Ludus Florentis - Embracing Change in the Games Industry - Extra Credits

Something's happening within the game industry, something big. Everybody working in games can just feel it creeping up. We're coming up on a pivot point here, a sea change, and it's not just any minor shift in the way we do business, though that'll probably happen, too. It's something bigger than that. Dramatic rhetoric aside, we are at a very important juncture for this industry and this medium, and it's got us pretty excited. So, bear with us while I try to define what that change is, how we got here, and what it means for us going ahead. A lot of this is going to be exciting, some of it may be a little scary, and some of it may just sound downright bad to some of you, but just hear me out. Before we get to talking about this big change, let's have a look at the numerous causes that are leading us to it. They're all important in different ways, so in no particular order, number one, game schools. For the first time in history, game creation is being taught as a focus of higher education. From the bachelor's degrees given out by DigiPen or Savannah College of Art and Design to the master's degrees offered by more

traditional universities such as USC or CMU, people are now getting rigorous formal training in game crafting before they even set foot in the industry itself. But perhaps even more importantly, these institutions are providing the next generation of game developers with a safe place to innovate and create outside of a corporate environment. Game schools are going to do for us what film schools did for film. They're a place for wild experimentation and innovation, where dedicated energetic young people can learn from each other and formulate new ideas as a group. Our Coppolas, Lucases, and Scorseses are going to come from these schools. But it gets even better. On top of the fact that students will be leaving with fresh ideas and the know-how to enact them, these schools will offer another opportunity not granted by the industry itself, the opportunity to conduct extended research, the opportunity to study games without having to find a guaranteed return on the research. That's big. Now, admittedly, these schools and the industry don't always see eye to eye, and communication between the two still leaves much to be desired, but that relationship is being improved every year. Both academia and the corporate side of gaming are beginning to see the undeniable value in what the other does. Number two, the first generation of people to grow up with video games in

their homes is coming into its own. We're turning into responsible, even influential adults. All right, well, not all of us, but a lot of us. Not only do we have more money to spend on leisure than we did as kids, but we also have a great desire to see it legitimized, to see it become as respectable as playing golf or going to the theater. But, the films we flocked to as kids aren't the same films we watch as adults, are they? Sure, we still enjoy our old favorites, but our tastes change and mature as we grow. We roll our eyes now at movies that would have blown our minds when we were kids. Films that would once have put us to sleep, we now appreciate on a deeper level. We demand more, and that's becoming true of our taste in games as well. We're beginning to demand new types of games, games with maturity and thought, games that can fit into our hectic and increasingly demanding lives, games that can be played respectably with a spouse or family. That demand is pushing the boundaries of what we consider a video game to be. It's opening up new markets and forcing game makers to rethink the variety of subject matter a game can cover. It's even forcing the industry to consider new delivery methods and platforms for these experiences, ones which better fit into the lives of adults. Number three, broadening demographics. The term gamer has begun to lose all

meaning. At best, it's an outdated pejorative stereotype. But, today, gamer doesn't just mean us. It also means our moms and grandmothers, that five-year-old out on the swings, and the cop directing traffic. Today, the gamer is the lawyer and the doctor and the movie star. This broadening demographic is calling on the industry to create games which suit their unique diverse needs, and the industry is slowly beginning to comply. That grail of designer myth, the universal game, will soon become a reality, simply because the raw economics of gaming's diverse new audience demand it. Number four, distribution methods. Six years ago, you had to be working on a $30 million project or developing for the PS2 or the Xbox. Since then, a quiet revolution has occurred. Today, there are myriad of platforms with millions of users which are easy and low-budget to develop for. These new distribution methods have lowered the barrier of entry to being a game developer, which in turn has increased the amount of content being put out and people's willingness to take risks, and that leads to innovation. That innovation is happening right now on the App Store, Facebook, Xbox Live, PSN, Wii Ware, Steam, browser-based games, and so on. And it's going to have

