Monitoring Your Community During the Holidays

Community management is a role that demands 24/7 attention toward the community, especially during the holidays when they are most likely playing your game. What do you do when everyone else is out of the office and you are alone to patrol the player gauntlet?

The reality of the holidays is that they can be as much work for you as normal office hours, at least if you are not prepared remotely. You might be on a team that has no resources to hire either internal or contracted moderators from services like Metaverse Mod Squad. Here are some quick tips and resources for keeping the community in line, and your sanity in check.

Don't Leave Home Without It

The best way to mitigate potential issues and put your mind at ease is to ensure you know who to call, and what tools you need when issues arise. Have these following tools at the ready (keep in mind your company's policy for sensitive hardware and software):

• Contact list of the following individuals:
  • Your direct manager
  • Everyone on your team
  • Other department leads, especially CS, IT, and PR
  • International and other location office main numbers
• Sync with customer service on what you need them to be aware of (known unruly players, reoccurring spam attacks, planned server down times)
• Status of in-progress builds (game, website, and all other active resources)
• Recent and upcoming build notes
• General software you can install on a home computer (your company may provide all full-time remote workers with a computer here)

Your Community Eyes & Ears

Find those reliable community members that can keep you updated when you are busy opening presents. Get them together on a central chat server such as Discord or Skype. This will allow them to discuss potential concerns and instantly communicate them to you.
Especially if your community is large enough, see if there's someone interested to help lead monitoring (but not necessarily moderate) in each of these areas:

• In-game chat and general game server status monitoring
• External chats, including store sourced hubs like Steam
• If an open world game, general in-game wanderers
• Official website and discussion forums
• Social networks like Facebook and Twitter
• Other networks like Reddit, Digg, Instagram, etc.

Preparing For The Worst

Here's a list of scenarios that may happen during the holidays. I've listed them from absolutely going to happen, all the way down to the very unlikely but definitely not impossible.

Consider each of these and who you are going to call if something needs to be dealt with that is beyond the toolset that you have. Make a list, check it twice, then find out who's naughty or nice...

• Player concerns and questions about their game account
• Positive praise of some kind (an immediate response may not be needed, but don't neglect upstanding community members upon returning to the office!)
• Unruly players needing a suspension/ban
• Spam on all social platforms and in the forums
• Game wide peformance issues
• Game/server crash
• Website/registration crash
• Leak of unreleased content
• A dev account was hacked, or someone is impersonating them
• Someone in the company or on your team spills the beans on an unreleased item, or worse, starts an argument with the community on balance or other concerns.

The last item should be impossible, but unfortunately it can happen. Before you leave for the holidays, be sure to fully brief everyone that has posting privileges so they understand what to say, and what NOT to say, to the community! Remind other departments as well of the general policy.

Data Driven Monitoring Tools

Aside from boots on the ground, there are also tools that can help automatically alert you to problems. Subscribing to the following will cover most areas:

• Internal software: In-game, forums, and any official game blogs
• Social networks: Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook as primaries
• Website analytics: Hootsuite, SproutSocial, and Ninja Metrics

If something goes wrong or needs your immediate attention, you will find out on one of these platforms or through your community, even if the issue occurs elsewhere. If time permits though, due check every key area of your community... just in case.

Mobile Is Your Friend

Nearly every tool that you use on your main office computer has a wonderful app you can quickly download to your phone. Both Android and iPhone versions are likely going to be available for:

• Google suite (Docs, Sheets, Calendar, etc.)
• Social Media: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine
• Team Tools: Basecamp, Confluence, JIRA, Trello
• Analytics: Google, Hootsuite, Salesforce, SproutSocial, Topsy, and all social networks

Don't Neglect Dessert!

"I think the line is a lot more fuzzy than it used to be in terms of tools/access. As such, CMs find it harder or are not expected to actually “disengage”, which is healthy for them and their community once in a while." - Nova Barlow, Community Manager

Community can certainly have their cake and eat it too, so know when to take a break. You need time to decompress from the past year's craziness. Community management is stressful enough on a normal day, so take time and enjoy family festivities during the holidays!

To follow more of Mathew's ramblings, visit his website or follow him on Twitter @mathewanderson.

A Primer on eSports Communities

ESPN, a popular sports TV network, aired an eSports event for the first time earlier this year. Some of their viewers balked at seeing kids playing games, instead of their much more serious physical sports players. Regardless of this knee-jerk reaction, the airing was an all-around success, and signaled that eSports is not just a passing fad or a niche game industry term.

The game industry is just starting to push against the notion that sports are only a physical activity. While eSports is similar to your garden variety physical sports on the competitive level, it's all played in electronic form, thus the 'e' part of the name. While you still have the physical component in super-fast mouse clicking reaction times and hotkey presses, eSports games are almost entirely intellectually grounded. Mind over matter truly takes on a new meaning here.

What is an eSports community?

The great thing about sports of any kind is that they brings together players in a fun and competitive environment. This is usually on a reoccurring basis in such a way as to build a community around the players. Everyone is involved and collectively engaged from match to match, season to season. eSports communities are just as involved as traditional sports communities in this regard, they simply play in front of a computer instead of in the stadium (though this is changing too).

An eSports community differs from other online game communities the most for two reason that tend to go hand-in-hand; heightened competition and live broadcast coverage.

Heightened competition is the combination of the player base and game itself both developed around a competitive environment. Nearly all MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) games are of this nature, such as DotA, SMITE, Heroes of the Storm, and League of Legends. Starcraft 2 is another prime example that fits into the RTS genre. There are also FPS games like Unreal Tournament that have this capacity with more genres seeing games developed for eSports every year.

Live broadcast coverage started with pre-recorded matches uploaded to sites like YouTube. Combined with the ever increasing power of computers and faster Internet connections, Twitch and other broadcast services quickly grew in popularity, providing true live action to anyone around the world. Watching online matches is now even easier than your traditional sports event via television.

