Where Game Meets The Web - Raph Koster

[Son of Bryce]

If you haven't heard of Raph Koster before, he's an ex-producer at Sony Online Entertainment. He has a blog at raphkoster.com , which covers many gaming related topics. Yadda yadda...

But anyway I just heard a speech that he gave at GDC from the Gamasutra podcast about how the internet is changing the game industry. As game developers I believe it's important to keep in mind how things are changing on a daily basis and we've got to pay attention to the opportunities that arise. The focus of the presentation is about how "Web 2.0" is changing the ways games are distributed and how development costs are rising and "what are we gonna do???!!!".

Anyway you can download the mp3 of the speech here. (15MB). And the slides that accompany it are here. It's 68 minutes long.

I thought it was interesting to listen to his ideas, it definitely jotted my brain. After hearing the news about Club Pengiun, I'm sure there's a lot more of us plotting and scheming. haha

[phreax]

Ok, It'll be playing in the bg for the next Thanks for sharing both the blog link and the speech

[Squize]

I've got to be honest I've not listened to it yet, but from what I've been reading lately, it's funny that the game industry is embracing web 2.0 principles ( From the poster boy LittleBigPlanet, to Halo 3 ) but we're not when our medium is the web by default.

Line Rider is Flash's 2.0 baby, but it's not even a game. I think it's going to be a while before we catch up ( Which is so weird when we should have been leading ).
It's a hell of an effort making a great game ( I'm sure everyone here will agree ), but then to think in terms of making it expandable, allowing the user to create skins / levels / whatever and then making an easy to upload and show / share site is just beyond the vast majority of us. And in terms of paid work, well that's just not going to happen is it.

There will be something stunning in Flash that has all these features, and hopefully raise the bar, and I can't wait. But until then...

Squize.

[ThinkerThinker]

but then to think in terms of making it expandable, allowing the user to create skins / levels / whatever and then making an easy to upload and show / share site is just beyond the vast majority of us. And in terms of paid work, well that's just not going to happen is it.

I agree with you, in general, that we need to up the level of games produced for the web in terms of user generated content. I think one of the issues is indeed budget. Clients see all the games they can get for free or for next to nothing and then cannot understand why you want to ask a decent amount or something really great.

Part of the solution is to put a convincing case in terms of return on investment for spending all the money. What we have been doing as well is to build a game, then re-skin and resell the engine adding a couple of new features at a time. With our latest game release, Orsum Island Explorer, we are now in the process of adding a game level editor so kids will be able to create their own game levels, upload them and get others to play and rate the levels. At some point we will then expand this so you will be able to create and upload your own tile graphics as well.

I think, in the absence of huge budgets, we need to do it one bit at a time. It also helps talking to the right kind of clients but what is imperative is to make the business case for developing the game.

Philippe

[Squize]

True, but it's still a bit of a catch 22.

The clients who have the good budgets don't want to see their games re-skinned. They want to own it body and soul, and when you're talking that sort of money you can't really blame them.

The clients who don't mind reskinning, ie, the smaller businesses who can afford some exclusive content but can't afford a huge epic, or the gaming portals who don't mind a reskin, don't pay that great, so you have to recoup the development time by selling a couple of versions of the same game ( Engine ).

I think it's great that you add content rather than just churning out a reskin, but it's still a case of 4/5 iterations down the line before you can make it the game it would have been first time around given the deadline and budget.

Hopefully clients will realise that an active community behind a game can keep the traffic high, and then that an active community is more than just a message board.

Squize.

[ThinkerThinker]

I know what you are saying is absolutely true (in my experience, anyway) but I must also admit that, being a very small studio, we would not be in a position to do a huge epic game anyway, so for us it is doing the best we can within the area of the market we operate in. Sometimes we do more work that the client pays for but that's done if the project has either marketing value for us or it involves a game engine we are confident we can re-sell.

Having said that, there is one other glimmer of hope. We have recently put together a business plan for a massive new online development (not a game ), got others interested who have expertise in areas we do not cover and who are now in the process of securing major investment for the development. I think if you want to do an epic game then that's how to do it. If you have a brilliant, unique idea and a really solid business plan that shows the likely returns on investment based on proper market research then I am sure the money is out there. In our case we got a partner in that was string in the corporate finance industry and they developed the business plan. Even though they take a percentage of the business their input and continued involvement is invaluable. Collaboration is the key.

[Thomas Aquinas]

Thanks for the links, some great insights in there.

