s first-person shooter legacy. In a recent article by Andrew Yoon of Shack News, EA CFO Eric Brown explains that he doesn’t believe Battlefield 3 will sell quite as many copies as the third installment to the Modern Warfare franchise; one that has been so successful that it is a brand apart from the Call of Duty franchise, where it has its roots. But he does believe Battlefield 3 will produce better numbers than the previous Battlefield installment. Say what you will about the man, but at least his goals are measurable and attainable.

Social games: Google vs. Facebook?

It should come as no surprise that Google recently launched a social gaming platform on their Google+ network. It’s also not surprising that they are attempting to pose a serious threat to Facebook’s social gaming platform with big names like Electronic Arts and PopCap games on their developer roster. Indeed, Google has long been a frontrunner in the age of digital technology, with the world’s most efficient search engine and their line of Android smartphones being only the most notable among their many accomplishments. So, maybe it’s no surprise that the online monolith is willing to take a considerably smaller share of revenues on in-game transactions than Facebook.

According to a recent article by Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat, Google+ will give developers 95% of the revenues from in-game transactions, 25% more than Facebook offers the developers on its open platform, though he goes on to say that this low commission is promotional, according to Google+ games product manager Punit Soni. While the general feel is that these rates are subject to change in the future, it’s still a clever, if not bold tactic for Google to implement; it’s safe to say they have the attention of the game developers, for the moment.

Of course, the question is, do they have the attention of Facebook? Google+ certainly offers several appealing approaches to social networking, including the ability to share information and status updates with select “circles,” as well as a much appreciated reprieve from the clutter created by social apps, something that Facebook has tried to accomplish yet has not with any great efficiency.

Gamasutra reports that Facebook’s director of games partnerships Sean Ryan addressed the issue with what may be interpreted as an air of negligence, claiming the following: “We don’t spend a lot of time worrying about [Google+], we worry about us.” He goes on to say that the difference in commission is simply a result of Facebook being worth more than Google+ due to the higher number of users. Perhaps it's safe to boast when you generate 200 million monthly users, but it still seems a little too cavalier to write-off such an established company with such disregard.

This may all be a moot point, assuming, as Sean Ryan does, that the two social networks can “peacefully co-exist.” But one cannot help but wonder: Is Facebook intimidated?