Play it today: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zombie-lane/id444441750?mt=8
Showing posts with label digital games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital games. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Thursday, May 27, 2010
IGDA Finland presenting Finnish game startup companies
IGDA Finland chapter will organize "Startup stories" presentation session on Tuesday 8th June at 5PM (GMT +3). Check out the live stream at Igda.fi web site. The recording will also be available through the site later on.Ookoohko, Rocket Pack, Relationship Games, Uplause, Fantastec and Ironstar Helsinki will be sharing their stories with us.
After the IGDA Finland Presentations session it is IGDA Finland Gathering as usual at Cuba Cafe. Mighty Housemarque “The First Game Start-up still alive” together with Rocket Pack, Relationship Games, Uplause, Fantastec and IronStar Helsinki are sponsoring special drink ticket game. Also Microsoft Lipshack singing booth is open! Let’s celebrate current and upcoming Finnish game success stories and one of the most active IGDA chapters in the world!
Friday, March 12, 2010
Day 2 & 3 at GDC2010 highlights
After the first two summit days it was time to kick the main conference going. Uncharted 2 and social games are in a very big role this year. A love letter to flash = funnies video of Wednesday :)
Playdom people talked at their presentation "Games as a live service: a 360 degree look at the art and science of managing social games" about user generated content and their community building efforts. They highlighted that social features are the best viral features in Facebook such as pick or steal a boyfriend at Sorority Life. Same message came from Zynga, too. Gifting and adopting lonely cows or winning super berries instead of strawberries (top seller items) have been excellent choices. They also talked about choosing colors -- how colors matter when communicating to certain type of an audience (e.g. Mafiawars vs. Farmville).
They highlighted how relevant it is to balance game performance (stability) and new stuff (new features); bugs and features; user feedback and disruption. In Sorority Life competitions people can (and do) create content to th
e game (virtual items, clothes etc.). In Christmas and New Year, 53% of the revenue came from company generated content and 47% from user generated content. Issues adding stickiness: loyalty features, support features, blogs, fan Pages at Facebook etc.
"Fate of a small social game studio" by Justin Hall was one of the best talks on Thursday. Raph Koster wrote a good summary of Justin's talk. Another nice talk from Thursday was given by Nicole Lazzaro. I have seen her presentation a couple of years back. Basically talking about the same issues aka emotions and fun factors in games. She has quite a bit of data & presentations online as well. According to her, four keys to Farmville success: score, feedback, friendship and reward.
Game development fund. The Mochi
GAME Developer Fund is a $10 million fund that will help promising Flash and social game developers support their games through sponsorship, licensing and publishing deals.
IGF winners:
Monaco won top honours at the Independent Games Festival 2010.
PlayDead's platformer Limbo (Go Denmark!) was multi-award winner, earning Excellence in Visual Art and Technical Excellence. Closure Team's puzzle platformer Closure was recognised for Excellence in Audio. The Direct2Drive Vision Award was given to Press Play's Max & The Magic Marker (Go Denmark!) , and the Audience Award was claimed by Heroes of Newerth by S2 Games.
The renamed Nuovo (Innovation Award), which honours unconventional game development, went to Cactus for puzzle game Tuning. Best Student Game went to Ragtime Games' platformer Continuity and IGF Mobile Best Game went to Tiger Style's Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor.
At the Game Developers Choice awards this year’s big winner was Uncharted 2, which walked away with a total of five nods. Check out the video for more.
Playdom people talked at their presentation "Games as a live service: a 360 degree look at the art and science of managing social games" about user generated content and their community building efforts. They highlighted that social features are the best viral features in Facebook such as pick or steal a boyfriend at Sorority Life. Same message came from Zynga, too. Gifting and adopting lonely cows or winning super berries instead of strawberries (top seller items) have been excellent choices. They also talked about choosing colors -- how colors matter when communicating to certain type of an audience (e.g. Mafiawars vs. Farmville).
They highlighted how relevant it is to balance game performance (stability) and new stuff (new features); bugs and features; user feedback and disruption. In Sorority Life competitions people can (and do) create content to th
e game (virtual items, clothes etc.). In Christmas and New Year, 53% of the revenue came from company generated content and 47% from user generated content. Issues adding stickiness: loyalty features, support features, blogs, fan Pages at Facebook etc."Fate of a small social game studio" by Justin Hall was one of the best talks on Thursday. Raph Koster wrote a good summary of Justin's talk. Another nice talk from Thursday was given by Nicole Lazzaro. I have seen her presentation a couple of years back. Basically talking about the same issues aka emotions and fun factors in games. She has quite a bit of data & presentations online as well. According to her, four keys to Farmville success: score, feedback, friendship and reward.
Game development fund. The Mochi
GAME Developer Fund is a $10 million fund that will help promising Flash and social game developers support their games through sponsorship, licensing and publishing deals.IGF winners:
Monaco won top honours at the Independent Games Festival 2010.
PlayDead's platformer Limbo (Go Denmark!) was multi-award winner, earning Excellence in Visual Art and Technical Excellence. Closure Team's puzzle platformer Closure was recognised for Excellence in Audio. The Direct2Drive Vision Award was given to Press Play's Max & The Magic Marker (Go Denmark!) , and the Audience Award was claimed by Heroes of Newerth by S2 Games.
The renamed Nuovo (Innovation Award), which honours unconventional game development, went to Cactus for puzzle game Tuning. Best Student Game went to Ragtime Games' platformer Continuity and IGF Mobile Best Game went to Tiger Style's Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor.
At the Game Developers Choice awards this year’s big winner was Uncharted 2, which walked away with a total of five nods. Check out the video for more.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
GDC2010, day 1. My top 3
1. Nexus OneWoot, I got a Nexus One! I don't like the design but new gadgets are always cool! And some feelings (see the photo) from North Hall (GDC2010) -- that's so 80s ;)
2. Focus group driven development not as relevant in Facebook
10 years ago the popular saying was that if you manage to get girls into gaming, you will double the market and become a billionaire over night. The development was _very_ segment driven. Developers were wondering what teenage girls would like to do in a game and how the game should look like. The result was that the market was full of friendship adventures and doll house simulations. With social games it is clear that game development is no more that much focus or segment group driven. It might well be that the e.g. Facebook game developers were thinking of certain type of gamers -- but that is exactly the issue here -- social games (at Facebook, MySpace etc.) are played by everyone and as a brain break. Basically Farmville attracts both 11 year olds and 31, 41 or 71 year olds. The development does not start with typical mechanics or game play or even games but instead is "an activity you do in the net". So it is casual past time activity and social in its virtual and asynchronous way. I think this is a good point! The change of viewpoint (purposely or by chance) is the key. Facebook games are different type of activity from "normal" games. In Facebook people don't want to achieve high scores, practice their skills or spend hours gaming. They just want to take care of their farm or fish tank a couple of minutes now and then, chill out and relax.
