The Gamer’s View: The LA Games Conference

I was delighted to be given the opportunity to attend and cover the Games and Mobile Forum / LA Games Conference for GotGame. The conference was at the Hotel Roosevelt on Hollywood Boulevard, directly opposite Graumann’s Chinese theater, on the Walk of Fame. A glittering setting for a games gathering!

This was a conference for industry insiders: game company executives talking to each other and to representatives from related business, focusing on “The Future of Connected Entertainment.” To a gamer, hearing about the industry from this point of view was an eye-opening experience.

Platformania

I expected to hear a rehash of the old PC-vs-Console debate; instead, I found a much broader orientation, with PCs and consoles taking a role beside interactive set-top boxes from companies like DirectTV and mobile devices, including handheld game systems and phones.

The recurrent theme was that developers will develop for whatever platform players want to use; and increasingly, the same games will be available on different platforms. Developers want to keep people connected to their products at all times, wherever they are. Turner emphasized that when the content is on the server rather than on a local device, it can be delivered to any internet-connected platform. An example proposed by Yuen and echoed by other participants was the idea that you could access the World of Warcraft Auction House from your cell phone – or even grind xp or gold. An alternative model proposed by Roberts of this “play-anywhere” vision involves games running locally (rather than on servers) in a home whose devices are all connected to one another.

However, these ideas have significant hurdles to overcome before they can be realized. The average user wants dedicated devices, since connecting everything requires technical skill; but nobody wants to buy lots of different boxes which only do one thing. And different platforms have different strengths: as Early mentioned, mice are good for aiming guns, but joysticks are good for moving your character. Early pointed to the failure of Shadowrun, an MMO that supported play on both the Xbox 360 and the PC, as an example of how difficult the cross-platform goal is to achieve.

Networking is play

There’s interest everywhere these days in social networking, and this conference was no exception. One connection relates to the success of embedding games like Scrabulous on networking sites; another involves marketing games by giving them pages (Cook mentioned that Scarface on MySpace has 100,000 friends). Early pointed out that you want to share your games with your friends, but you don’t always want to play at the same time as them; networks need to be accessible both within and outside the game.

Zicherman took the surprising view that social networks are a game. Just as socializing occurs within games and portals like Pogo, competition and “play” also happen on social networking sites. On MySpace and Facebook, and even the professional networking site LinkedIn, people compete for rankings and friends. He pointed to a site which ranks LinkedIn members according to their connections as an example of competitive networking.

Bellows raised another example in PMOG, which turns web browsing into a game by treating the Web as the game world in an MMORPG. Blacklow pointed out that watching TV becomes a game when you participate by voting on reality shows, or playing along at home with game shows; participation in interactive TV skyrockets when prizes are involved.

Every day is Casual Friday

Vast numbers of people (70% of Internet users) play “casual games” (defined as games that are easy to get and easy to play), and they’re suitable for any platform. Though much mention was made of the “typical casual gamer” – who is supposed to be a woman over 35 who is inspired by “aspirational” gameplay like the heroine of Diner Dash – these games are mostly downloaded, and the person whose credit card is charged may not be the player. All gamers are probably causal gamers at least some of the time.

Everybody’s getting into this market, which also includes most mobile games. Another stat from Ballard’s keynote: there are 1.3 billion Internet users worldwide, but 3.3 billion cell phone users. Phone games need to be as easy to get and to give as online games.

When’s Payday?

Buzzword number one at the conference: “monetization.” The days of buying games in boxes are on their way out: increasingly, players want to download their games, and they want to do it for free, which leaves developers with the challenge of how to eat. Three main models for monetization were discussed: paying outright for your game, paying by exposing your eyeballs to advertising, and paying via micro-payments for in-game items or related merchandise. One strategy is to deliver the game free at first, and then ask for money when the player is deeply into it. Most conference participants seemed happy with giving players a choice among payment options where practical.

Up, up and awaaaaay

The vision of the future that emerged from the conference was a bright one overall for both gamers and game makers. If the speakers’ ideas are realized, we’ll see boxed games give way to downloads, games becoming free or cheap at least initially, players staying connected to their games and each other from any device anywhere, and TV and movies and music and games increasingly inter-penetrating each other. Ultimately, the speakers predict that gaming will everywhere, and everything will be a game: that last idea puts a smile on my face