After hearing the news about Club Pengiun, I'm sure there's a lot more of us plotting and scheming. haha

*Skulks off to write up global domination plans...

[Alluvian]

Tiny bit of background on Raph for those wondering. His first claim to fame is being the brains behind Ultima Online. He has always been very vocal about virtual communities and has some brilliant (if insanely hard to implement) ideas on the subject. He led the development of Star Wars Galaxies as well. As much as the game has received criticisms (and well deserved) it did many things very well. The crafting and the economy interactions (Raphs babies) were very very good.

Unfortunately they buckled to fan pressure and removed some important crafting interactions pre-launch, the combat engine was abyssmal, and they went with a slow Oracle database system which struggled constantly with the HUUGE amount of unique items spat out by the crafting system.

Oh, their terrain engine was also brilliant (and again crippled by the database).

I wish Raph the best. He is one of those guys I wish I could lock in a bubble with a time machine so he could spend a lifetime developing his gaming ideas without the time and money pressures of game development, and when done, use that time machine to come back and let us see what he made. Seems like a darn nice guy as well. I have met him in passing at a few conventions (GDC being one).

All that said, thanks for the post! I didn't see this GDC (my wife got to go, lucky thing, but she tells me she didn't get to see his speech and is now poking me to download this.)

[phreax]

Just to add to the topic, there are several videos with Phil Harrison - also a Sony guy - introducing the concept "Game 3.0". It's sort of the Web 2.0 standard of the gaming world - or at least how Sony sees the game trends...I especially like an upcoming game from Media Molecule called LittleBigPlanet but what bugs me about this game is that most of the features could've been made just as well in Flash with the talent I see around here...If a FK dream team had the time, that's where I see a Flash community game going! To those of you who haven't seen a trailer for LittleBigPlanet, you really should check this out:
http://www.mediamolecule.com/games.html
There's a video in the bottom right corner. Make it fullscreen and enjoy the 18 minutes

[tonypa]

Even when in theory you could make LittleBigPlanet in Flash you would still need 2-3 years of talented crew working on it.

[everfornever]

very talented indeed.

Flash reallyneeds to stepup and create a 3d plugin similAR TO DIRECTOR before other companies like this start producing web based 3d games. SOE has the ability to create 3d web games and produce there own engines, ie ps3, and it wont be long until flash is obsulete.

People like 3d and developing in 3d is alot easier, manipulating skeletons and attaching removing 3d parts such as charcter equipment, housing maps, all kinds of things are much easier done in a 3d enviroment.

Most my time spent in flash is converting 3d renders into 2d flashable graphics, and when dealing with things like the above game, a 3d engine would be alot easier to work on han dealing with the billions of sprites that would be needed.

[Squize]

Ever, I think you're looking at things with 3D rose tinted classes slightly.

Flash as a platform can be cutting edge where it comes to web 2.0 ( I can't be the only one who hates that term ? ), 3D has nothing to do with it.

As to "SOE has the ability to create 3d web games and produce there own engines, ie ps3", I think more people would rather use a free Flash plug-in, albeit in 2D, than buy a ps3.

Squize.

[Alluvian]

Yeah, but SOE develops for the PC as well. So anything made for the PS3 could be made for the PC. It would have much higher system requirements of course.

[everfornever]

just looking at 3d games made in director over 3 years ago and then looking at pv3d, just makes me laugh and wonder at the same time. a 3 year old obsolete program offers superb 3d quality compared to pv3d and yet flash seems to enjoy others developing there 3d side than themselves, instead of finding a way to implement a 3d plug-in similar to director.

Although some of the 3d stuff pv3d offers is up to 50% as good, so I guess were making a little progress towards 3d, just a shame were stepping back 10 years first.

I know pv3d is pretty advanced, but seriously, I was doing similar 3d stuff in q basic in 1995, and had there been equal 3d or drawing programs then as there are today I'd say my 1995 qbasic 3d games would rival flash pv3d.

One other thing I noticed about pv3d is that it doesnt seem to use actual point to point drawing with bitmap facing's, unless I am misunderstood, because even some simple single 3d examples have file sizes over 2 mb, I'd only assume and actuall full level would be over 100mb easy.

Also the space flight game that looks like star wars, man that looks worse than some of the atari games I got laying around.

Just my two sense, and complaints about Adobe not taking 3d seriously with there software.

Please correct anything I said thats wrong.