2012 Game Developers Conference (GDC) Summary

I have to say that I was less than impressed with the 2012 conference relative to the 2011 conference. It appears that the big studios, with the big budgets  and the age old MMO and RPG developers are back with a vengeance. This is in stark contrast to the conference in 2011 where there was more representation of different gaming models and an excitement  about what could be done with the social web and mobile platforms. I am sure there are plenty of new games and new game development startups experimenting with new approaches to the definition of a "game" and actually leveraging the concept of "social mobility" to create some really great game content.  However, GDC does not appear to be particularly interested in giving exposure to and encouraging that future of gaming.

With that said there certainly where valuable take aways from the conference.

Google+ - Google has begun to experiment with games in their social platform. They have "invited" certain game studios and companies to develop and launch games within Google+ on a limited basis. Of course, they have gone the same route as GDC and only allowed big studios/companies, with traditional game content  to participate resulting in less then interesting implementations as a first go in their gaming world. Despite this the representative companies had some interesting commentary about their Google+ deployments.

• 5% Versus 30% Virtual Currency Hair Cut - Unanimously, they all loved the fact that they did not have to pay the Facebook 30% virtual currency transaction fee for using Google currency. Of all of the publishers commented that they "really" liked Google+ for the 5% reason. 
• Traffic And Virality - The game developers indicated that traffic was good enough to make money on their games given the 5% transaction fee. However, they all agreed that the social interaction features where less then desirable and could use more work. Essentially very little help from Google in leveraging social interaction to acquire players.
• Game Platform - The developers indicated that they preferred the Google+ platform over Facebook because it was easier to work with and made mores sense from a developers perspective. They all loved the payment system because it was easy to integrate with their games content. However, they are not abandoning Facebook for Google+. Facebook rocks despite the 30% haircut.
• Applications and Social Network - The developers did indicate that there was a clear disconnect between the application and social environments in Goggle+. Google is far from integrating the two worlds leaving consumers and gamers in the dark about where the games are and how to engage fellow social gamers in games they are playing.
• Questionable Interest In Google+ Or Google+ Games? - The Google+ game presentation was setup in one of the larger rooms and the room was less than 1/3 filled. What does this mean?  It could mean that Google+ itself is not that successful. It could mean that game developers are not interested in Google+. It could mean that Google+'s strategy to cherry pick what game companies to host in Google is turning everyone else off.

Mobile Cross Platform Play - Game developers are starting to explore ways to   build games that can be played across mobile platforms.  This means that game developers are now comfortable with Android and iOS development and see a future combining these communities across the platforms. This certainly seems feasible.

Microsoft Is Back - Microsoft is trying really hard to get the GDC to promote their new mobile O/S as it relates to games. Unfortunately. no one is biting. Once burned twice shy. If Microsoft wants to pay studios to build games for their platform maybe.

Mobile Game Development Platform - Many of the developers and studios insist on developing in Objective C and Java for the two mobile device platforms. HTML5 and Javascript  were mentioned but the emphasis was on native O/S development. I think the reason for this was once again the prejudicial selection of the speakers by the conference. These people are definitely  old school console game developers that feel more comfortable working at the hardware level thus the justification for big studios and large development crews.

Analytics - All the game companies are grinding the numbers and using in-house build analytics with perhaps Vertica BI style tools to supplement the in-house developed reports.  The irony of this is that they are all looking at the same reports; the funnel report, ARPU, ARPPU, K-Factor,etc. Not sure why  vendors such as Kotegent can not host a really comprehensive cloud game analytic solution. However, I do see a new startup(not represented at the conference of course) called GameAnalytics(www.gameanalytics.com) that might have an answer. This area is certainly an investment opportunity for someone!!!

Clearly the 2012 GDC was a flashback to the revenge of the console gamers. GDC is once again promoting this crowd and their mobile and social initiatives. Unfortunately, this emphasis is masking what is really going on in the game world. There are much more interesting and creative games being made. We will just have to explore these games and  meet the people that are making them on our own.

Kevin Flood is the CEO of Gameinlane, Inc. Kevin writes extensively about online games and their impact and integration into iGaming and E-commerce environments. Kevin is a frequent speaker at online game events and conferences in Asia, Europe and the US. Kevin and his Gameinlane team are currently working with online gambling, social gaming and e-commerce companies integrating social gaming with online gaming operations and integrate game mechanics into e-commerce applications.

2011 GDC Takeaway

I was pleasantly surprised to see the end of the video console game focus of GDC this year. The game world has moved well passed xBox, PlayStation and the Nintendo Wii to bigger audiences, better revenue and a more diverse array of game content in casual, social, mobile mediums.

I attended a number of seminars and presentation on a verity of subjects and was impressed by the quality of the  presentations. The following are some highlights.

