Sunday, January 14, 2007

Week 15 The Games Industry

How is the games industry doing? Well, in financial terms, pretty well. Gamesindustry.biz reports that the Japanese games industry is up by 125 percent, and also that sales of games are driving up sales of hardware in the US. The games industry also has a higher annual growth of wages than the film industry, at 17.4%.

For some employee views on the industry, I went to Gamasutra's blog section. Here we find industry employees discussing the advantages of procedurally generating in game objects as opposed to modelling them, how to report in Second Life for Reuters, use of technology for dramatic effect and discussion of how to incorporate plot into MMORPGS or whether it should even be done at all. Employees within the industry all seem passionate about making better games as well as games that make money.

Challenges facing the industry at the moment include producing and marketing games effectively for women and use of the new motion sensor technology brought in by the Wii and to a lesser extent by the PS3. David Gardner from EA commented on the BBC website that the games industry is still not reaching its full audience, but that producing games like The Sims or MMOs where players can focus on relationships can help to overcome this. The presence of women within the games industry is gradually increasing and is now up to 10%, but it may be a while before this filters down fully to the games themselves.

It is still early days yet for the technological possibilities brought in by the Wii, but it has inspired many within the industry to look to the future. I can't remember who it was said by, but someone from the Sony team said in Edge magazine that perhaps by the PS7 they would be looking at biotechnology for a fully immersive experience.

Another challenge faced by the games industry is that of continuing negative press. On East Midlands news earlier in the week there was an incident where a boy killed another boy with a hammer in a Manhunt copycat style killing. The boy was known to be obsessed with the game and the parents of the boy who was killed were calling for all violent videogames to be banned. Thankfully the Leicester MP responding by calling for age restrictions to be better enforced rather than calling for a blanket ban. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3936237.stm

There is unfortunately little educational mainstream coverage of games or the games industry. I went to the Game On exhibition at the science museum over the holidays and rather than seeking to educate people about the creative and technological processes behind games, the exhibit was more like 'Here are some random consoles and games we dug up... now go play!'
However, there are examples of the industry and games themselves being taken seriously. The BBC has run articles on Second Life, and as previously mentioned, Reuters have a station there monitoring the in-game economy.

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