3. Social, viral and game patterns in Japanese social games (DC Collier talk)
DC has given brilliant p
resentations at E3 and GDC for years already. Again he presented some current SNS trends from Japan. This time there were nothing really shocking or surprising. Instead many examples were pretty typical SNSs. Also brands were not as much in the limelight than some years back. I think Disney was the only branded game in the selection. Other than that many themes and the game play was very well in line with what we have here in Europe or US.The slides will be available though his company's blog shortly, you can check more details from there. Still I would like to share a couple of remarks from the presentation. Many popular Facebook games have Japanese parallel
s. Most popular applications implement OpenSocial. In Japan Mixi, DeNa and Gree have many times more users than Facebook and better ARPU.He also presented examples of social patterns, viral patterns and other game patterns. Viral patterns e.g. "wink me" and get points, "visit my shop" generated page views and trading benefits. Game patterns such as grinding and collecting stuff mentioned in his examples. Social patterns: location based teams or items, decorate & show off and different ways of poking (aggressive, win-win etc.) were just some of many examples shown.
Oh... I also learned that if you want to succeed in China -- the best way is to marry a Chinese woman because foreigners have so many limitations related to running a business in China. Hm... Another China comment was that currently there are no Chinese games in Facebook top 20 game applications but it is just a question
of time when then move from cloning to inventing something new. Last but not least James Gwertzman's nine points how to start a gaming business in China (in a nutshell). His slides.My sessions Tuesday:
Indies and Publishers: Fixing a System That Never Worked
Ron Carmel (2D Boy)
Abusing Your Players Just For Fun
Jonatan (Cactus) Soderstrom (Cactus Software)
The State of Social Gaming: Industry Overview and Update
Justin Smith (Inside Network)
Why Are Gaming Veterans Flocking to Social Gaming?
Brenda Brathwaite (Slide), Brian Reynolds (Zynga), Noah Falstein (The Inspiracy) and Steve Meretzky (Playdom)
Social Games in Japan
David Collier (Pikkle KK)
Meet the Newest Chinese Import/Export Business: Social Games!
James Gwertzman (PopCap Games, Inc.)
How to Innovate in the Land of Clones
Nick Fortugno (Playmatics)
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Facebook games for Grannies
In "2010 PopCap Social Gaming Research" report, the company found that fully two-thirds of social game players in the United States are 40 years of age or older, while the majority of players in the United Kingdom are under the age of 40. Young adults and teens in both countries are the least interested in playing games on sites like Facebook and MySpace: only 9% of U.K. casual gamers are 21 years of age or younger, and the proportion is 4% in the States. In their studies O'Reilly has also presented similar findings.At the same time is is also a fact that practically
all top gainers and the most popular Facebook applications have increasing user base amongst teenagers. Casual, easy social interaction with Facebook friends is at the core of the most popular Facebook applications. On the other hand the most biggest draws of developing an application for Facebook is the unprecedented access to the social networking site's massive user base. Applications that are set and forget can quickly fall into disuse. Also technical stability is a think that should be in place. If the application grows in popularity and use, technical issues should not cause problems.These findings are interesting if you compare them to MMO / virtual world statistics. Majority of MMOs are targeted at teens. There is a fierce competition within that particular segment but lack of offering for older gamers. Yet this is not only Facebook or MMO challenge. Similarly many pc or console games are made by 20-40 year old men to 20-40 year old men. Nintendo Wii, Singstar and casual browser games have woken up the developers a bit but not until Farmville and other Facebook games started gaining huge popularity it has become clear that same games can easily work for both 16 and 36 year olds. It is more about mechanics and rewards than then theme or gameplay. Actually many Facebook games lack gameplay in a traditional sense.
If you look at the list of most popular Facebook application, you do not see traditional gameplay anywhere. One could draw a conclusion that people who haven't played pc or console games do not expect anything specific. Facebook games are not really competitive or co-op games. They don't have an end. And the games are not challenging at all but instead could offer short brain breaks or casual entertainment for idle moments. Surely Facebook users "play" with friends but the connectio
n is merely a virtual one. I don't remember which of my friends are in My Mafia but it doesn't make any difference. Also it doesn't matter if you are at the level 100 and your friend is already at the level 600. It has no effect to the gameplay.Current Facebook best sellers are never ending "poking games". I would like to see more short games on the list but then again if Bejeweled Blitz is not able to make to the high score, which game would? It is also clear that marketing will be more and more crucial for game developers. It does not help too much if your game is the best ever if no one knows about it. This might also advance new type of marketing methods.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Startup scene in Finland -- When should we start to worry?
Tietoviikko magazine listed 25 most interesting startups from Finland (February 2010). The list is put together by acknowledged experts from Forum Virium Helsinki, Technopolis and Arctic Startup. All of these corporations should have very good picture of the overall situation.
Finland has not exactly been the cradle of startups and entrepreneurship hasn't been that desirable alternative due to non-existing support systems, heavy bureaucracy and public image. Nowadays it is ok --or even cool and fun-- to be an entrepreneur!
Within the last few years there has been several good efforts to spur startups and "facelift" entrepreneurship in Finland. Few years back National technical research center VTT set up a division to spur research driven innovations and spin offs. Startup companies network e.g. at Open Coffee type of events and university students in Helsinki have set up Aalto Entrepreneur Society (AES). AES is one prime example of the new mindset. Traditionally Finns have been far from brilliant in pitching or even presenting things. I have heard many legends from the 1980s how Finns did things in their own way abroad. Maybe that is part of Finnish way of being -- it is good to be humble and make sure not to push your own persona or ideas too much. Otherwise you are annoying, too Swedish or American or just trying to be better than the rest. Lately the common understanding has been that if you want to make a difference, run a profitable company and make good exit you need to do networking and improve your sales skills. I personally am really thrilled to see things evolving. That's why I was surprised by the Tietoviikko list.
At first it struck me that this lists is (at least between the lines) suggesting that not that much is actually happening in Finland. 8 out of 25 most interesting companies were founded in 2005 or earlier. Naturally it takes sometime to make magic happen but is this really the case? Is a company doing RFID solutions for industrial logistics (founded in 2002) more interesting than any other more recent startups? Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against this or any other company on the list and I know it takes some time for businesses to evolve. I am just wondering how long do we expect the next big thing to come from these companies? Aren't there really any challengers? The other interesting thing is the fact that the list contains several consulting companies or companies offering services. Again nothing wrong with that but sounds rather local to me.