Building a community from the ground up

Building an eSports community begins with many of the same tools and resources you will build any community by, but with the same above emphasis on competitive play, as well as ensuring that competitive atmosphere doesn't become toxic in the discussion forums and other social areas.

If you are part of a studio looking to build your first eSports community, a few starter ideas and tools will be critical in supporting players looking to both spectate and be spectated. I've listed out some of the more immediate ones below:

Suggested starter tools:

- Pre-emptive rules and guidelines for the entire community
- A subset of these rules with legal backing for tournaments and other competitions
- Additional supplementary rules that focus on mitigating toxic players
- Multiple moderating tools both on the website proper, and in-game
- Livestreaming website (Twitch or YouTube are prime choices)
- Livestreaming software (OBS or XSplit are good choices)
- Preferably two shoutcasters (not necessarily from the community dev team)
- Programs that engage the wider community from the core competitive players
- A thick skin when things get ugly or go horribly wrong (which they will)
- Support by the studio to empower you to do all of the above, including a recording space

Recognizing community leaders

Expect community members of all types to be participating in the forums, on Reddit, and other social networks you've established. While forum trolls are always going to be right around the corner waiting for an opportunity to disrupt the community, so too will the more positive community members that want to help make it grow. These other members are the ones you want to empower.

Recognizing toxic players

Toxic players are those that either intentionally or inadvertently cause problems for the rest of the community. Not only that, but the behavior can quickly go viral and cause others that would not normally exhibit such behavior to become toxic themselves.

Select examples of toxicity:

- Attempting to corral other players to promote a negative message to others.
- Shouting profanities toward players, regardless of direct intent toward another player.
- Calling out new players in a way that excludes them from being part of the community.
- Continually dropping out of games, feeding points to the opposing team, or otherwise disrupting the normal flow of gameplay.
- Any other type of behavior that doesn't promote a positive community response.

As long as you have the tools above and an experienced community team ready to handle toxicity, your community will grow. Keep in mind though that toxicity may never entirely go away. Having the tools to manage it with the community recognizing that you have the power to handle it, is what's most important.

The eSports future is bright

The industry is starting to see eSports spectatorship that goes back to what gets fans of traditional sports communities so excited; the live stadium. More room is made every year at events like PAX, gamescom, and Tokyo Game Show for eSports tournaments.

Whether players are competing in a physical showdown in real life, or virtually between their minds and the more than occasional press of the mouse button, is all indifferent to the results of the event. It's a sport, and that's what counts... including the final score of course.

Windows 7 and PC gaming

Microsoft pushed the PC as a major gaming platform particularly hard when Vista was released. It has since largely failed in achieving this objective. Microsoft’s head of their Games for Windows Live division was laid off earlier this year, and just before that the ACES and Ensemble studios were shut down. These are just a few key indications of how Microsoft is taking its Games for Windows Live initiative.

How many games have you bought for Vista, specifically because of DX10? Windows 7 isn’t much different than Vista in terms of PC gaming support. DX11 may have a larger impact than DX10 in the long-run, but it will start off just as slow. PC gaming has been in a free-fall in terms of both marketing and support for the past several years. I don’t see Windows 7 solving any of the issues that plague it either, starting with piracy being the dominate concern.

While I feel that the way forward and future growth for PC gaming is clearly through Windows 7 and DX11, I don’t think it will have the impact that some believe it will. Compare Windows XP to Vista and then to Windows 7 in terms of specific gaming support. I’m not feeling the urge to go out and buy a DX11 video card tomorrow. In all likelihood, we’ll see the next generation of consoles succeed in bringing DX11 and Microsoft gaming support, just as Windows 7 passes to its successor.

Promoting original IP

Alganon is an original fantasy MMO IP with only vague similarities to mythological and medieval references that many games share. The uniqueness is in its individual features, such as: the Library, Studies, consignment for the auction house, amongst others. The developers built the game on a foundation of familiarity, then added from there.

There are so many games that share common features, how can you successfully promote your game when the first thing the community usually judges are screenshots that tend to glaringly show off these commonalities? Is it enough to focus on the individual unique components? If we were to hammer into the community that the Library was what made Alganon great, would the game really sell?

I feel one of the keys to successfully promoting an original IP game is to ensure that all content areas are highlighted together when talking about its uniqueness. Show how your character will grow in all areas because of a feature that lets them craft sandwiches while offline. Ignoring content areas or focusing exclusively on a specific feature, won't sell the game.

Regardless of which features are a focus, the game itself needs to have a pull, and that requires active participation to experience. Let the community explore the world as soon as it's ready. This will ultimately tell you if the game will be successful. While it may not be completely unique, does the game have those individual features that make it interesting? Do those features make the game, dare I say, "fun"?

Quest Online is promoting Alganon by listening to the community on what interests them. It amazes me how so many developers brush off the ideas and thoughts of their community. While caution should be taken, as the community is going to have high expectations for your game, listening to them does more than give you ideas, it gives you perspective.

My first 100 days as a Community Manager

A few months ago I wrote about my first month as a developer Community Manager. When first acquiring the position, the expectations I had were wide. While those initial expectations were mostly positive, I looked forward to meeting any challenges that may lay ahead. I also wrote about how I came to choosing this career path, and that if I had not done so I would have regretted it.

An interesting observation since my first month, is that no one in community management is a true expert. There is a chance for each of us to find a niche. I want to help the field in better understanding itself and the direction it will take with the next generation of gamers. Almost any job in the game industry still has this potential, but more so it is found in the community field. Being a part of Quest Online has given me an opportunity to begin exploring that potential.

