Transcript The Year in Review - DePaul University

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



Making stuff


Steam
Online Console
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
[email protected]
www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke
Questions, please!!