GlobalBX

The bad thing about events in Northern California is that there are always a number of them going on in the tech industry and usually they have a knack to overlap. Take today. Yes GDC is still on but then down in San Jose is a two-day OTTCon (over the top conference) taking place. No biggie you say but these are the guys/gals who are going give us a hint on what we’ll be watching, where we’ll be watching it, how we’ll be watching it. Affects the way you work with games too!

OTTCon Snapshot
These folks have a huge challenge ahead of them. They’re busting each other’s chops trying to figure out exactly what tomorrow’s TV entertainment is going to be like especially since people seem to want to push it to every screen you have (and even will be thinking about). That’s not so bad but they’re really trying to figure out how they’re going to get their money out of it! And how does it fit into/compete in the YouTube online spectrum? It does! They were an energetic crowd but the first thing you realize is that they don’t have any better idea where TV is going than you do…but they say it with confidence/conviction so it “feels” so!

Diffusion Groups says there will be 100 million households with iNet connected TVs by the end of this year. The connected devices like your game console or Roku box makes it a lot easier to download streams from the Net. The cable guys in the audience were a little worried because some of the analysts were saying 20 percent or more of the customers could cut their cords and that means $1 billion less in revenues. Two of the box producers going head-to-head were Boxee which recently received a venture capital infusion wants to be the connecting device with an under $200 box. They hope to have three million users by the end of the year. Of course Roku countered by saying people don’t want a box, they already have enough of them. Instead they want a viewing, entertainment experience. Roku officials noted that the industry is still at the early adopter phase and that to bridge the gap the solution – whatever it is – has to be simple and bulletproof. TDG Research said it is less about cutting the cord than it is replacing Pay TV with OTT or add services/capabilities to expand the market. TDG says that by 2014 OTT revenues should be about $5.8 billion but the picture isn’t exactly crystal clear. The best – most thought provoking part of the 1st day’s activities was a panel discussion on what our TV was going to be like in 2030.

2030 is interesting and challenging but they may have picked a period 20 years out because no one would remember when the date arrives to tell them they were right or wrong. Intel told the audience that by 2015 there was going to be 500 billion hours of video available OTT. Cisco’s Scott Puopolo made the brilliant observation that that was a lot of video for us to try and find what we wanted. It’s also going to play havoc with pay TV operators, broadcasters and content owners. He said that OTT viewing would become very fragmented and highly specialized by interest areas. The practical result would be the old CPM ad formula would quickly disappear because the mini-markets didn’t fit the old market model. To give us some ideas as to what we can expect, Puopolo showed the results of a recent Cisco survey of 50 TV experts on what the TV industry would look like in 20 years. For the most part their report said the experts – spread across the industry – agreed.

– Channel surfing will become an exercise of the distant past. They feel device makers like Roku and Apple will really move units but no one mentioned Google TV in the mix…hhmm! Replacing the exercise the on-demand streams will be customized to what you want to/like to watch, what friends/family watch and even where you’ll be enjoying it. Right now it looks like Roku’s space to lose or win.
– Remote controls will disappear because…they’ll be an app for that. All of the players already have iPhone, iPad and Android apps so no need for the dumbed down remote. The majority of the experts said that by 2030 TV could go beyond the minority Report experience and the TV would simply deliver up content that was appropriate for your mood.
– This one defies our “conventional logic” but you’ll just have one screen, “your screen.” It could be a mirror, painting or … Some thought it might be expandable, flexible or ..worn! Of course with all of that said no one sees bandwidth still sucking (our word, not theirs) and no one was optimistic that the cost would be overly “reasonable.”
– Big concern from the content owners/pipe providers and ad folks is how they were going to “invest’ ad dollars when everything is becoming more contextual, interactive. A number of the experts said that advertising would become more personalized with an inventory of ads sitting somewhere that would be provided to you based on your viewing activities/habits. That’s probably okay as long as people can be 100 percent assured that their personal data isn’t being shared…that’s a tough sell!
– Since you no longer channel surf you’ll also do away with just crashing on the couch with chips and a drink. Instead you’ll become a part of the entertainment like gamers are today using social networking so that you are completely involved in making the romance happen or solving the crime. The experts agree that it won’t be long that we’ll be experiencing storytelling across multiple media but perhaps a little better than this year’s Oscar event. It can only get better as we get more involved.
– Like what you’re watching, enjoying with our constantly evolving social media you can share the experience with friends/family in the future. Not teleporting but telepresence which may be okay for the time being.
– We’ll finally get to the point where you’ll smell, taste and feel the activities, food, roller coaster, car driving down the road. And you’ll be able to watch/examine events from various points of view without special glasses.
– You watch the TV commercials where you move from room to room, home to bus to airplane watching your show on an endless variety of shapes, sizes, locations of screens. Expect that…and more.
– In case you haven’t noticed there is a tsunami of use generated content and more and more of it is pretty darn good. HD cameras and HD lenses on your smartphone make it fast, easy to capture spot news or complete stories. The new more powerful processors are also capable of easily handing editing/authoring and uploading to the “cloud.” One of the panelists noted that this was already with smartphones in Asia where smartphone manufacturers have included copies of muvee’s automatic video production software that does all the work, including adding a sound track in just a few minutes. Executives said we would probably see phones with the bundle in the U.S. mid-year and it would improve from there.
– With the interactivity, executives are increasingly confident that viewers will begin “helping” to write the show’s episodes using social network activities and online collaboration.