There were also some surprises on the list. One is Grey Area. I was involved in Nordic Game Program jury when Grey Area got small fund to develop their location based mobile game further. I personally believe that there are certain niches in location based gaming (e.g. exergaming) which will make good business as soon as people have GPS phones and flat fare data transmission deals. As a basic concept location based gaming is not new and it is relatively hard to monetize. Of course I might be wrong :) Still I wonder if I got the message right: do the experts believe that LBS gaming will be bigger than social gaming (when looking at Finnish startups and their potential to pull it through)?
Oh - and at least one of the companies - Vilant Systems - was also listed as one of the key growth companies (Kauppalehti Dec 2009). Certainly the criteria and focus of these lists is different but still interesting. The discussion continues at the Tietoviikko web site (in Finnish only).
All I can say is MORE IT STARTUPS TO FINLAND PLEASE :)
Finland has not exactly been the cradle of startups and entrepreneurship hasn't been that desirable alternative due to non-existing support systems, heavy bureaucracy and public image. Nowadays it is ok --or even cool and fun-- to be an entrepreneur!
Within the last few years there has been several good efforts to spur startups and "facelift" entrepreneurship in Finland. Few years back National technical research center VTT set up a division to spur research driven innovations and spin offs. Startup companies network e.g. at Open Coffee type of events and university students in Helsinki have set up Aalto Entrepreneur Society (AES). AES is one prime example of the new mindset. Traditionally Finns have been far from brilliant in pitching or even presenting things. I have heard many legends from the 1980s how Finns did things in their own way abroad. Maybe that is part of Finnish way of being -- it is good to be humble and make sure not to push your own persona or ideas too much. Otherwise you are annoying, too Swedish or American or just trying to be better than the rest. Lately the common understanding has been that if you want to make a difference, run a profitable company and make good exit you need to do networking and improve your sales skills. I personally am really thrilled to see things evolving. That's why I was surprised by the Tietoviikko list.
At first it struck me that this lists is (at least between the lines) suggesting that not that much is actually happening in Finland. 8 out of 25 most interesting companies were founded in 2005 or earlier. Naturally it takes sometime to make magic happen but is this really the case? Is a company doing RFID solutions for industrial logistics (founded in 2002) more interesting than any other more recent startups? Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against this or any other company on the list and I know it takes some time for businesses to evolve. I am just wondering how long do we expect the next big thing to come from these companies? Aren't there really any challengers? The other interesting thing is the fact that the list contains several consulting companies or companies offering services. Again nothing wrong with that but sounds rather local to me.
There were also some surprises on the list. One is Grey Area. I was involved in Nordic Game Program jury when Grey Area got small fund to develop their location based mobile game further. I personally believe that there are certain niches in location based gaming (e.g. exergaming) which will make good business as soon as people have GPS phones and flat fare data transmission deals. As a basic concept location based gaming is not new and it is relatively hard to monetize. Of course I might be wrong :) Still I wonder if I got the message right: do the experts believe that LBS gaming will be bigger than social gaming (when looking at Finnish startups and their potential to pull it through)?
Oh - and at least one of the companies - Vilant Systems - was also listed as one of the key growth companies (Kauppalehti Dec 2009). Certainly the criteria and focus of these lists is different but still interesting. The discussion continues at the Tietoviikko web site (in Finnish only).
All I can say is MORE IT STARTUPS TO FINLAND PLEASE :)
Thursday, February 04, 2010
We made Lyre Inspyre at the Finnish Game Jam
The first ever Finnish Game Jam (FGJ) was held last weekend. FGJ was a part of the Global Game Jam event taking place in 39 countries around the world at the same time. Game developers jammed for 48 hours and made games around the theme: Deception. Besides the theme Finnish participants were also asked to utilize at least one of the following constraints: lyre, fire or wire in the games.Global Game Jam countdown •
- 4,338 gamers registered globally for this year’s event
- 1,600 participants in the first year (2008)
- 928 games created over the past weekend
- 370 games produced the first year (2008)
- 39 countries, from Argentina to Wales, took part this year
The jury's choice was: Play Dead 2: Growling of the Dead which is a zombie murmur game (aka zombie singstar). The jammers' voted Grow Up! to be the best game of the Finnish Game Jam 2010. ...Yes -- bummer! It wasn't ours :) I was with a team who did Lyre Inspyre. We tried to do something we don't do at work (majority of or team does games for living) and/or to experiment with weird game play but at the end our solution was rather conventional one. The good thing is that we manage to pull it off, worked well as a team and got the game done by Sunday afternoon! I am also very happy that we managed to combine casual look and feel with hard core game play :D
All in all Global Game Jam is a brilliant concept and even if the teams were very concentrated on their projects for the most of the time, we also had fun. It was nice to see the variety of projects and interpretations of the theme.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Addition to my "closing of 2009" post
A couple of things: first of all thanks to the feedback to my previous blog post! I just wanted to add that yes, I am also working with good guys at Paf and we are about to revolutionize online money gaming. Unfortunately I (and we
) didn't have enough time to do it last year ;) But I can assure you that it will most definitely happen this year!
So yeah yeah! I am also spending a lot of time with online gaming, social media and iGaming (= online money games). There hasn't been that many innovations in years. Online slot machines and lottery games are surprisingly similar what they were already hundreds of years ago. But wait no more. The change is coming.
Besides writing about 2010 trends, I also follow how other people and companies see the coming year. Atm one of my favorite post is by Osma Ahvenlampi (CTO of Sulake, and Scrum guru). His viewpoint (blog post: "Technology factors to watch during 2010") is purely technical but good stuff! I especially liked "Browsers vs desktops: what's the target for entertainment software?" discussion. See picture. Read more from the blog.
He also have a good point that: "the history of the “computer revolution” has been about automation changing economies of scale to enable entirely new types of business. The same trend is continuing in the form of computing capacity becoming a utility in Cloud Computing, extreme amounts of storage becoming available in costs which allow terabytes of storage to organizations of almost any size and budget, and most importantly, developing data mining, search and discovery algorithms that enable organizations to utilize data which used to be impossible to analyze as automated business practices."
Osma, good stuff! People: read it!
) didn't have enough time to do it last year ;) But I can assure you that it will most definitely happen this year!So yeah yeah! I am also spending a lot of time with online gaming, social media and iGaming (= online money games). There hasn't been that many innovations in years. Online slot machines and lottery games are surprisingly similar what they were already hundreds of years ago. But wait no more. The change is coming.