Everyday our MMO, Alganon, is growing in the public spotlight. We recently entered Private Beta with a target release date of this summer. Fans are pouring in from many diverse backgrounds, hoping we are the answer to gameplay frustrations and waning interest in their current games. While I don't believe any one game can, nor should, be an "answer", I am proud and excited to have the opportunity to show the community a game that at least gives them another unique choice.

A large part of being a Community Manager is to positively bring together individuals and existing groups in a setting where everyone shares a common interest. Where we can work together on a project to produce something all can be a part of and enjoy long after it is "complete". That is what I enjoy most about this career. That it happens to involve game development is simply a bonus.

A Week of GDC 2009

The week has ended and my flight home is but a few hours away. I am returning from San Francisco from a week at the annual Game Developers Conference. This is one of the most important conferences to attend for anyone involved in the game industry. I was fortunate enough to spend my first one as an official representative of Quest Online, LLC. for our MMO project, Alganon.

Besides the meetings with dozens of developers and media representatives, the conference also gave me the opportunity to explore potential for my own site, Events For Gamers. E4G is a media based website dedicated to the collection and tracking of game industry event news and announcements, so you don't have to do it manually via Google. It also tracks upcoming event dates, and archives events no longer in existence.

I was also able to explore all the games on display at the various booths scattered around the conference halls. As I reported at E4G in the days of posts about GDC news from around the web, games like Guitar Hero World Tour were covered by just about every media outlet. I took the opportunity to check them out myself, but came away with mixed feelings about many of the games I saw.

Has anything really changed in the industry? If there has been any sort of shifts over the past year in terms of growth and innovation, I didn't see a whole lot of it. Sure, there were the niche games that had potential for changing the industry... there always are. The question is will any of them make a significant impact on the future of the industry? One of my concerns is the flood of copies, expansions, and sequels that seem to drown out these potentials.

'Braid' is an Indie RPG introduced last year that smashed records on the Xbox Live platform for innovation, simplicity, and style. The best part about the game is it successfully pulls all this off while still offering the familiar. The designer obvious took a couple of pages from the gameplay book of Mario World. While this would immediately be frowned upon as copyright infringement, Braid uses it so well that I didn't even notice this familiarity until several minutes into the game.

Familiarity + Uniqueness = Success, Uniqueness + Uniqueness = Success, Familiarity + Familiarity = Laziness. Follow the first two formulas and perhaps we will see during GDC 2010, or even this upcoming E3 2009, more games worthy of my periodic $50 purchase decisions.

Competing MMO Features

In establishing the Alganon community, there is a growing array of differences and opinions in our forums that have given our developers pause in carefully considering how different features are to be implemented. You can't establish multiple features without eventual conflicts between those features. How do you then please differing opinions and interests?

Alganon is eventually going to be including PVP. While not implemented at launch, we have been carefully considering how the hardcore portion of our community is going to accept this. It is a feature that many want to be completely open and free in engagement. The more casual community members that want to have nothing to do with PVP in a PVE focused game would be in an uproar if we ignored them.

Crafting is another feature that is often split between those that want to gather resources and enjoy combat, while others want to buy and sell crafted items in safer and more social areas. Forcing players to adventure to acquire resources is often something a large portion of the community sees as a constricting independence of their character development. Sure, it is efficient to go out and gather the resources and then create something without the middle-man. Many players though don't want to have to deal with the entire process.

Competing or forced MMO features are more of a lack of good design than anything else. For Alganon, we are implementing localized and instanced areas that allow some interaction between PVP and PVE player scenarios on a volunteer basis. Also, our Consignment system tied to Auction Houses gives the opportunity for gathers to sell raw materials to crafters with them being able to request specific materials they are looking for - no adventuring required.

The questions to ask in game design are; Should we really be catering to both sides of the player base? Are the pressures from publishers and marketing really so strong that we feel we need to please everyone possible, sacrificing good design for a larger and less focused community? Why are games bloated with too many competing features? Is there room for more focused and specialized games amidst the sea of these giants? And, what can we do to cater to both sides of the player base in a way that doesn't force players to compromise their core interests?

Events For Gamers "E4G"

It's always exciting to me when I start planning for a major trip, partly because I don't get to do it very often. Fortunately, I will be attending the upcoming GDC conference in San Francisco. I like helping at these events or getting to know my fellow industry members more, or sharing with them the latest game I am working on. All of which is why I created Events For Gamers, or "E4G" for short.

Events For Gamers was created with the idea that you shouldn't have to search for the date of your favorite event, how much it is going to cost to attend, and simply what the event is all about. Nor should you have to fish through Google to find news from media sites about it.

E4G brings all the core information for all game related events to one place, allowing discussions and community sharing of event news and information. E4G also supports active groups, with a search ability to find others that may be attending a similar event.

E4G caters not only to the casual player, but media, developers, and event coordinators with private forum access for these groups to discuss events in private.

Now that I have E4G in a testing stage, I thought to open it up to my friends here at my blog site to help test the service. I need to identify what needs to be filled in yet that I may have missed, as well as reporting bugs and problems. Also, I would simply like to know if E4G is something useful for media, developers, event organizers, and the general public. This has been a long-running project that I personally think would be useful, but perhaps someone can point out otherwise.

You can find the site at: http://www.eventsforgamers.com

I ask that you create an account, fill in some profile information (whether its accurate or anonymous), and just play around with the site to see what it all has to offer. Your feedback is appreciated. Developers that wish to participate are certainly appreciated as well.

I will be needing news reporters, a forum moderator, a web developer, and someone who can just help keep the site updated. Anyone wishing to volunteer and help out please contact me!

Less Is More

For the past couple of weeks I have been plotting the layout I would place all the furniture I planned to buy for my new apartment. With the old stuff being thrown out, I had a lot of room in the much larger apartment to accommodate some nicer things. It has taken quite a bit of time to whittle down to just a few hundred choices. Yes, I know, that's still a lot. It is almost certainly too much for my apartment, so I must do something to yet further reduce what I want.