It was surprising how much of this seemed like “well yeah, so???” It also gave us an opportunity to look at GDC in a different light. We’ll probably view each session and each HW/SW solution we see a whole lot differently the rest of the week.

Tools, Platforms
Whether it was for the Nintendo, Sony, MS, PC, Android or IOS platform there were more than 100 development, production, distribution tools introduced at GDC (ok maybe more but they just keep breeding). Sitting on the floor, standing in line, seated in one of the sessions one of the most widely discussed topics seemed to be which platform you should develop your next great winner for. Everyone agreed that to develop your game play for every available platform was the sure path to mediocrity at the least and disaster at the worst. Executives advised the developers to pick their platform or platforms carefully and then use their social/marketing skills to build the playing audience.

For example Spry Fox developed a successful release of Triple Town and we wouldn’t even think of the Amazon Kindle as a playing platform…who knows today? If you ask the platform folks for advice they’re going to tell you they are out to change the world and they believe it and will do what it takes to help you help them succeed. Of course when they’ve achieved their success then it’s a whole different ballgame and suddenly you’re the stepsister who can’t go to the ball. Even platforms like Zuch’s Facebook has been known to shutdown sites with little or no notice so you’re left with a game that desperately needs a new home which means all new development work. One person noted you don’t make the game you want to make you make the game that will optimize their platform and make them look the best. Then your success or failure is in the hands of the gods!

We all know of people, games, concepts that have been thrown out or blocked by various platform owners. It also means your profits suffer and your creative control decreases. By the same token when the platform begins to become more successful and your game becomes more popular the platform folks also are more helpful in promoting your games…they want to highlight leaders/winners just like everyone else. Of course there are times when operations like Zynga (which we discussed yesterday) becomes so strong, powerful, far reaching that the viral marketplace. Of course because of Zynga’s dramatic success, Facebook has changed their rules but that’s to be expected. Within platform organizations – as they become more “corporate” there is more big business play and less of the “feel” you got into game development for but that’s to be expected.

One of the speakers – who wasn’t too subtle – noted that within any large corporation or major platform firm there was a department responsible for “legal screwage.” Legal departments are far too professional to all it legal screwage but they do know how to do it … very well! They’ve trained in it. They’ve specialized in it. They’ve honed their craft to a fine art. Why? Well let’s see there’s money to be made and they figure they might get it before you do. Of course it isn’t “all” bleak. If you don’t like the contract or the terms…walk away.  If it’s a good idea the next team you approach will listen a little more closely. There are more solid platforms out there today than there are good/insanely great games. The packed session seemed to have more people taking notes than any one we’ve sat in on…to date.  Our guess not many people came to GDC to play.

AutoDesk – Middleware Kings
It’s a good thing GDC isn’t far from Autodesk’s Hq because they rolled out a humongous number of very robust, exciting products in their Entertainment Creation Suites…and more! They must have had every team in the organization working on game development solutions because they rolled out:  
– Global illumination middleware Beat 2012
– HumanIK 2012
– 2012 Entertainment Creation suites
– A slew of modeling, animation, rendering 2D, 3D software products
– Softimage 2012 (a company they rescued from Avid) rolled out a wide array of tools and solutions
– Laundry list of movie, video game, broadcast products that will allow people to produce multiplayer, interactive content for the TV environment of 2030

Nvidia Came To Play
Ok it’s a cheap shot to keep your attention but we did want to show that the audience seemed to be fairly well divided into both sexes. The game industry is no longer for bleary eyed, shallow skinned guys (if it ever really was)! But Nvidia announced a series of strategic alliances with firms to show off and support their PhysX, APEX, 3D vision technologies. It’s become easy to see why really ambitious developers use their platforms for system development and soon for smartphone development/play. Nvidia has the right mixture of cross-platform physics and expertise to maximize game play realism and enjoyment. One executive said that one of the divisions is also working closely with Hollywood and the content industry to help them deliver totally interactive social media entertainment, involvement. Not sure what we’ll call the company then.

Eyes Have it
While it certainly wasn’t part of GDC there was a strong wave of interest in the announcement Lenovo and a firm called Tobii made today at CeBit (the big trade show in Europe). Tobii (get it two eyes?) demonstrated a new eye-tracking technology that would allow you to control computer functions just by looking at points on the screen. The company isn’t bashful, they want to take eye-tracking and eye control to anyone/s/everyone’s computer and viewing environment. It’s just in its infancy but reports are that you really can control the computer simply by having it follow your gaze. It will automatically brighten and dim depending on how you look at the screen. If and when it takes off it really could be a big step forward in eye-recognition and become a truly natural interface for folks. Initial eye control is limited to simple functions/tasks but you can imagine what it will do for people with limited capacities if they can point, select, scroll, communicate, develop/play games. The new Lenovo/Tobii prototype is truly proof of concept of eye-tracking technology and it has the potential of becoming one of our standard system interfaces very quickly. The key then will be to make it smaller, less expensive, more versatile, more reliable. Don’t know but we’d love to get our hands – ooppss eyes on one and see if it’s half as good as the early reports say. If it is next year’s GDC may have a whole new level of education sessions.  Tomorrow? Again we’ll have to divide our time…GDC and the “quiet gorilla” in town …Apple!!!!