Besides writing about 2010 trends, I also follow how other people and companies see the coming year. Atm one of my favorite post is by Osma Ahvenlampi (CTO of Sulake, and Scrum guru). His viewpoint (blog post: "Technology factors to watch during 2010") is purely technical but good stuff! I especially liked "Browsers vs desktops: what's the target for entertainment software?" discussion. See picture. Read more from the blog.
He also have a good point that: "the history of the “computer revolution” has been about automation changing economies of scale to enable entirely new types of business. The same trend is continuing in the form of computing capacity becoming a utility in Cloud Computing, extreme amounts of storage becoming available in costs which allow terabytes of storage to organizations of almost any size and budget, and most importantly, developing data mining, search and discovery algorithms that enable organizations to utilize data which used to be impossible to analyze as automated business practices."
Osma, good stuff! People: read it!
Friday, January 08, 2010
2009 highlights and plans for 2010
I am a type of a person who likes to make plans. I am far too rational to be a dreamer and I like to take risks and confront challenges. Every year around this time I plan what I would like to see happening within next 12 months. Besides making plans I also tend to look back and see how well my 2009 plans realized and what surprises and good things happened.
Last year I lived in Copenhagen Denmark. I got an opportunity to work with excellent team at Guppyworks, a company developing 3D GuppyLife MMO. I was asked to join the team because of my background and broad knowhow on game design and the specific target group (teen girls). For me that period in my life was very fun but also educational. I would say the key learnings are related to MMO business and issues to consider when running a virtual community (also necessities to keep in mind when building an MMO, how to support community feeling, how to evaluate the balance between unique features or technical development and making something happen business-wise asap, how to keep up constant change or evolvement and balance between polished content or stable technology vs. doing things fast and dirty). How relevant it is to make radical decisions even if you are in between productional limitations and VC's expectations. And those radical decision do not only related to prioritization issues. That's so much more.
Another cool thing was when I decided to take a step to unknown and invested in a startup company called MySites. I have done investments but never on startups. Why did I do it? It was a combination of Heureka! and convincing pitch by their CEO Ramine Darabiha. The Heureka! moment was linked to basic needs and how to make things easier for average Internet users. The case reminded me of comedian George Carlin and his joke how humans spend their lives accumulating stuff. Soon they have problems of where to store all of it. The third challenge is to access that data (of various kinds) in multiple locations and channels.
I agree with trend reports and believe that MySites is answering to few key challenges of coming years. Issues related to the fact that media consumption is (constantly) changing, people ask for one stop shops and easy ways to share different type of data or content with their friends (and strangers). Content needs to be distributed -- the same content should pop up in multiple locations, formats and channels and be personalized. It is very clear that sharing no longer means e-mail, FTP or high number of dedicated services with their limitations. Also I have to say Ramine did really convincing sales pitch. We'll see what happens but he is a clever and dedicated person -- I would love to see more of that energy not only in startups but also within well established companies :)
Besides I did plenty of work with digital media and digital games. I am the head of IGDA Finland and I do game reviews and blogging for Tilt.tv, run Game Lab which develops experimental online game prototypes at Paf, I was in the jury deciding which Nordic game companies would get development fund, I wrote articles of the Finnish game dev scene to Pelaaja (Player) magazine, was in Nordic Game Jam 2009 jury and Live2011 jury, wrote few "digital media & games in a nutshell reports" for Ministry of Education, did consulting etc.).
I also did bunch of presentations (some of them are at Slideshare). My topics varied from game development and management to virtual identity issues -- and from business to academic talks. Just the way I like it. On top of that I wrote several articles and participated e.g. to Diginatives report (in Finnish) and Finnish Game Research Year Book 2009 (in Finnish). I also worked hard with a book focusing on digital media pioneer countries of the late 1990s (South Korea, Japan and Finland) and how social networking and novel ways to participate, contribute and develop digital content and services have changed the picture. It has been rather difficult to find international publisher for the book. If I get one more "no" as an answer, I will move to plan B to make sure the book will come out asap!
Now you might ask what's for next year then? I am not sharing my plans at the moment, I will get back to those at the end of this year and see how I have been able to reach my goals :D Happy New year! Make plans! Change the world! Share happiness!
Last year I lived in Copenhagen Denmark. I got an opportunity to work with excellent team at Guppyworks, a company developing 3D GuppyLife MMO. I was asked to join the team because of my background and broad knowhow on game design and the specific target group (teen girls). For me that period in my life was very fun but also educational. I would say the key learnings are related to MMO business and issues to consider when running a virtual community (also necessities to keep in mind when building an MMO, how to support community feeling, how to evaluate the balance between unique features or technical development and making something happen business-wise asap, how to keep up constant change or evolvement and balance between polished content or stable technology vs. doing things fast and dirty). How relevant it is to make radical decisions even if you are in between productional limitations and VC's expectations. And those radical decision do not only related to prioritization issues. That's so much more.
Another cool thing was when I decided to take a step to unknown and invested in a startup company called MySites. I have done investments but never on startups. Why did I do it? It was a combination of Heureka! and convincing pitch by their CEO Ramine Darabiha. The Heureka! moment was linked to basic needs and how to make things easier for average Internet users. The case reminded me of comedian George Carlin and his joke how humans spend their lives accumulating stuff. Soon they have problems of where to store all of it. The third challenge is to access that data (of various kinds) in multiple locations and channels.
I agree with trend reports and believe that MySites is answering to few key challenges of coming years. Issues related to the fact that media consumption is (constantly) changing, people ask for one stop shops and easy ways to share different type of data or content with their friends (and strangers). Content needs to be distributed -- the same content should pop up in multiple locations, formats and channels and be personalized. It is very clear that sharing no longer means e-mail, FTP or high number of dedicated services with their limitations. Also I have to say Ramine did really convincing sales pitch. We'll see what happens but he is a clever and dedicated person -- I would love to see more of that energy not only in startups but also within well established companies :)
Besides I did plenty of work with digital media and digital games. I am the head of IGDA Finland and I do game reviews and blogging for Tilt.tv, run Game Lab which develops experimental online game prototypes at Paf, I was in the jury deciding which Nordic game companies would get development fund, I wrote articles of the Finnish game dev scene to Pelaaja (Player) magazine, was in Nordic Game Jam 2009 jury and Live2011 jury, wrote few "digital media & games in a nutshell reports" for Ministry of Education, did consulting etc.).
