Reality Panic

Quality is taking a beating!

First, I accuse developers of focusing too much on their ideas, and not enough about the business and marketing aspects. But, then Erin reminds us that all of our ideas suck anyway.

Then Jesse from EEDAR reveals that marketing spend has a much higher correlation to sales than quality (as gaged via review scores). And, more recent research from the Cowen Group reveals that review scores are the least important factor for game purchases.

So, is the best strategy to just put whatever crap in a box and market the hell out of it? Of course not. This is a complex system and it is hard to predict the effect of any single factor… Maybe publishers put more marketing dollars behind the games they believe will sell well to begin with. Perhaps a quality game is what’s needed to drive word-of-mouth referrals. Etc.

Thus a key challenge is finding the right balance. It’s not just about making an awesome game, and it’s not just about salesmanship.

Another year, another great Montreal International Game Summit. Though, I’m obviously biased given my role on the advisory committee… Still, speakers were as kick-ass as usual. And, personally, I liked the move to the more cozy/tighter Hilton venue.

There was a good biz oriented thread about the need to invest in marketing and better understand your audience. The one-two punch of EEDAR’s “marketing is more important than quality” message and Valve’s revealing online sales numbers, was too big a wallop for some to swallow. The important of marketing, and games as a service was even central to the “riding the waves of change” panel that I was on.

Another good thematic current was on games and meaning/impact. With several sessions exploring the more serious angle, including Randy Smith’s “how to make a not fun game”, there was some critical introspection that you don’t normally see at most game conferences.

My biggest disappointment was not having Heather Chaplin lay a big smack-down via her “guy culture” rant. Hopefully she’s feeling less sick… Though, it did give me the chance to get up and give a last minute replacement keynote on the need to fail to reach success.

Some quick photos:

Gerri Sinclair (Great Northern Way Campus) and Brenda Brathwaite enjoy window shopping for boots on the way to the Concordia reception.

Paul Holden (Media Molecule) and Lynn Hughes (Concordia) enjoy some wine.

Wada san explains the Square Enix corporate philosophy.

Liza Wood (A2M) gives advice on how to be nice to your team.

Scott Rogers (THQ) explores design lessons from Disney World.

Joe Booth (EA) and Jane Pinckard (F9) at the VIP reception.

Warren Currell (Sherpa Games) showing off his Movember mustache.

Clinton Keith on lean production.

Very interesting set of sustainability sub-topics for the CEOs panel…

…but the actual discussion was surprisingly lame, and mostly centered on the topic of violence and ratings.

Sales curves for Team Fortress 2.

Valve’s Jason Holtman getting drilled with questions on Steam and digital distribution.

Chris Hecker, again. Again, awesome.

Hecker’s fork for the future of the medium.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to Ubisoft’s party for the premiere of its full series of its Assassin’s Creed 2 promotional short films.

As a fan of the first game (yes, I scored all 1000 achievement points), I’m very much looking forward to AC2. And, the short films serve as both a teaser to get folks excited for the game’s launch on November 17th, but also to serve as the back story, helping to set up the mise-en-scene for the game.

The various congratulatory speeches included many remarks on the convergence of film and games. Of note, the bulk of effort on the films came from Hybride, the VFX shop Ubisoft purchased last year. And yes, they discussed many interesting areas of convergence and sharing (e.g., level/environment models from the game were imported into the films, shared actors, etc).

However, from an end result and experience point of view, I have to disagree. Films are becoming ever more “filmic” in their mastery of telling a story. And, games are becoming ever more “game-y” in engaging the player via agency.

Anyway. Some quick shots from the evening:

Hmm, strong urge to climb atop the tower outside party venue Usine C to get an eagle-eye view.

AC2 creative director Patrice Desilets and Frederick Brassard (3pod).

The pretty people.

Ubisoft Montreal/Toronto CEO, Yannis Mallat with introductory remarks.

AC2 Lineage in action.

Hybride VFX honcho, Pierre Raymond.

Lineage’s director, Canadian film and TV director Yves Simoneau.

So, I’m sitting in the reception area of Ubisoft Montreal’s monstrous studio, waiting for my lunch meeting. I see the latest issue of Game Developer magazine featuring a postmortem of the awesomely awesome Scribblenauts.

I pick it up and start thumbing through.

I get to the “The Game Developer 50″ article and think to myself, This is cool, I always like to see who’s on these important people lists, fun. Then I hit the Evangelism category and boom, there I am. Nice. Here’s the blurb:

As the executive director of the IGDA from 2000 through early 2009, Della Rocca has played a key role in advocating for game developers and the games industry in general on a multitude of issues. His strong leadership on elements such as quality of life issues and game crediting was important in growing the IGDA by a massive factor during his tenure. While his departure — to run a consultancy devoted to counseling local and national governments on attracting game talent — was surprising, his selfless work deserves both mentioning and honoring here.