a greater effect on gaming's future than all the $50 million Call of Duty clones money can buy. Number five, technological advances. We're always going to be limited by the tech available to us, but we've finally reached an important balancing point. Since the inception of video gaming, graphics capabilities have always been a limiting factor. They pigeonholed games as children's entertainment and restricted the kinds of experiences the medium could deliver. But today, we've reached an important milestone. Game visuals have finally reached a respectable quality. And because trying to push graphical fidelity even further is crazy expensive, from a business perspective, the most bang for your buck is no longer in searching for the next graphical plateau. That's never happened before. And it means that more money is going to start flowing to other areas, like R&D, design, writing, sound, music, and more. Number six, tools. As limited as we always are by technology, we're even more limited by our capacity to use the tech we have. But in the last 10 years, game development has gone from an impenetrable wall of cryptic recondite arcana to something much more approachable. We're still not to the point where making games is as easy as picking up a camcorder and hitting the on switch. But James has seen eight-year-olds remake Asteroids, and

today's college kids are able to turn out next-gen experiences. We're entering a period where the tools available to us will drastically reduce the cost and expertise required to create marketable gaming experiences. Of course, this means we'll see a flood of mediocre amateur products, but it also means more independence from the AAA industry system, and an increased number of great works both from within and from outside the AAA industry. So, that's a lot of stuff. The combination of all these factors has put us in a unique, incredible position. Game schools mean more qualified developers are being produced and given a space where they're encouraged to innovate. Lower cost platforms are making experimentation economically viable. Improved tools lower production costs while allowing for a greater degree of amateur and off-the-grid development. Widening demographics demand yet undiscovered game types. The first generation to grow up with home consoles is is in a position to fiscally incentivize the creation of new game types, further motivated to help games be viewed as a legit medium, and graphical fidelity is no longer the main driver for development budgets. So, what does that all add up to? Simply put, what we think of as a game is about to change. Today, we have passion aligned

with economics. We have new fiscally viable platforms, mechanics, and genres opening up. The old AAA game industry and the big budget studios can't possibly employ all of that new talent flooding out of game schools, and that new earning potential for experiences outside our traditional purview of video games is an opportunity ripe for the taking for these young pups. Artistically, this means we're going to be seeing new genres, new subject matter, new methods of play. People are going to be interacting with games in ways we can't imagine, and through devices we cannot now conceive of. The breadth of experiences the industry will be asked to deliver a decade hence will be limited not by market, but by imagination. Commercially, this diversification could possibly end up fracturing the industry, splitting it into a group of branching industries, much like the edutainment or serious game industries of today. But, I think more likely it'll just expand the range of people making games, and maybe decentralize the industry a bit. The big ships of today, the publishing giants and console manufacturers, they'll certainly retain control over the areas they currently dominate. But, many of them are ill-equipped to deal with the emerging markets and smaller project groups that will herald this change. The

new platforms will provide new ways for developers to get their products to market, opening up space for a broad range of smaller publishers and developers. This, in turn, will allow for smaller, more focused groups to be commercially viable, addressing only niche markets, which again will further our acceleration toward a limitless spectrum of games. We are today becoming one of the world's most important mass media. We have the opportunity, at this particular turning point, this brief moment in time, to determine whether our medium will end up like television at its worst or something without parallel, a grand interactive art. But, this concept scares a lot of people. Often people criticize the games as art crowd, claiming we want to take the fun out of games or turn everyone into indie developers. This is patently not what being an art means. Art simply means giving something back, providing your audience with something that enriches their daily lives even after they put the controller down. And in this way, many games are already works of art, but there's so much further we can go. And every day I see companies large and small taking strides in that direction. Why? Because making a profit and creating something worthwhile do not have to be concepts set in opposition.

No one's calling for the industry to tear down their cubicle walls or stop making blockbusters. No one wants a world with only French art house games steeped in ennui and devoid of fun. All that's being asked is that we step up and accept our place as a mass media. This tide is coming. I'm not sure it can be fought, but it can certainly be embraced. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next week.