I also did bunch of presentations (some of them are at Slideshare). My topics varied from game development and management to virtual identity issues -- and from business to academic talks. Just the way I like it. On top of that I wrote several articles and participated e.g. to Diginatives report (in Finnish) and Finnish Game Research Year Book 2009 (in Finnish). I also worked hard with a book focusing on digital media pioneer countries of the late 1990s (South Korea, Japan and Finland) and how social networking and novel ways to participate, contribute and develop digital content and services have changed the picture. It has been rather difficult to find international publisher for the book. If I get one more "no" as an answer, I will move to plan B to make sure the book will come out asap!
Now you might ask what's for next year then? I am not sharing my plans at the moment, I will get back to those at the end of this year and see how I have been able to reach my goals :D Happy New year! Make plans! Change the world! Share happiness!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Hottest trends in games 2010
A year ago I suggested that the following five trends will have an impact to the games industry in 2009:
1. Tinkering
2. Networked experience
3. Alternative revenue models
4. Massively competitive co-ops FPSs
5. Networking mini games adding value
The list was relatively accurate. Tinkering definitely was and is an aspect in games. For example XBLA games, Scribblenauts and indie scene all brought up different approaches to tinkering and collaborative experience design. Networked experience most definitely was one key trend, though a bit differently that I anticipated. Nexon's Combat Arms reached 1M players in Europe and plenty of FPS titles were released. Also 2009 was successful year for Facebook games, especially Zynga remained in the news thanks to Mafia Wars, Farmville and others.
For the 2010, I went though my Twitter posts and put together a new list of trends and issues we most likely are about to see in 2010. I continue with the same idea as last year. By looking back you can see the future.
1. Indie
One can say that indie was a hot trend already in 2009. There definitely is an increasing amount of attention and interest towards indie games. Besides the games themselves, I think one especially interesting thing is storage and sharing. Those providing easier access, easier distribution
solutions and easier business opportunities for SMEs and other independent developers will make an impact to the industry. I also believe that indie games will have a greater impact to mainstream games by adding richer variations than before. Thanks to new options for self-publishing and business opportunities for indie developers the attitude towards taking risks and opportunities to put out indie games will become easier. The key here is storage and sharing / distribution.
2. 3D gaming
Yes, just when we have get used to HD it is time to step forward. Avatar movie has given new hopes for
Hollywood studios regarding 3D technology and when the movie industry is pro-3D, so will be games. Hilarious 3D movies and Virtual boy 3D were niches at their times in the 1990s. Now with bigger muscles (=bigger players) things will start to happen. Amongst others Nvidia is promoting 3D gaming. I think 3D will not add valuable experience for all games but it should be easily foreseen how 3D could add value for example to FPSs or adventure games. Still there are few hardware issues to be enhanced but we are getting there.
3. Persistence in games
Facebook games, casual browser games and virtual world/casual MMO developers seek for the next think to jump into with relative low risk level but clear competitive edge. I believe persistent game play will be one such differentiation factor. Persistence has been a thing under discussion for quite some time already especially in MMOs. When people communicate and entertain themselves with multiple gadgets and gaming devices and their media use is fragmented, persistence can add nice twist to gaming. You don't have to be a hard core gamer or a geek to play games over longer period of time. Persistence will add randomness and variety to the game experiences. The game will continue when you are offline but in a way it does not matter if you are offline for a day or a week.
4. Learning + games
Learning in games or serious games is another things that is far from novelty. Edutainment products appeared already at the end of 1980s as the next semi-big thing. Things holding back edugames has been their vague role in the market (commercial games or education software?), weak or non-existing distribution network and common ways to either do educational material formally or make business out of it. At the moment edugames are not really commercial games but not exactly teaching material either. Obviously there will be both but someone should start inventing and formalizing the picture to make a difference. In 2010 more funding will be directed to learning technologies. I sincerely hope that the development would be more startup than university driven.
5. Touch, Point, Gesture
Nintendo Wii brought point and gesture interface to the common crowd and iPhone successfully introduces touch screen (and gyroscope) for gaming. Project Natal and PS3 Motion Controller add more twist to gesture interfaces. Despite Microsoft's and Sony's efforts I expect to see more innovations in mobile regarding to point, touch and gesture. I also believe that this will be one area where games break out of the "games sector" and introduce playful interaction to other application areas as well. There are several examples already how simple game interactions have been utilized for example in advertising and information sharing. Entertaining and natural interaction is what is needed to navigate through vast amount of data and information.
1. Tinkering
2. Networked experience
3. Alternative revenue models
4. Massively competitive co-ops FPSs
5. Networking mini games adding value
The list was relatively accurate. Tinkering definitely was and is an aspect in games. For example XBLA games, Scribblenauts and indie scene all brought up different approaches to tinkering and collaborative experience design. Networked experience most definitely was one key trend, though a bit differently that I anticipated. Nexon's Combat Arms reached 1M players in Europe and plenty of FPS titles were released. Also 2009 was successful year for Facebook games, especially Zynga remained in the news thanks to Mafia Wars, Farmville and others.
For the 2010, I went though my Twitter posts and put together a new list of trends and issues we most likely are about to see in 2010. I continue with the same idea as last year. By looking back you can see the future.
1. Indie
One can say that indie was a hot trend already in 2009. There definitely is an increasing amount of attention and interest towards indie games. Besides the games themselves, I think one especially interesting thing is storage and sharing. Those providing easier access, easier distribution
solutions and easier business opportunities for SMEs and other independent developers will make an impact to the industry. I also believe that indie games will have a greater impact to mainstream games by adding richer variations than before. Thanks to new options for self-publishing and business opportunities for indie developers the attitude towards taking risks and opportunities to put out indie games will become easier. The key here is storage and sharing / distribution.2. 3D gaming
Yes, just when we have get used to HD it is time to step forward. Avatar movie has given new hopes for
Hollywood studios regarding 3D technology and when the movie industry is pro-3D, so will be games. Hilarious 3D movies and Virtual boy 3D were niches at their times in the 1990s. Now with bigger muscles (=bigger players) things will start to happen. Amongst others Nvidia is promoting 3D gaming. I think 3D will not add valuable experience for all games but it should be easily foreseen how 3D could add value for example to FPSs or adventure games. Still there are few hardware issues to be enhanced but we are getting there.3. Persistence in games
Facebook games, casual browser games and virtual world/casual MMO developers seek for the next think to jump into with relative low risk level but clear competitive edge. I believe persistent game play will be one such differentiation factor. Persistence has been a thing under discussion for quite some time already especially in MMOs. When people communicate and entertain themselves with multiple gadgets and gaming devices and their media use is fragmented, persistence can add nice twist to gaming. You don't have to be a hard core gamer or a geek to play games over longer period of time. Persistence will add randomness and variety to the game experiences. The game will continue when you are offline but in a way it does not matter if you are offline for a day or a week.