I had no clue. Figured I got all my pats-on-the-back with the Ambassador Award, but certainly nice to get some post-IGDA kudos as well.

The third iteration of GameON:Finance had a clear emerging business models angle to discussions. Much of the talk centered on alternate monetization schemes, much more so than how to successfully pitch your idea to a publisher.

Also, new to this year’s program, were funding case studies. Three different developers gave quick blasts on how they were funded and the challenges they overcame, before diving into room-wide discussion. And the complimentary public and private funding panels gave greater insight into risk mitigation and investment strategies from different types of investors.

Given that more so than ever, studios are looking outside the traditional  publisher funding model, it was encouraging to see such a diverse audience at the conference this year. From banks to movie studios and everyone in between, there was no shortage of people to talk to about money.

As the chair of the advisory/program committee, it was nice to see all the content and speakers gel and complement the conference theme. Also, stepping in at the last minute to give the opening keynote for the Zynga bail was a fun challenge (no joke, I got the call as I was in the taxi heading to the hotel from the airport). And, the closing “futures” panel was a blast to moderate - I don’t think I’ve gotten that many laughs from a set of panelists before ;)

For more in-depth coverage, check out the IT Business article and the overview at Edge Online.

Finally, some photos from the action:

Greg Short (EEDAR) covers the numbers.

A room with a view. About 200 attendees participated.

The Design Exchange venue had the coolest hand dryers ever!

Appropriately, Agnes Zak of funding body Telefilm Canada introduced the funding case studies/success stories panel.

Justin Hall (GameLayers) performs spectacularly during his case study - though perhaps not quite a success story, yet…

John Sutyak (DDM) delivers the evening keynote on project specific financing.

The Honorable Sandra Pupatello (Minister of Economic Development & Trade) opens day 2 of the conference.

Ubisoft Montreal/Toronto CEO, Yannis Mallat gave a keynote focused on breakthrough innovation.

Wade Tinney (Large Animal Games) and Justin Hall (GameLayers) talk shop.

Public funding panel: Erik Robertson (Nordic Game Program), Jennifer Blitz (Ontario Media Development Corporate), Brad Giblin (Film Victoria [Australia]) and moderator Ian Kelso (Interactive Ontario).

Private funding panel: Ping Li (Accel Partners), Alec Dafferner (GP Bullhound), John Albright (JLA Ventures/Blackberry Partners Fund), Paul Lee (VanEdge Capital) and moderator Jim Laird (Bedlam Games).

It was a great honor to do the opening keynote for the inaugural GameX Industry Summit in Philly, especially considering it was a combined effort of five north-eastern IGDA chapters. The conference was co-located with the consumer focused GameX Expo, providing for a nice gamer/developer one-two punch.

The quality of speakers/content was high, with fellow keynotes from Clint Hocking (Ubisoft), Chris Foster (Harmonix) and Richard Rouse (Kaos). Though there were definitely a bunch of first time glitches (eg, not having a long enough video cable, straying off schedule, etc), attendees were extremely forgiving. On the whole, there was a sense that folks (mostly students and indies) were deeply appreciative of the event and content.

Of particular interest to my current line of economics/cluster work, the VIP reception had several legislators from the PA house of representatives. They were indeed keen to see the games industry grow in the state, which is always nice to see versus the usual confrontational stance.

Some photos from Philly:

Andrew Grapsas and Coray Seifert (Koas Studios) at the opening reception.

Coray lecturing on cinematics in Koas’ Frontlines.

Cool. But, an odd choice to be the first booth right at the entrance where moms and dads were walking in with their kids…

Never seen that before, except for the baby variety ;)

The expo had other fun playful stuff, like robot challenges.

…and group DDR.

…and LAN tournaments.

…and celebrity signings. These are folks from The Guild online sitcom.

…and Yahtzee too.

…and crazy Jedi fights. Jesse Collins seemingly not quite sure how to fight a double blade.

Developers coding away during the 48-hour Philly Game Jam.

The sleeping pen, empty for now.

Darren Torpey (gamerDNA) and Darius Kazemi (Orbus Gameworks) chow down at the Escapist’s party.

OK, listen, it was hard enough to ride it. No way I was gonna be able to take a photo of myself at the same time!

Brian O’Halloran (Dante from Clerks) chasing down Yahtzee.

The most killingest laser tag team evaar!!!

Big Daddy and the Splicers perform.

The name badges had a certain charm to them.

Richard Rouse (Kaos Studios) provides a nicely visual closing keynote on the difference between inspired and copied works.