The developers of some of the world's most popular video games are in San Francisco this week to discuss the future of the industry. They will look back on one of their most successful years and discuss tackling the challenges ahead.
Jamil Moledina, director of the Game Developers Conference said, "We had an incredible banner year in 2007 with games like Bioshock, Halo 3 and Uncharted. In the US the industry's revenues grew 43%, with software sales up a third on the previous year.
Moledina further said, "It's often about the future but the industry has taken on a sense of casualisation". In this sense casual games are those that people can play and complete in minutes rather than hours and are aimed at children, women and older people. Many of the titles prepared for Nintendo's Wii are casual games.
New markets:
Traditionally the games industry has concentrated on its core audience. Titles like Halo3, which pulled in the biggest ever earnings for an entertainment released in a single day, showed that the hard core gamer remained a potent market. "But the success of the Wii, RockBand, Guitar Hero and casual games point to new areas of growth", added Moledina.
For instance, he said, Guitar Hero games made more than $820m at retail, a record for any single franchise in any one year. The Wii has re-proven the point that five to 95 year olds like playing games. Veteran game designer Sid Meier will speak at the conference to shed light on "the key things you need to capture the interest of the public at large".
"We have facebook here talking about how they have managed to get so many eyeballs playing games in such a short space of time," he said. Developers and publishers were looking at this area very closely, he added. But, he said, these new developments would not change everything. "Not all games are going to be casual. There's still going to be a huge market for the core base which drives everything."
One of the games aimed squarely at the core audience in 2008 is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which will be demoed at the week-long conference.
Gaining control:
The event will also feature talk about the future of the human computer interface. "Games worlds are a fairly complex universe, however the controllers we have are often a bit intimidating," said Moledina. Emotive systems will be showing off its latest headset that uses sensors to detect brain waves to allow games to control characters and objects in a game world.
Gamers can swing an imaginary golf club or interact with a 3D world just by using their hands and arms and without the need for controller. "A lot of people experiment with different ways to get into the game; to convert a fairly complex way that humans think and behave and have that map in a natural way to a complex game world," explained Moledina.
The conference also features a strong mobile gaming element. "We are seeing more and more big game companies take the space seriously. The sea change is that traditional game developers are less snaky about mobile and casual than they were because of the power of phones today."
Microsoft's head of Live services, John Schappert, will give one of the conference's keynotes, where it is expected to unveil new features for the Xbod Live service. "Microsoft hasn't delivered a keynote for two years so it will be interesting to see what they have for us," said Moledina.
Jamil Moledina, director of the Game Developers Conference said, "We had an incredible banner year in 2007 with games like Bioshock, Halo 3 and Uncharted. In the US the industry's revenues grew 43%, with software sales up a third on the previous year.
Moledina further said, "It's often about the future but the industry has taken on a sense of casualisation". In this sense casual games are those that people can play and complete in minutes rather than hours and are aimed at children, women and older people. Many of the titles prepared for Nintendo's Wii are casual games.
New markets:
Traditionally the games industry has concentrated on its core audience. Titles like Halo3, which pulled in the biggest ever earnings for an entertainment released in a single day, showed that the hard core gamer remained a potent market. "But the success of the Wii, RockBand, Guitar Hero and casual games point to new areas of growth", added Moledina.
For instance, he said, Guitar Hero games made more than $820m at retail, a record for any single franchise in any one year. The Wii has re-proven the point that five to 95 year olds like playing games. Veteran game designer Sid Meier will speak at the conference to shed light on "the key things you need to capture the interest of the public at large".
"We have facebook here talking about how they have managed to get so many eyeballs playing games in such a short space of time," he said. Developers and publishers were looking at this area very closely, he added. But, he said, these new developments would not change everything. "Not all games are going to be casual. There's still going to be a huge market for the core base which drives everything."
One of the games aimed squarely at the core audience in 2008 is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which will be demoed at the week-long conference.
Gaining control:
The event will also feature talk about the future of the human computer interface. "Games worlds are a fairly complex universe, however the controllers we have are often a bit intimidating," said Moledina. Emotive systems will be showing off its latest headset that uses sensors to detect brain waves to allow games to control characters and objects in a game world.
Gamers can swing an imaginary golf club or interact with a 3D world just by using their hands and arms and without the need for controller. "A lot of people experiment with different ways to get into the game; to convert a fairly complex way that humans think and behave and have that map in a natural way to a complex game world," explained Moledina.
The conference also features a strong mobile gaming element. "We are seeing more and more big game companies take the space seriously. The sea change is that traditional game developers are less snaky about mobile and casual than they were because of the power of phones today."
Microsoft's head of Live services, John Schappert, will give one of the conference's keynotes, where it is expected to unveil new features for the Xbod Live service. "Microsoft hasn't delivered a keynote for two years so it will be interesting to see what they have for us," said Moledina.