4. Learning + games
Learning in games or serious games is another things that is far from novelty. Edutainment products appeared already at the end of 1980s as the next semi-big thing. Things holding back edugames has been their vague role in the market (commercial games or education software?), weak or non-existing distribution network and common ways to either do educational material formally or make business out of it. At the moment edugames are not really commercial games but not exactly teaching material either. Obviously there will be both but someone should start inventing and formalizing the picture to make a difference. In 2010 more funding will be directed to learning technologies. I sincerely hope that the development would be more startup than university driven.
5. Touch, Point, Gesture
Nintendo Wii brought point and gesture interface to the common crowd and iPhone successfully introduces touch screen (and gyroscope) for gaming. Project Natal and PS3 Motion Controller add more twist to gesture interfaces. Despite Microsoft's and Sony's efforts I expect to see more innovations in mobile regarding to point, touch and gesture. I also believe that this will be one area where games break out of the "games sector" and introduce playful interaction to other application areas as well. There are several examples already how simple game interactions have been utilized for example in advertising and information sharing. Entertaining and natural interaction is what is needed to navigate through vast amount of data and information.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Random thoughts of game business and funding
From me November was the month of funding. I was a member of the jury in Nordic Game Program (game development) and Live2011 project focusing on digital art projects. Both sessions made me to think of the gap between business knowledge (/business focus) and games development practices.
Nordic Game funds are given out in two rounds per a year. There were 84 applications on the second round of 2009 and eight applications eventually got funded. The level of applications was high and competition fierce as always. Even if the criteria has been the same for years already, the center of funded projects tends to change from a round to a round. Naturally this has a lot to do with the scale of projects submitted. Certain trends stand out on every round -- something it is location based gaming, other times casual iPhone or Facebook games or children's games. This round several innovative or experimental projects got funding including Kung-Fu Live (tracking players' movement with a camera), Rapture (collectable card game goes iPhone and Facebook), Uplause Crowd Game (massively multiplayer crowd playing game), Dream Machine (classic adventure with claymation style) and Pinball DJ (music interaction concept for handhelds and mobile). Besides those also few social games and MMOG were funded.
A couple of days after Nordic Game award gala I spend one day with Live2011 student projects. There the focus was more on digital art so necessarily no business values were expected but still games, web sites or animation projects submitted to the competition didn't seem to have any answer on how to monetize or fund the project -- except applying for grants, stipends or other cultural funds. That made me to think of ways to improve the business side of game industry. People have kept repeating for years already that game industry should be taken seriously. That it already is multi billion dollar business and employing thousands of people. Bigger than music or box office sales bla bla bla.
It is definitely more passion than business intelligence driven. There are lots of entrepreneurs doing their own share to enrich the range of games available. The founders of game companies often include designers and techies who started the companies because of passion. Many game developers work with games because they love games, games programming or game art. Not because they just need a job. The state of mind is very different compared with many other industries. This is also one weakness of game developers. Too often technical skills outreach business knowledge. Even companies developing brilliant games around the world fail just because of that. While possessing a great deal of enthusiasm and talent, they rarely share the same desire for negotiation, operations, finance, management or operations.
I would love to see the business side to flourish with the same creativity and passion seen in games. One way to do that is to aim higher. Even if the companies were founded amongst friends (with certain skills) to do something fun and hopefully beneficial, without business thinking or goal settings the dream can easily fall into pieces. This is often the result of a fact that the game industry has a higher than normal set of the right people in the wrong places.
So what there is to be done? There are lots of business opinions and ideas to be found from various books. Harvey Mackay in his book "Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt" outlined a formula for success. Success = focus + determination + goal setting and courage. I would add that success also has a lot to do with social connections, networking and practicing. And changing direction when needed. I feel this is something game developers should seriously consider if they want to keep up with the competition.
Nordic Game funds are given out in two rounds per a year. There were 84 applications on the second round of 2009 and eight applications eventually got funded. The level of applications was high and competition fierce as always. Even if the criteria has been the same for years already, the center of funded projects tends to change from a round to a round. Naturally this has a lot to do with the scale of projects submitted. Certain trends stand out on every round -- something it is location based gaming, other times casual iPhone or Facebook games or children's games. This round several innovative or experimental projects got funding including Kung-Fu Live (tracking players' movement with a camera), Rapture (collectable card game goes iPhone and Facebook), Uplause Crowd Game (massively multiplayer crowd playing game), Dream Machine (classic adventure with claymation style) and Pinball DJ (music interaction concept for handhelds and mobile). Besides those also few social games and MMOG were funded.
A couple of days after Nordic Game award gala I spend one day with Live2011 student projects. There the focus was more on digital art so necessarily no business values were expected but still games, web sites or animation projects submitted to the competition didn't seem to have any answer on how to monetize or fund the project -- except applying for grants, stipends or other cultural funds. That made me to think of ways to improve the business side of game industry. People have kept repeating for years already that game industry should be taken seriously. That it already is multi billion dollar business and employing thousands of people. Bigger than music or box office sales bla bla bla.
It is definitely more passion than business intelligence driven. There are lots of entrepreneurs doing their own share to enrich the range of games available. The founders of game companies often include designers and techies who started the companies because of passion. Many game developers work with games because they love games, games programming or game art. Not because they just need a job. The state of mind is very different compared with many other industries. This is also one weakness of game developers. Too often technical skills outreach business knowledge. Even companies developing brilliant games around the world fail just because of that. While possessing a great deal of enthusiasm and talent, they rarely share the same desire for negotiation, operations, finance, management or operations.
I would love to see the business side to flourish with the same creativity and passion seen in games. One way to do that is to aim higher. Even if the companies were founded amongst friends (with certain skills) to do something fun and hopefully beneficial, without business thinking or goal settings the dream can easily fall into pieces. This is often the result of a fact that the game industry has a higher than normal set of the right people in the wrong places.
So what there is to be done? There are lots of business opinions and ideas to be found from various books. Harvey Mackay in his book "Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt" outlined a formula for success. Success = focus + determination + goal setting and courage. I would add that success also has a lot to do with social connections, networking and practicing. And changing direction when needed. I feel this is something game developers should seriously consider if they want to keep up with the competition.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
IGDA Finland November event, Finland Game Jam kick off
Do you want to know how the leading game studios do their demo? Or are you interested in Global Game Jam event which shall take place in January 2010? Game Jamming will happen in over 50 location around the world at the same time. It will be 48 hours of sweat, ideation, game mechanics, coding, sound and graphic design, team work and networking.
