The Convergence Conversation

Groups & Committees

Game’s up: what can other businesses and policy makers learn from online games?

February’s Convergence Conversation looked at the subject of online games, which thanks to headline grabbing alternative reality games (ARGs), such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, are catching the attentions of media executive and policy makers alike. Chaired adeptly as usual by Ved Sen, the Conversation sought to find out whether the wider converging marketplace can harness the growing success that ARGs are currently enjoying.

For Aleks Krotoski, who is writing a PhD about Second Life, the key challenge in answering this question is in discovering what is so special about games – what attracts people to spend hours of their time living in an alternative reality? What makes games different from other media? Matt Jones of Nokia argued that to understand we need to step away from the conventional interpretation of a ‘game’. Having studied ‘human universals’ (aspects present in all human cultures) he gave a compelling explication of the power of ‘play’ in our lives – activity that is not about winning and losing, but about experience, experimentation and exploration. If you look at the ‘online games’ phenomenon in this light, the attraction becomes a bit clearer. People are drawn to ‘online games’ because they offer them an alternative space in which to have a variety of playful experiences, and in doing so they satisfy an inbuilt human need. In a space where there are no goals, no end-games, it is the players themselves that set their targets about what they want to get out of their experience.

While many in the audience we at pains to point out that despite its popularity, Second Life is not the only ARG, it acts well to illustrate this point, since the makers of Second Life are adamant that it is not a game, it’s a social platform. Indeed many of its 3 million registered users view it as another space to interact and participate in a community.

Online games can also offer a learning experience. There were some who were sceptical about the extent to which explicit learning, of the sort that might take place within a school curriculum, can take place in these environments. However, the group was happier with the idea that a ‘softer’, more experiential kind of learning almost certainly does take place – learning which takes place by doing, whether that be working with others in a group, learning to give and take, or existing in a hierarchy. These skills, which might crudely be described as life skills, are those that are going to be increasingly important in a knowledge economy, and World of Warcraft was seen as a good example of a environment that encouraged their development.

ARGs can also be used as another space for a commercial experience, as Claus Nehmzow from PA Consulting argued. They have recently established an office in Second Life and while they originally set it up as another marketing chain, they discovered that because you can add a ‘human element’ the experience has proved extremely powerful, to the extent that they now employ a number of Second Life residents to be greeters in their office.

Jon Weinbren of Imaginery Productions, argued passionately that there doesn’t need to be a point to the experience itself, other than an emotional one, where strong story telling and compelling characters create emotional engagement, and a platform for imagination.

Given then, that online games tap into something which is inherent in us all, the desire to play and to experience something that is deeper and more fulfilling than other throw away media, its unsurprising that ‘traditional media’ is taking an interest. With fewer of us watching television, and the big media empires losing ground to the internet and audience fragmentation, being able to capture and tap into the growing phenomenon that is online games makes a compelling strategy proposition. What’s more ARGs tend to have a more balanced demographic than the traditional games world, where young males dominated. Second Life, for example, has a 50/50 gender split and a global reach, with around 54% of its members from Europe. These worlds tend also to have largely adult populations who unlike younger players have cash in their pockets ready to spend. According to Adrian Hon, of Mind Candy, their ARG Perplexity attracts whole generations of families. Surely all other businesses need to do is work how to introduce an ARG element into their existing proposition, in the same way that many (such as the HMV group -    
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6444525.stm) are now bolting on social networking platforms in attempt to move with the times.

But one message was clear from the discussion – capitalising on games’ special attraction will not be easy for traditional media players. For one, despite all the press interest, the question of monetisation in ARGs has yet to be adequately answered. As Adrian Hon explained, despite the fact that Perplexity has hundreds of thousands of users who have been so engrossed in the game that they have played it throughout a first series that lasted two years, Mind Candy is still to move into the mass market. They are also yet to determine how to draw in revenue other than via the puzzle cards that they currently sell in shops like Borders, although they are attracting a lot of interest in terms of advertising and sponsorship.

There is also a question about the extent to which the quality of the experience currently on offer in online games will stand up to big brand expectations. With one eye on a jittery Second Life, which was being beamed onto the wall during the Conversation, a number of people questioned whether the grainy and jumpy visual experience is good enough for top brands to want to associate themselves with it. While many pointed out that the quality of the visual experience will only improve, in the same way that the internet in general has made huge aesthetic leaps in recent years, this may well limit the extent to which ARGs can move even more into the mainstream in the immediate future.

A final drawback rests in the professionalism of the games industry. While the internet has lowered the barriers to entry to create, the fact that ARGs remain engineered, designed environments shouldn’t be overlooked. Varying degrees of choreography has taken place behind the scenes to ensure that users find a place to have their compelling experience, and this choreography demands talented script writers and designers, skills which cannot be developed through shortcuts.

All of the above explains why games executives at the recent Games Developers Conference have been looking on with amusement at the interest and dollars that big media companies are now throwing into creating the next big ARG (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6431207.stm). ‘There is so much dumb money’, said Mark Jacobs of Electronic Arts. ‘Mass media is coming in and saying we want to be just like World of Warcraft. We are going to have so many failures it is going to be unbelievable. There is going to be a lot of corpses, rubble all over the place.’ While there may be more than a bit of professional pride at play here, as well as nervousness about the threat of new players on the block, this does confirm the key theme of the Conversation. Whatever it is that games have that is so compelling, it is complex, fragile, as well as a highly skilled. Yes, we may well see an explosion of ARGs appearing in other media, but they should not be viewed as an easy quick fix for competitive advantage in an increasingly fierce and converging marketplace.
Also see write ups of this event at:

http://thinkplank.blogspot.com/2007/02/lessons-from-online-games-industry.html
http://thinkplank.blogspot.com/2007/02/lessons-from-online-games-industry-part.html
 

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