Game developers call the occurrence of packing more features into a container which wasn't designed or intended for them as 'Feature Creep'. There are countless games out there that have had this design burden strike their developers. In fact, I seriously doubt if a single game has remained unscathed on some level of feature creep. Designing games is a significant task that takes a lot of time, which goes above and beyond and one person's complete abilities to control.

Two days ago my friends showed me a new game, based solely on the web browser, called 'The West'. It is a game about the American West (surprise) at a time of cowboys and cattle ranchers. The uniqueness about this game, besides its sole place on the web browser, is its simplicity. There are hundreds of ways to play the game, yet only a handful of truly unique options that you start with. The developers crafted unique qualities into the game to give it life and longevity.

What we are seeing in many games released on the market today is sterility, quite frankly. Sterility in innovation and uniqueness on such a scale as to become a catastrophic plague upon the industry. How many shooter games are there? Unique qualities exist, but in most cases they are just another shooter. Instead of guns they may employ lasers, instead of magic wands they may employ mind powers, but they are still "aim, pull trigger, kill, run, rinse and repeat" type games.

While many worry that the game industry is moving too quickly towards casual type games, of which 'The West' is one of them, I feel this trend may allow Indie developers and the industry as a whole induce innovation and creativity on a level that has been slipping away at larger companies. Everyone is too caught up in making money and not making innovative and fun games. It isn't about how many quests a game may have, but how fun the quests are that the game does have.

Calories vs. Game Content

Thursdays are my buffet days. This is the day of the week I splurge on calories and let loose on the diet plan. Before I get into an interesting comparison of what I eat during this festival of foods, I want to mention an experience I had while in China last year that jump-started this diet plan I am still using today. A plan I should probably get off of.

When I left for China I weighed 195lbs. When I came back a year later I weighed 125lbs. I was also 125lbs. just six months into my journey there, effectively slashing my weight by more than a third in a half a year. I did this through exercise, a massive change in diet, and some positive thinking. While it wasn't easy, I did end up dropping calories a bit more than I should have.

Upon returning home I was yelled at by my doctor for being underweight. Part of the problem was in counting calories so stringently. I'm very analytical and methodical. Perhaps a bit obsessive now in the food department as well. 50 calories here, 35 there, 1/2 hour until I can eat 225 calories for lunch, maybe 450-500 calories for dinner, etc.

At the buffet today I finished off my splurge in calories with a large spoonful of banana pudding. The very best pudding one can possibly have, taste wise anyway. In returning home I looked up how many calories that spoonful contained. I was dismayed in learning it contained over 200 calories, in just one spoonful! The carrot I am eating right now has 4. I would need to eat 50 carrots to equal that spoonful of banana pudding.

Good games don't need to have a huge amount of content to be enjoyable, much like how we expect tasty foods to have a large amount of calories. I love my carrots almost as much as I love banana pudding. It is about the balance and focus of my health and percentage of positive gain that makes carrots appealing. Just as it is with a small game that gives you great content to explore, instead of a game that ultimately has more content and fun experiences, but leaves you wondering if it was worth playing.

The carrot is extremely low in calories and has a great crunch when eating it. A lot of games would be more successful with less content that is of a higher quality. We would enjoy playing through the game over and over far more often, just like me eating carrots every day for a snack without getting sick of them. It may take some time to get used to, but we'd love the new experience soon enough.

Did I mention carrots were cheaper than banana pudding?

The definition of "Community Manager"

When someone says to me, "I am a community manager", the first thing that goes through my mind is that they manage some sort of community. Makes sense after all, right? The problem with the definition of community manager begins with the separate meanings of each of the two words, and then the resulting definition after you combine them.

What community are you referring to and how exactly are you managing them? The words and combined meaning are so broad, there have actually been abuses to their use. "Yeah, I am a community manager. I just so happen to manage for my neighbors in our community when they need someone to take care of their kids." Sorry, but that isn't a community manager. That is what families typically call a "baby-sitter" or a "house-sitter".

There have been many other loose interpretations, but the source issue is the fact that there are simply a lot of legitimate community mangers that have a variety of job functions and tasks that often merge with other positions in their companies. Call center support, marketing and production are just a few of those areas that will have a community manager involved.

The definition of "Community"

Dictionary.com definition - "a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage."

A community is essentially a group of living elements that share common traits and goals with each other. You could say that a forest is a community of trees. They all go through the same overall life cycle as other creatures around them, and are close enough together to provide a habitat for those creatures. All of which in turn provides further life and support for the entire ecosystem, which is the community of the forest.

When we often think of a community however, humans are usually involved in that vision. Humans are drawn to communities for support, protection, and mental well-being. Many of the same traits the trees in a forest share, except of course for the mental well-being part. These groups can range from a handful of members to well into the millions (and for humans into the billions).

As with the title of "Community Manager", there are no solid boundaries in numbers. From this point forward I will be shortening the phrase to the common acronym of "CM".

The definition of "Manager"

Dictionary.com definition - "a person who has control or direction of an institution, business, etc., or of a part, division, or phase of it."

To make things even more interesting, the definition and use of the word "manager" is even broader than that of "community". Managers may range from a garden tender managing his produce, to a CEO that manages a garden of a few thousand workers. Whatever the scale though in what they manage, managers are there to ensure a smooth operation. You certainly wouldn't want anything going wrong with that sewer pump, would you? The manager will take care to ensure knowledgeable staff are on hand to deal with the crisis, we hope...

I have to admit that I have even had one of those "yeah, I've managed, sure..." positions that I've been accused of mentioning more than once. Often my friends would gather at my home to play computer games. It was typically my responsibility to ensure access to enough computer space, a selection of available games, and of course a fully stocked fridge. I was the "CM" for my local LAN party. Not exactly a true definition to the title, but you can see how it sometimes doesn't have a clear boarder. What job title really does? A 3D facial artist perhaps.