Remedy Entertainment will give a demo of Alan Wake and Gorm Lai will talk about Global Game Jam (GGJ) event. The talks will take place at the IGDA Finland Presentations session (venue: K13, time: 5PM). At 7PM the crowd will move to Cuba Cafe for after session networking. We will also show some GGJ videos and games at the bar. Join us on 17th November!
More information from: http://igda.fi/
Remedy Entertainment will give a demo of Alan Wake and Gorm Lai will talk about Global Game Jam (GGJ) event. The talks will take place at the IGDA Finland Presentations session (venue: K13, time: 5PM). At 7PM the crowd will move to Cuba Cafe for after session networking. We will also show some GGJ videos and games at the bar. Join us on 17th November!
More information from: http://igda.fi/
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Finnish gamers in the limelight
Hello world from Stockholm Sweden. Today I am visiting Jadestone and Paf in Stockholm. Last week I gave a presentation on "video gaming trends" and I am about to put those thoughts into a slide set format shortly. I have also been putting together a presentation for EIG09. And what's EIG you might wonder? EIG is the European iGaming Congress and Expo that will be held in Copenhagen mid September. I was asked to give an Innovation keynote (focusing on online gambling and future of iGaming). It has been fun to put the presentation together. I will put both of the slide sets to Slideshare as soon as I have given the presentation / finalized the trends slides (mid September most likely).
IGDA Finland season 09-10 will start officially next Tuesday. We have really superb season coming up. We'll start with Everyplay session on September the 8th. Everyplay is a social games startup. Currently they are developing Kamu World for social networking sites (Facebook at first). It is a new virtual hangout featuring playful Kamus. Check it out! Early version of it is already online and Finnish speaking readers might also like to check out newest Pelaaja magazine. September issue focuses on Finnish game development scene and there is a couple of words about Everyplay and the future of gaming as well. All in all IGDA is a perfect context to catch up what's the latest with Finnish game developers and well as to network with all the bright minds. More information about the event from Igda Finland site. IGDA will also organize Presentations series. The first session will be in October and focus on Global Game Jam. Finland will get our own Game Jam next January! More information available in October at Igda.fi.
Another nice games related event is Social Gaming night at Villi Wäinö (Kalevankatu Helsinki city centre). It is held every Tuesday at 7PM by Jolly Dragon.
Btw. I noticed that I have been writing this blog since Feb 2006 and managed to put together some 200 posts. I started using Twitter in in Dec 2008 and I have already sent over 400 posts. The benefits of both blogging and microblogging are starting to show. I will continue doing both also in the future. Check out Twitscoop.
Btw2. Found this pic. Mobile social networks (UK).
IGDA Finland season 09-10 will start officially next Tuesday. We have really superb season coming up. We'll start with Everyplay session on September the 8th. Everyplay is a social games startup. Currently they are developing Kamu World for social networking sites (Facebook at first). It is a new virtual hangout featuring playful Kamus. Check it out! Early version of it is already online and Finnish speaking readers might also like to check out newest Pelaaja magazine. September issue focuses on Finnish game development scene and there is a couple of words about Everyplay and the future of gaming as well. All in all IGDA is a perfect context to catch up what's the latest with Finnish game developers and well as to network with all the bright minds. More information about the event from Igda Finland site. IGDA will also organize Presentations series. The first session will be in October and focus on Global Game Jam. Finland will get our own Game Jam next January! More information available in October at Igda.fi.Another nice games related event is Social Gaming night at Villi Wäinö (Kalevankatu Helsinki city centre). It is held every Tuesday at 7PM by Jolly Dragon.
Btw. I noticed that I have been writing this blog since Feb 2006 and managed to put together some 200 posts. I started using Twitter in in Dec 2008 and I have already sent over 400 posts. The benefits of both blogging and microblogging are starting to show. I will continue doing both also in the future. Check out Twitscoop.
Btw2. Found this pic. Mobile social networks (UK).
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Assembly09 post mortem (from my viewpoint)
Four sunny summer days were well spent indoors at Assembly09. I was promoting a game concept & prototyping competition, meeting friends and following compos. There was high number of fast and extreme music entries, some nice fast graphics entries and - as expected - some amazing entries to 64 and demo compos. Some of my favorites (any category) were Proof of Concept, Frameranger and irrelephant. Check out all Assembly Compo entries from Assembly TV.
For those who don't know: Assembly is one of the biggest demo scene & gaming events in Europe. Assembly Summer gathered ~6000 participants out of which 500 are girls! Awesome - Go girls! Assembly is about participating in compos (in music, graphics, programming demos etc.), hanging around with friends, playing games (lots of WoW and and CS players around), chatting, staying at the Arena 24/7 for 4 days and eating lots of junk food. It must be overwhelming experience for
the youngest participants which were not much more than 10 year olds. It was also nice to see some people staying overnight with their small babies. That was kinda cool - Go Next Gen!Besides gaming and compos there was ArtTech seminar running on various topics. I followed indie sessions. Cactus gave a good preso [the same (?) as at GDC09], Blueberry Garden show didn't give that much new ideas and Petri Purho was such a Prince Charming as always. He were basically going
through a set of really funny and cool indie games. My favorite was the "get that f**ing raccoon out of the gears!" game (EnviroBear), turning levels thingie (Punishment) and Cactus stuff (Psychosomnium) of course. If not groundbreaking new ideas, at least we got good laugh by watching Petri playing.Paf Concept & prototype competition will be running until the end of August09 and the results will be out by the end of September. Assembly compos were dominated by men but I truly wish to see entries from girls to this concept competition. All in all -- it is all about good new ideas!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
A cup of coffee and some exergaming in South Korea
Five years ago I was in the lead of a research project titled Exergame at the Technical Research Centre of Finland. Back then we estimated that exergames will become a big business within the next 5 years. Our guessing came true. Nintendo Wii is one of the most exposed example of it. Then again I would say that Wii is just a start. I am expecting to see more exergame innovations appearing especially for mobile terminals. Smart phones and iPhone has changed the idea of a cellular phone and with cheaper components phone manufacturers can integrate gyroscopes and measument techniques into portable devices. Naturally things will also evolve in pc and console gaming. Sony and Microsoft (Natal) are behind Nintendo but still already far away in developing their own motion control solutions for games.
Within the last few days exergaming has been on the headlines around the world. In Finland playful Move and Play exhibition is currently on at Heureka science center in Vantaa, Korean Arirang today tv show had an interesting story on Xergames (click the link & register to see the video starting at 40:45). Additionally Nintendo will launch Wii Sports Resort shortly (at Times Square in NY). I also received a press release claiming that: "Kids as young as three years old are picking up the joysticks and clicking away at computers, especially if they have older siblings whom they wish to emulate. It's important to catch kids at an early age to teach them about fitness". My Gym promotes children's fitness centres in the US and provides information regarding nutrition and everyday exercise. Basically My Gym and exergames have the same goal and somewhat similar means to reach the goal -- being: positive feedback, easy access, casual exercise, playful and fun context, self-acting state, instant feedback and measuring performance.