Zynga In A Buying Mood - Apparently Zynga has decided to start buying up game companies in domains that they are not familiar with.  I sat in on two seminars with speakers from companies that had recently been purchased by Zynga. Area Code now Zynga New Youk is a  company that focuses on community style games in the conventional sense. These games are not standard Facebook social games. They are truly games that address the needs of physical communities. The presentation was on a game they created for the city of Macon, Georgia that encouraged community connections between different area codes using a community virtual currency. Not sure exactly what Zynga plans to do with this kind of company. Area Code is clearly not a Farmville or Poker oriented company. It will be curious to see how the Zynga  Area Code relationship evolves.

New Toy Inc, now Zynga With Friends is the recent mobile game company that Zynga purchased. This makes a bit more sense to me then the Area Code purchase. Zynga needs a mobile strategy and Zynga With Friends helps to bootstrap Zynga into the mobile space. Zynga seems to be taking a hands off approach to this Texas company at the moment letting them create their own versions of games. However, I suspect that things will change over the coming months bringing this group into the Zynga fold resulting in games that are more closely allied with the current Zynga brand.

Sociology Meets Virtual Social Networks - There were a couple of fascinating presentations by academics from  the social science and psychology domains. Their presentations brought to light that there is still much that can be done within virtual social networks(Facebook) to add richness and intrigue to our virtual networking world. It appears we have just scratched the surface of mimicking social interaction on the Web.  The presenters worked for Playdom so these were not disconnected academics. Clearly, we are about to see more interesting social interaction generated by social games that will grow social networks even larger then they are today.

iPad As "The" Game Platform - Graeme Devine and old timer in the game development community  and current Apple employee made it perfectly clear that the iPad is the ultimate game platform. He also made it clear that developers do not know how to develop games specifically for the ergonomics and capabilities of the iPad. Most of the iPad games to date are ports from the web or iPhone making them sub pair and even annoying on the iPad. Given the real estate and the ability to turn the iPad in an direction plus the touch, voice and video capability of the device it is predicted to excel in the delivery of unique and interesting game content. It could be argued that the iPad may become the replacement for the console providing a mobile alternative to console gaming.

Social Game Monetization - There were a host of seminars on social game marketing and the ability to slice and dice a game audience based on age, location and behavior. Much of this is well known with data being actively used to target game content and advertisers. However, the biggest revelation  to me was the amount of money being spent by single individuals on virtual currency and virtual goods. One of the presenters posted a slide/graph representing a  very step curve for a small segment of the social gaming community contributing a very large amount of the total revenue in games. These players were identified as "whales" a common term used in the gambling industry for individuals that spend a lot of money in casinos and in online gambling properties. In fact they are the ones that result in high profits for casinos. Some one in the audience asked how much per player these players were wagering or spending in social games. The answer was between $50,000 to $100,000 per player per year. I found this fascinating and a bit shocking. Apparently the game publishers were catering to these players in a similar way that casino's cater to their high roller customers. This is significant because the conventional wisdom is that social games and gamers do not really generate that much cash. It appears this perception is wrong. When you consider the total amount of social gamers even a small percentage of "whales" in this community actually results in relatively high numbers of players buying significant amounts of virtual goods and currency.

Analytics Are Everywhere -  The degree to which social game play data can be sliced and diced is becoming an art form/science. The social web provides all kinds of data on individuals, groups, advertisements, activities, interests, behavior, etc. We appear to still be in the early phases of the use of this data for targeting, monetization, acquisition and retention.  A game developer has to add features/api's into there games to extract this data if they want to have successful game. Publishers need to have data miners and systems to leverage this data to make a case for their publishing platform. These features could make or break a successful game. Where we cross the line on data mining and privacy is still uncertain. It look's like companies are pushing the limits (within Facebook policy) as far as they can to micro segment the social networking gaming population.

Gameification - Is it a game or a business application? I have written about this before and I am personally involved in the gamification of several applications. This topic was full on with the distinction between a game and an application becoming hard to detect. Check out Mod Cloth  a company that has some clever ways to engage their community to further their business goals.

Clearly, GDC has gone all in and has focused on casual and social games as the wave of the future. The amount of side activity in separate meetings, parties and VC hosted events indicate that all the usual suspects are hot to get into the casual and social gaming space.

In a certain way this is a bit scary because expectations and decibel levels are really high. I could hardly move in some of the VC hosted cocktail parties and of course I could barely hear anyone.  Despite this the conference was actually valuable from a practical perspective. I decided on a couple of new game development and publishing strategies based on information I received at the conference.

Kevin Flood is the CEO of Gameinlane, Inc. Kevin writes extensively about online games and their impact and integration into iGaming and E-commerce environments. Kevin is a frequent speaker at online game events and conferences in Asia, Europe and the US. Kevin and his Gameinlane team are currently working with online gambling, social gaming and e-commerce companies integrating social gaming with online gaming operations and integrate game mechanics into e-commerce applications.