A game developer CM

What is a CM when you're talking about the game industry? There are two key groups that are both distinct, yet work closely with one another that share the same goals and values. They are the official game CMs and the media network CMs. They both work online with the community, as well as the developers and their own immediate team.

There is only one outstanding difference in what a game developer CM does vs. a media one. Game developer CMs often have the added task of working with marketing in an official capacity. The key theme to recognize is that a CM's duties are to provide a link between all parties. Depending upon the organization and how closely they are with the game developers will determine their exact duties.

The way CMs link these groups are through the following important methods:

1) Keep the community excited about the game they play through developer Q&A
2) Keep the developers informed of player related feedback regarding their games
3) Represent the studio in a liaison capacity to publishers and all other parties involved
3) Post daily news and update their site to keep everyone "on the same page"
4) Interact in their site forums to stir discussions and for the above items
5) Attend events and marketing promotions to encourage excitement and growth for the game

Communication, or lack thereof

The CM ought to really be called the CCM, or "Community Communications Manager", as almost all of their duties and focus rely upon being able to effectively communicate from one group to another. The community relies on the CM to tell them what the developers are doing, while the development team relies on the CM to tell them how the community is reacting to the experience of playing their game.

Here are just a few of the things that can go wrong, or at least not function efficiently when there is a poor CM on your team, or worse, a lack of one altogether:

1) Players yelling at no one in particular because the game is broken and no one is telling them why
2) Developers yelling at players because they don't have a proper channel to go through (the CM)
3) Marketing yelling at the developers because their are no players playing their game!

4) No one yelling at anyone because nothing is being communicated about anything, so everyone just gives up and goes home because there is no money left to finish building a game the community knows nothing about.

The importance of CMs is becoming more apparent every year. Companies in all industries are finally realizing how important it is to have an online human presence that can properly and proudly represent the company, while continuing to be a communications bridge between all parties involved.

I am proud to be a community manager. I love learning about people and discussing their needs, and how I can help fulfill those needs. The trick in the trade is to get everyone else to come together with you and share those same goals.

Success for me is in the process

Some of us have a hard time getting started on a project, whether the project is a simple as mowing the lawn, to as complex and risky as starting a business. Planning can take up a significant portion of a projects life-cycle, especially when you're talking about game design. Even plotting a mowing route around a house requires a little planning (if not to simply avoid mowing over something fragile, like the tennis ball that I mowed over last month). Each project takes that first "oomph" as I like to call it. After that it is all downhill, easy riding... right?

What works for me when looking for the energy in getting started on a project (besides a good cup of tea) is the motivation. You have to have the motivation in order to begin, let alone finish a project. The motivation for most people is typically in how the end results will look if the project is successfully completed. However, it is a bit different for me. I also love to see the end results blossom in all their glory, but the process itself is just as interesting.

For example, I'm currently finishing a book about the game industry. You'd think that at 300+ pages and only 5% left to go, I would be working my hide off getting it finished. I have definitely been working hard on it, but it's been a slower process the last few steps than I expected it would be. It's becoming more of a workout up a mountain than a downhill sled ride. Either way, the end results are worth it. I've been so excited by the process, that getting closer and closer to the end has changed my perception of the project itself.

What is the issue then in completing a project? Believe it or not, success. I'm not talking about Hollywood get-rich kind of success. I'm talking about general "it's done" success, the personal kind that is all found inside one-self, not from the compliments of others. It can actually be scary to finish a project because you suddenly realize you're, well, done... what is their to do next? The next project of course, but what is it to be?!

And that brings me to the point of this blog. The true enjoyment for me isn't in starting a project or finishing it, as it is in simply doing it. The success for me is the process and seeing how the project grows and evolves as time goes on. Don't get me wrong, I ultimately love seeing a project finished, but even if something I am working on fails and is never seen by anyone but myself, it doesn't matter because I know what I did and am simply proud to have done it.

The show must go on

Penny Arcade Expo, GenCon Indie, E3, Game Developers Conference, ION Game Conference, Blizzcon… the list goes on. These are all events that I have attended or will soon be attending in the next several months. You can generally group these events into three important categories: Conferences, Conventions, and Community Events. Sometimes events have a mixed theme, while others have a fairly narrow focus. Whatever they are about, you will often find something rewarding when attending them.

What I enjoy most about these events is when they host a mixed theme. As an editor for the Allakhazam Network, I am responsible in covering the shows on a professional level, and that means taking lots and lots of photos, writing articles describing the important activities that occur, and interviewing developers of key games that we represent on our network. It is a chance to develop industry relations, with the goal that both our companies and teams will help to build each others' presence in the industry.

The other features of these events are just as exciting and rewarding of an experience. Take GenCon Indie for example, an event just around the corner (and one that I have yet to purchase my hotel for… I’m slow at these things sometimes). The typical GenCon Indie scene when walking onto the main show floor is small booths packed from one corner of the hall to the other, all stuffed with their own merchandise to sell or display for upcoming marketing releases. Many of these booths will also have tables setup with their games available for the public to play.

This is the real exciting part about walking around and just “taking it all in”. You get a chance to watch really dedicated players play some of the most classic and challenging board games on the market. Since this is largely a D&D board/card game show, the PC portion is small, but its presence in certain areas is still prominent if you know where to look. I plan on hunting down and stalking the Warhammer Online and Eve Online developers, traditional exhibitors for the past two GenCon Indie shows. These are not only PC games, but MMORPGs that have been watched by the Allakhazam Network for years now.

Once in awhile you will find celebrities and prominent industry figures roaming around that are not part of the show. Two years ago I attended GenCon Indie and turned to ask my friend about what he thought of a booth that had a bunch of knives on display, when out of the corner of my eye I saw someone that looked awfully familiar, yet I couldn’t quite place them. Me being the investigative and curious type when something grabs my attention, I walked closer and let my jaw drop as I realized who it was.