I am happy to be a part (or additional power behind the scenes) of a R&D project focusing on novel exergame solutions. The project is run by MoFun (the creator of Circus game) and Technical Research Centre of Finland. I also heard that social gaming initiative is about to start in Finland. Even though it focuses more on social gaming for adults than actual fitness gaming or exergaming -- I am sure you cannot 100% separate those from each other. I will write more about the initiative as soon as it is up and running.
Within the last few days exergaming has been on the headlines around the world. In Finland playful Move and Play exhibition is currently on at Heureka science center in Vantaa, Korean Arirang today tv show had an interesting story on Xergames (click the link & register to see the video starting at 40:45). Additionally Nintendo will launch Wii Sports Resort shortly (at Times Square in NY). I also received a press release claiming that: "Kids as young as three years old are picking up the joysticks and clicking away at computers, especially if they have older siblings whom they wish to emulate. It's important to catch kids at an early age to teach them about fitness". My Gym promotes children's fitness centres in the US and provides information regarding nutrition and everyday exercise. Basically My Gym and exergames have the same goal and somewhat similar means to reach the goal -- being: positive feedback, easy access, casual exercise, playful and fun context, self-acting state, instant feedback and measuring performance.
I am happy to be a part (or additional power behind the scenes) of a R&D project focusing on novel exergame solutions. The project is run by MoFun (the creator of Circus game) and Technical Research Centre of Finland. I also heard that social gaming initiative is about to start in Finland. Even though it focuses more on social gaming for adults than actual fitness gaming or exergaming -- I am sure you cannot 100% separate those from each other. I will write more about the initiative as soon as it is up and running.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Gamers' Night at the Movies
Night at the movies got totally different intrepretation when IGDA Finlandinvited IGDA volunteers to experience big screen gaming at Sello Bio Rex movie theater. After the last screening ended in the night, gamers started entering the building. Three screening rooms were reserved for game playing until next morning. Gamers got to choose which NES, PS3 or Xbox
360 games they would prefer playing and did so until it was already sunny and quiet Sunday morning outside the theater.Movie theatre gaming was an immense experience! Playing Deadspace on a big screen truly was scary but also Ghostbusters and GTA4 did well on a big screen. Besides horror, shooting and adventures, social games such as SingStar was played along with NES classics Mario and Chip 'n' Dale. Monday, April 13, 2009
Adult gamers are boring
Just reading Nielsen report "The state of video gamer - PC game and video game console usage Q4/08". I found this figure interesting. Look at the "Usage min % and Age group. I have assumed that 360 and PS3 compete off the same target group but that is not the case according to Nielsen. Also it is quite surprising that the Wii target group is 6-11 yrs. After all Wii is the family-party-fitness-workplace console. Active user % is also surprisingly high for Wii.
Additionally:
Additionally: - Good portion of PlayStation 3 console usage occurs during the television prime time hours
- Top games played by 25-54 year old (women or men) are BORING! Someone should help them to find better games from the web ;)
- Most popular PC games are pre-installed Windows card games at the age group of 25-54
- Chessmaster Challenge is getting closer to WoW nr. of unique users - BEWARE!
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
The shape of things to come - IA Inc. map of the net
New version (#4) of the Web Trend Map is out "mapping the 333 most influential web domains and the 111 most influential internet people". They are currently after comments for the draft. If you have something to say, better say it now!
- Pirate Bay has rather impressive building on the map!
- There aren't that many microblogging, gadget/widget stuff on the map. Let's see if the picture will be different next time.
- Additionally I was wondering aren't (teen) virtual worlds influental at all? At least I couldn't find them. Blizzard (WoW) and Disney (line of MMOGs amongst other services) on the map, but Sulake or Neopets/Nickelodeon isn't despite of their (obvious) influence to virtual communities and networking.
- China and Japan are somewhat on the map but Korea isn't. Maybe some Koreans should correct that, after all Korea is the birthplace or capital of MMOGs and home of CyWorld and Baegsoo - both very impressive services.
- Indeed WordPress is so much bigger than Blogger
- Next time I also expect to see some Finnish services on the map (well - Dopplr has some Finns directing the service)
- Barack Obama on the map?!
- Newspapers seem to be pretty nicely on the map (go Aftonbladet!) but for how long... Also do newspapers have better web presence than tv-channels?
Friday, March 27, 2009
Some hope for Danish game development
I am currently living in Denmark where the economical recession is really doing lots of damage. Already at least three very relevant and interesting game companies have had to close their doors due to lack of funding. That’s how it goes – no money – no games I am afraid.
There is something positive though. Limbo project (PlayDead) just got relatively nice funding of 11 million Danish kronas (~1,5 million €). Limbo got funds from Danish CAT Science by RUC, FAHU and Vækstfonden. I get to know Limbo more than a year ago through Nordic Game Program where I am at the Expert group evaluating the applications. Limbo charmed us too but whereas Nordic Game funds are good incentive for the developers it is (naturally) remarkably smaller than VC funds. And without these bigger funds development of a project like Limbo would be so much harder and slower.
But what’s so special about Limbo? First of all it is very much designer / artist driven project. When you look at game video or screen shots it is clear that the visual style is one of the key drivers of the game development. GameDaily wrote an article from IGF09 (btw: Blueberry Garden won – congrats!) where they described the style as “Scandinavian” referring (also) to developers like Petri Purho (Crayon Physic Deluxe), cactus and Niflas (Knytt). Could Limbo’s style be similarly Scandinavian? On the other hand it is a bit Japanese and has certain Ico-feel (black-white, blurred edges, hazyness). Also Samorost comes to my mind for some reason. The story is quite unique (Scandinavian? Remember The Brothers Lionheart / Bröderna Lejonhjärta? – Limbo is about a boy who is looking after his dead little sister in Limbo – mythical space in between heaven and hell.I met Arnt (artist/designer behind Limbo) at the Nordic Game Jam. After meeting the designer the project felt even more clear and justifiable. Limbo seems to be based on a strong vision and demand to keep all the strings at their (PlayDead) own hands. According to Danish press big game companies have contacted PlayDead but they want to stay indie. I have nothing but respect to that – that is the way to innovate and reshape the game industry piece by piece. I hope Limbo will be stimulating Danish game industry, bringing hope to other developers as well.
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