Yesterday’s Gotham Media Ventures breakfast on the future of gaming was expertly moderated by former Activision exec and current President of E-Line Ventures Alan Gershenfeld. It was the type of event you don’t mind rolling out of bed an hour early for — great panelists, smart attendees, and frank conversation. And it was free!
I took tons of notes, but here are a few of the most interesting takeaways:
- 97% of US kids play video games. More than 80 million people visited casual gaming websites in December 2008 alone. And there are more than 100 million Nintendo DS devices currently in use. (Wish I could source these, let me know if you have any ideas.)
- Ben Feder, CEO of Take-Two, explained that there is a “sine wave” associated with the introduction of a new console and innovation around it, typically in the 3-5 years after the console has come to market. He also suggested we may be in the last console cycle. Food for thought.
- Ben also mentioned that while his brands have global appeal, sports titles always do better in North America, while Japan has its own unique market and tastes. He and Lewis Kofsky of Curious Pictures disagreed as to whether it’s better to globalize your development workforce (Ben) or pay top dollar for local talent (Lewis). No matter where the development happens, Peter Marshall of DeWitt Stern noted that more and more big studios (like EA and Activision) are looking to pick up content from boutique shops.
- Wade Tinney from Large Animal Games pointed out that while the old game production model was akin to consumer packaged goods, he sees a game’s launch date as just the first step in its lifecycle. He argued that it’s important to pay attention to how the community responds to the game and to continually add features and tweak as needed. He also mentioned that Large Animal is getting away from microtransactions and moving toward the “$100 diamond bowling ball” type of payment, where “1-2% of the players fund everyone else’s experience,” as opposed to forcing everyone to fork over a buck.
- The jury is still out on the iPhone app store. A lot of the games were seen as “straight shovel-ware” imports from pre-existing flash games. That said, everyone in the industry is paying close attention to ngmoco. Even though the barrier to entry is low, it’s very difficult to get your iPhone game noticed in the “oversaturated” marketplace. One panelist alluded to a new P2P gaming platform that will be available on the iPhone sometime this summer.
- All panelists agreed that it’s less about producing a great game than about creating great intellectual property (Wade) or launching a great brand (Ben). They carefully consider a game’s multi-platform, multi-channel possibilities when setting out to produce any new piece of work.
I bumped into Ben Hargreaves from PickTeams/GoCrossCampus in the elevator on my way up. You may have seen him present at Web2NewYork in March. We agreed it would have been interesting to get someone from the ITP posse (like Area/Code, or one of the guys from Foursquare) on the panel. Next time.
Gotham Media Ventures is holding its next breakfast, Covering an Economy in Crisis: Does the Media Matter?, on May 6. If it’s anything like the one I attended yesterday, go.
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