“Sid Meier?” I said to the man as I approached him. He turned to me and smiled, as I threw out my hand that he shook with the smile still on his face, even though he had no idea who I was. He must get that sort of thing a lot, being one of the most famous game designers in history. I didn’t waste time tossing the camera to my friend as I chatted with Sid Meier while my friend took strategic photos of us. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I wasn’t going to pass up. After a few moments I let them go on their way, reluctantly, and continued on with my friend, a smile on my face this time. I then frowned later when I realized I didn’t have any business cards to give him.

The most important thing for me when I attend these shows is not the player excitement, meeting developers for Allakhazam or my own interests, or running into the occasional celebrity (which so far has only happened once). It is the overall event that gives me inspiration to continue on in my game career, and that there really are others out there that share my passions, strengths, and goals, even if in Wisconsin I sometimes think the contrary (we have cows, fields, farms, cheese and milk…).

I will expand my horizons soon, one way or another, but first, I have to get those bus tickets to GenCon Indie. If no one comes to me, I am certainly going to go to them! Maybe I’ll run into Sid Meier this time, and if I do, I will be ready with my business card in hand.

An industry of change

Just like any other industry, the game industry is a fluid and moving target that changes from year to year, even month to month in many cases. Over the years we’ve seen several shifts happening. The demographics of gamers have grown younger, games have been blessed with 3D graphics and 30” LCD monitors, the Internet has allowed us to share our experiences together, and porn has largely been removed from the game industry's advertisement toolbox (seriously).

THE HISTORY OF THE INDUSTRY (CGW Magazine 1984 Issue 14)

Thirty-one percent of gamers who used to play other types of games now play computer games almost exclusively. This net loss (27.5%) confirms what non-computer game companies have suspected: computer games have “stolen” their customers-or at least a good number of them.

What game type do you prefer playing? (Bit-tech survey 2007)

First/Third Person Shooter: 48.53%
Real Time Strategy: 13.68%
RPG: 13.03%
Platform: 1.30%

It's interesting to note in the demographics above that gamers in the 80's were migrating to the PC from arcade and console systems, and that the shift from RPG and RTS games to FPS began not long after. Anyone in the industry today knows where everything is headed now. That is just one of the many changes the industry has since experienced.

In the early days of Computer Game World magazine (CGW) you could find porn advertisements on the back few pages. That should give you a good idea on how things have changed from then and now. It was a different world in the game industry five years ago, not to mention twenty-five years ago. Not only was porn advertising banished from the industry, but along with it went a primarily adult game player demographic (which makes sense then if porn was part of the industry), genres such as Adventure and Simulation, and fun games that were cheap and quick to make. What also left the industry was a general sense of what a good game was really all about.

The industry has changed, but has it changed for better or for worse? Losses of genres I loved, particularly the Adventure genre, were certainly a turn for the worst. And yes, some may say it hasn’t technically “died”, but it might as well have with the less-than-stellar and few-and-far-in-between releases we’ve seen this past decade. What has changed for the better though is technology, which gives us pretty and fast graphics, but also allows Indie developers to publish unique games that might never have otherwise made it into popular view. STEAM and other services are growing, which will allow even more distribution without the heavy-weight publishers helping hands. All of this will come together in the form of Virtual Worlds, giving everyone a chance to share their opinions on how things should progress.

GOING CASUAL - It’s a casual game market now

We’ve seen hundreds of “clones” in all genres the past several years, particularly in the First Person Shooter genre. Games that essentially play and feel like other games. How unique can FPS games possibly get, right? Well, I suspect they can be more unique than we simple players have seen lately, and more unique than the publishers realize as well. The developers have the ideas, but are they able and willing to release them into their games?

Whatever the reason for the clone market and the serious lack of unique games today (save for the once-in-awhile “Spore” type of game), it is throwing the industry into a spin that looks eerily familiar to how we view the movie industry today. There are more clones there too, and if you look closely, do you see what these clones are gravitating towards within their own genre? Simplicity--action packed mindless simplicity. And of course let’s not forget the pure eye-candy of it all. Those beautiful single colored textures that look like they were pulled straight out of a comic-book, or a cartoon.

That simplicity, while maybe not mindless in games, has a form in the industry, and that is in “Casual Games”. Some are good, such as the many online virtual worlds being developed, some are not so good, but they are increasing in numbers that rival any other genre. Fortunately, this is good for the industry as a whole. While we will likely never see Adventure or Simulation games in the spotlight again, they are still there, and part of that reason is through casual games. They bring in the masses, and when you are able to bring in a large group of players it is inevitable that some of those players will find other genres, even those that hardly exist.

THE FUTURE – And the Asians are going to dominate it (as they always have…)

The Chinese game market of nearly USD 900 million is expected to be worth more than USD 6 billion by 2010. The growing China game industry has more than 27 million gamers and there will be 60 million by 2010 consuming $1.8 billion of online games. Internet cafes are gathering places for teens and casual gaming is prevalent, especially with females. It is projected the Asian market will dominant other markets internationally sometime in the next decade, especially online games.

The modern game industry really started in Asia with Japan, and now it’s coming full circle around the globe right back, but this time stopping short and landing in countries like Korea and China. America and the EU might be popular now internationally, but as the years go by we will begin to see more and more Asian specific games going international. Everything changes at one time or another, as we’ll surely see the game industry change in the next few years in ways we have yet to predict.

PPU Ageia/Nvidia Inquirer comments

As if my blog inspired the Inquirer in writing this (yeah right) post I just discovered regarding Aegia and Nvidia's integration of their technology within their GeForce lineup of video cards. This article comments on a slightly older article discussing the technology through Unreal Tournament III:

"NVIDIA HAS BEEN embroiled in controversy over the last few weeks, thanks to the massive score boost it's enjoyed in 3DMark after enabling processing of Ageia Physx routines on the GPU.

