Video Games

Industry Overview

Moi?

PhD – Games and AI @ NU Humanities/Art Background @ U of C

5 years working with Game Developers Conference International Game Developers Assoc.

Academic Outreach Game Studies Curriculum

Moi, aussi.

Other work: Animate Arts at Northwestern Game Design & Tuning Workshop Experimental Gameplay Workshop AAAI Games Workshops Indie Game Jam Misc. Travel & Conferences

Talk Overview

Industry Background Industry Overview Trends & Highlights Issues & Opportunities Wrapping up

Industry Background

Development Snapshot

1999 3-5 people 12-18 months $100k->$400k Many games had

little marketing $$

2003 20-100+ people 15-30+ months $2million -> $10m+ Any game done will

have real marketing

Publishing Snapshot

Publishers Pay for development Own the IP Market and Sell Move boxes to retail Handle QA and CS Focus test Manage many projects

Developers Build all content Build all technology Large dedicated team Often on milestones Some internal QA

… with many exceptions

Market Snapshot A

Overall ~20 publishers, 700+ development groups ~1200 new titles on PC and Console in ’02 “$12b software sales” in ’02 35% aggregate revenue growth in ’02

Games & Platforms EverQuest: ~400,000 subscribers Game Boy: over 100 million total Sony: 70 million+ shipped consoles by 2003

Market Snapshot B

NOT as big as Hollywood 2002 US domestic game sales: $5.5 billion 2002 US domestic box office: $9.1 billion

2002 US Leisure/Ent. Book Sales: $9.5 billion 2002 US Music Sales: $12.2 billion 2001 NAB/TVB US ad revenue: $54.4 billion

We are still a niche medium 2002 US domestic games units: 162.7 million 2992 US domestic movie tix: 1.9 BILLION

Lots to figure out!

Competing visions about what is happening, and why.

Big picture thinking is hazy.

Generally reactive, not proactive

Industry Overview

Hot topics?

Publishers Managing Risk “Mass Market” Penetration Innovation and Technology Mobile and Social gaming

The current “vibe”

Conservative Times Projects: larger and more expensive New Technology: threatens stability

of established development practices Evaluation: What makes a game

successful?

Projects

Platform Choice Team Size/Capabilities Genre/Market Original IP or Sequel

How to Differentiate?

Technology

New or Leveraged Original or Licensed Network/Community requirements Which bangs and whistles

Long-term strategies and goals?

Evaluation

Who is buying? Why? What? Who are we ignoring?

How can we grow our market?

Trends & Highlights

Quality is up!

Everything looks pretty spectacular PC games are still selling Online = on line! Interesting console games get press

Katamari Damacy!

New Ideas Emerging

Selling stuff Steam Online Console

Making stuff Content Creation

Design Episodic games Simulation and procedural animation

Good news?

Despite glitches, games are selling. Particularly:

Racing games Sports games Shooters (WWII & SciFi) Sims

Bad news?

Christmas Crunch Which to buy? How many to buy? When to buy?

Top 10 titles more competitive Good or bad...

... depending on who you are

Issues & Opportunities

A friend of mine says...

Kim Pallister (Intel) CES 2005 Same basic points! Summary follows...

Biz Stuff

Consolidation Collapse of vertical model Expanded “channels”, increased

market share Geoffrey Moore's “Crossing the

Chasm” and “Inside the Tornado”

Parallelism

Already happening multi-threading streaming architectures Xbox2,PS3, PC: converging on a hybrid

PC's already there (CPU + GPU). “this will be the most challenging

transition facing the game development community since the move from 2D to 3D.”

Mobile Games

What is a “mobile game”? Platform strengths Limitations New audiences New “verbs” or “memes”?

Asia

300M+ broadband over 4-5 years. not just a new segment –

“potentially THE BIGGEST SEGMENT of players so far”

Huge impact on all fronts

Beyond Graphics

“Great Game Graphics – Who Cares?”

Physics and Simulation Puppets -> Actors

I’ve been noticing...

GameTech 2004 Tech directors, graphics folks Common issues and strategies Issues anyone can learn from

Innovation = expensive

Tool chains Design Communication Management

Research = expensive

Small games, small audiences Marketing and sales What a flop teaches us

Tomb Raider: AOD Prince of Persia I and II

Simple things

Animation blending Agent Coordination Application of simple models

Lanchester’s law Planning

Players become producers

Player communities and mods Asia and Outsourcing Game studies and Game Design ??

Diversity = key

New ideas Better ears Better eyes

Quality of Life

Wrapping up

Lots of hard problems

Biz: Long-term vision needed Marketing: Plenty of room to grow Startup: DIY hard, but still possible Design: Innovation will be key Mgmt: increasingly important

Contact

Robin Hunicke hunicke@cs.northwestern.edu www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke

Questions, please!!