Some folks have complained that running physics on the GPU in that benchmark constitutes cheating - Nvidia says it's simply using the technology it paid for - but regardless, what seems to have been slightly overshadowed is the fact that physics on the GPU has real-world gameplay implications right now.

The folks over at TechGage busted out their copy of Unreal Tournament 3 and given it the GPU-physics once over. The results are pretty interesting. When running at a decent-but-not-killer resolution (1680x1050 in this case), the GPU is easily able to handle the load of running both graphics and physics calculations, returning a 50FPS average framerate versus a 31FPS rate for CPU physics calculations (interestingly enough, a dedicated Physx PPU hits 60)."

The full news clip by the Inquirer: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/07/gpu-physics-works-kinda

The older reference clip is here: http://techgage.com/article/nvidias_physx_performance_and_status_report/3

The PPU and what it means for games

Every few years we see a major trend or shift in technology in the gaming industry that intends to redefine the way games are created thereafter. The late 70's we saw console games appear for the home entertainment center, with the introduction of personal computer games in the 80's. In the 90's we were introduced to the glory of 3D cards with the release of the Voodoo 1, which literally added a whole new perspective to games. The past few years everyone's been raving about 3D surround sound systems and thousand dollar home theater setups, just for games! Let us also not forget the internet that has brought about online games.

Now that we've entered a new century, with continued increases in raw computing power that allow advances that give us easier access to ever expanding game worlds, it is only fitting that another new leap in technology for the gaming industry should occur. I eagerly announce that this new technology has finally come to see the light of day amongst the masses. I welcome the introduction of the Physics Processing Unit, otherwise known by Ageia as the PPU. This technology was first intended as a standalone product, but now has come to be known simply as the physics processing capabilities of wherever the technology resides.

The PPU is believed by many to be the next big step in computer gaming. Now that graphics are becoming more and more realistic and games are filling up with unique and rich content, what is left but to spice it all up with a little bit of physics? The company that first drove this new technology to a new level is Ageia. They have been showcasing their add-on boards at the past few trade shows. The first board that they demonstrated is called PhysX, and companies from the gaming industry to the graphics industry are lining up in droves to take advantage of this new technology... but not in the way Ageia first intended.

Let's take a step back for a moment and look at the physics we've seen in the current generation of games. You might be asking yourself, "Many games have physics built in. What do we need this PPU for, which will probably cost us consumers just as much as a $400 video card?" Keep in mind with the PPU we're talking realistic physics effects. Don't be fooled by what may seem like a realistic tree swaying in the breeze but is simply the top rotating in a predefined pattern. Many older games have some sort of physics built into their environments. In fact, nearly every 3D game since the late 90's has at least basic physics support.

The problem is the realism and scope of the physics that's been attempted before. If you take the game Unreal Tournament 2003, it was able to process about 20 different physics interactions at any one time. Interactions for example would be boulders falling from a hillside, or a tree swaying in the breeze. Unreal Tournament 2004 increased that total to 40. Is that really enough though, just 40 different components in an entire landscape? And how well did the game designers really make the physics realistic? Just like how badly the CPU processes GPU specific workloads, the PPU has its advantage in processing physics specific tasks. We need this dedication to bring forth not just 40 physics components, but 4000!

Think about how a burning building has hundreds of interactions, from falling boards to burning furniture, and you quickly come to the conclusion that the number 40 isn't nearly high enough to simulate a real-world scenario to its fullest. This is where the PPU really shines. This means for the gaming fans you'll see truly realistic water effects, realistic movement of grass and flora as you walk your character through a landscape, as well as individual cloud interactions, player animation effects, and all sorts of other physics interactions. You might never even thought about all the various interactions that are possible until your draw drops when you see how real it is with a PPU. Image casting that tornado spell and not only seeing a swirling vortex, but also your character's hair whipping in the wind, the leaves and debris on the forest floor lifting up and getting sucked into the tornado as it moves across the landscape towards your opponents, all with little or no increase in your current computing power.

That is what the PPU will be able to do for us, and it's only the beginning. This new technology may be particularly interesting for those who play fast paced action online games where destruction and mayhem occur all around a character. With a PPU enabled those interactions would look very realistic and not be constrained by only a few interactions. Essentially the PPU may ultimately give game designers a near unlimited constraint towards building new game worlds on a physics level, that truly redefine the way we view our online worlds.

"How will this PPU be installed into future gaming systems and when can I go buy one?"

Earlier this year Nvidia purchased Ageia, specifically to integrate their technology into the GeForce lineup of graphics cards. You won't be seeing separate cards like Ageia was planning, but instead a seamless transition from hardware based physics on a separate card to a more software based solution through the adaptation of drivers, with a little hardware support built right into the existing graphics cards. Who is going to take advantage of this new way of incorporating physics into graphics cards? The game companies of course!

Epic Games was the first to announce Ageia's technology in their latest engine, the Unreal 3 engine. Right now for the online gaming fans we won't be seeing a PPU enabled game probably for another year or so, but once we do those waterfalls, tree movements, boulders falling down a hill, destruction physics, and much more will be so real the term "internet gaming addiction" might take on a whole new meaning. Let us just hope the gaming companies don't forget about all the quality content when they realize how cool it is having realistic physics.

Randomizing items and events in MMORPGs

After slaying a lowly monster in your favorite MMORPG you expect it to drop a small amount of coin, a basic food item, or some other fairly predictable object that likely has little worth to you directly. Once in awhile you'll find something more valuable, but it may take time. As you walk around and fight monsters this can become extremely repetitive and boring. What if you were able to obtain items in a "casino" style fashion, similar to the Diablo series but built for MMORPGs?

Ultima Online, one of my favorite MMORPGs, was all about item generation, economics through trading of those items, and the community that helped guide which items were popular or useful. EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot and Star Wars Galaxies have employed similar item systems. They do not target items as the main theme of the game like Ultima Online does, however, they still use items as there core economic engines. Especially Ultima Online, these games require the user to obtain items and property in such a way that it ultimately becomes redundant and down right boring.

Is predictable item statistic generation necessarily a bad system? Not at all. For example, when you are participating in a quest or are after a particular weapon, you would like to be certain that the creature you are spending time fighting will eventually drop the item. You might ask yourself, "Is this not random item generation?" If it isn't, then wouldn't the item in question come up every single time, or not at all? Item generation in all games is "random" to a certain extent.

What games need that employ any sort of serious item based system is a more Diablo style random item generation technique. It is this "lottery" system that users will become excited in using, at least longer than traditional systems. The second benefit in such a system is the acceptance of a smaller pool of overall items. With a random item generation system players may be willing to ignore this limitation for slight tweaks and unique qualities of current items.

Let's take this one step further and add in the idea of random location spawns, and forget for a moment about the typical "kill a monster and a chest or bag appears". Replace this with simply a chest or a bag! For example, your character is strolling through the woods and happens upon a randomly generated chest. To open this chest you may have to go through a series of monster spawn battles or some other challenge, but once open any number of things may occur or spawn. A scroll to some great quest, an item that will help you on your journey, or a bit of coin.

As we can see there are many options for perking the player's interests without having to spend a huge amount of resources on developing overly complex systems that may not ever be used, or worse, rejected outright by the community as useless and boring to overall gameplay.

Yet another game delayed or cancelled

I have seen at least two games get delayed this week; Warhammer Online and Farcry 2. The first is not as much of a surprise, as MMORPGs are often difficult to accurately pin down a release date on a first time basis. Success on these projects are of absolute paramount importance, so delays are common and usually accepted with minimal community fuss. The second was a bit of a disappointment to me, however.

There are three main things in the game industry one must consider when developing a product. Each of these are a part of why projects are often delayed, or canceled altogether:

1) Scope: How large is the game going to be in content and mechanics?

2) Time: How long will the game take to develop based on the scope?

3) Cost: How much money must be invested based on the scope and time?

A project starts easy, "OK guys, we have three years, so this is what we're putting into the game...". Then "feature creep" problems get in the way when designers are allowed to run rampant on "new" ideas, bugs and other issues come up, or a team member suddenly decides to leave. The scope of the project grows out of control, more time is needed to complete it, and then of course more money is required for completion.

Developing a successful product is not just about having a good team, but having a good team leader (a.k.a. the Producer). When it comes down to it though, everyone is at fault on one level or another when a project is delayed or canceled. Completing a project is a difficult endeavor that every team tackles together on a daily basis. Why then are well respected companies still delaying products when they almost certainly know what they are doing?

I don't have the answer to that... I haven't had much experience (yet) with development houses to really understand this question and give a reliable answer (if there is one). Thus, I am leaving the end of my blog open to those that might. Please enlighten me if you are reading this...

A new market awaits the game industry

Ever have a moment where you're playing the newest game and realize it just isn't as fun as some of those you used to play half a decade or more ago? I have a lot of those moments. I will be sitting in my room playing Gears of War and realize that it gets boring within the first couple of hours, whereas I used to play Civilization I or Full Throttle for hours on my P75 computer with a basic 15" screen and a small speaker set.

I still go back to those games from time-to-time. The question is, why? Why do we always look back on things in life and say to ourselves, "Those were the good times". Another good example is my current situation in China. This experience has forever changed who I am, and I know a lot has changed. However, I still look back at the "good times" (and they truly were good times) in America when I would spend countless weekends with my LAN friends playing Unreal Tournament, Quake, Total Annihilation, or MMOs like EverQuest. Yet I also know that when I get back home from China it will not be long before I realize China was the "good times", and want to go back. How come we cannot stay in one place for long?

Because humans simply become bored with what is the same. That is why I became bored so quickly with Gears of War, because frankly it is just about the same as every other FPS on the market! Yes, there are some unique points, some good strategy developed into the game, but in the end its really the same. Many older games had more style and thought built into them. Adventure games were all the rage in the 90s, but are practically non-existent today. Even those that do show up from time-to-time are shallow structures of what was once a great genre. Let's bring those old games back in a new and fresh light, without ruining the genre please!

I remember when the movie "Neverending Story III" came out years ago. I was so excited to see the series continue, I happily bought it as soon as it went on store shelves. Upon watching the sequel I never quite looked at the series the same way again. I had developed a bad taste in my mouth from the incredibly horrible remake, that it simply ruined the rest of the series. It took me literally years to watch the originals again with any sort of respect.

That is the problem with many remakes in the game industry today. There are so few that are as good as the originals... so few period. Starcraft 2 is coming out and looks to be promising, but that is being made by Blizzard, one of the few companies that knows a thing or two about game development and success in the market. Hundreds of old games that are long forgotten by past generations, and completely non-existent in the minds of current generations of gamers, are waiting to be remade in a better and bigger way, and sold for a price all over again to those curious.

Allow me to briefly clarify what I mean by a "remake". Some games simply deserve a graphics makeover, while others deserve some tweaks beyond the visuals. My adage is always "don't fix what isn't broken", so as long as developers keep that in mind as well, remakes could be very successful.

The redevelopment of old games could easily progress into an entire new genre of computer games and console games developed over the coming decade. I would call this genre "The Transformers", old games that have been forgotten and are now transformed into new games that are given a new life again on store shelves. A cliche in terms maybe, but a good one I think.

Get to it developers! Find those old games, remake them in a new way, and sell them again to customers looking for fresh and "new" games that set themselves apart from the bland clones we see today.