ITB/ITN751 Games Production Lecture 11 - Game Culture

ITB/ITN751 Games Production Lecture 11 - Game Culture Ross Brown

Lecture Contents • Game Culture • Guest Lecture – David Waller, Senior Trade Officer, Export Capability, Trade and International Operations, Department of Premier and Cabinet

Readings • Textbook Chapters: • None • Websites: • Placed within the lecture slides

Culture • “It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness.” - Jerry Garcia

Why? • In the IT industry there is the notion of a wider understanding of obtaining work • People can be working in IT, but not in the hard areas such as software/networking/hardware • One could call them Para IT

To the outer reaches of space and beyond… • In some ways we have touched on these positions within the industry already via the education and research lecture • Now we move further out from the “Core” to other positions that support the Games Industry • Positions that probably are not usually a target for games graduates

Games Journalism • But still form a part of the game industry universe • The first being Games Journalism • Journalism: “the profession of reporting or photographing or editing news stories for one of the media” - wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Games Journalism • Magazines • TV/Radio Shows • Blogosphere • POD Casts • Portals

Magazines • An old but trusted medium • Latest circulation figures are not good. • [1,2,3] cite a number of examples of falling circulations • A lot of people don’t read print medium anymore, except for books – just for the sensual experience

Example Magazines • PC Gamer - http://www.pcgamer.com/ • Hyper - http://www.next.com.au/magheaders/hyper.html • Official Xbox Magazine - http://www.officialxboxmagazine.com/

A neat segue to TV/Radio Shows • Often in the hands of very few people of “assumed” high authority and with lots of money behind them • Broadcast TV is a costly medium • For Example: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/goodgame/ • Now often combined with blogs, podcasts, vodcasts etc. from New Media

BlogoSphere • Blog a portmanteau of web log • Basically an online diary • Includes multimedia components – images, audio, video • Has feeds to allow people to be notified when a person creates a new entry via RSS (Rich Site Summary) feeds

BlogoSphere • BlogoSphere - the universe of bloggers on the web • Technorati blog search engine site: http://www.technorati.com/ is considered a good place to start to find good blogs • Technorati is tracking more than 100 million blogs

Some Game Blogs • Destructoid - http://www.destructoid.com/ • Games and Politics - http://gamepolitics.com/ • An Age Game Blog - http://blogs.theage.com.au/screenplay/

POD/VOD Casts • With the advent of the IPod and the easy compression of audio and video • Entire radio and video shows can be placed on web servers for people to download • A form of self publishing in the radio and media spaces

Some Video Game PODCast Directories • http://www.podcastdirectory.com/genre/video_game/ • http://www.gamercastnetwork.com/ • http://www.digitalpodcast.com/browse-games-21-1.html

Blog and Pod/Vod Quality • However, quality will vary as the information is self-edited – depends on authority of authors • There is simply no peer review of information, except by comments in feedback areas • It is worth thinking about with regards to quality of information available from such sources • This is why academic journals have such high standards, to avoid misinformation

Portals • A portal is an aggregation of all the previous forms of media into a portal for particular topics • The “go to” point for people interested in a particular topic • Gamasutra is an example – tied to a journal and other media content • Good Game website is an example – tied to a TV show • Often include fora for people to express their opinions (often badly)

New Media • So in summary, these previous media presentations are about Journalism for Games • But what is different, is that the work is often generated by laity • People like you can generate this content and self-publish • One of the few positions where you can start working at any time…

You • Which is why Time magazine had the person of the year for 2006 as “You” • The person who can take part in controlling the content available on the Interweb http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20061225,00.html

Skills • Obviously you must generate the content • Which will require excellent written and oral presentation skills for blogging and podcasting • A journalism degree would be useful, if it is to be a fulltime career choice

Roles • You may be attached to a magazine/portal/webzine, under the control of an editor • Or may work as a freelance journalist taking assignments, and/or developing your own content • Or you may simply put your own service together in your bedroom • Can be done as a game industry employee – see www.passfieldgames.com/ http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2007/01/30/namm-behringer-intros-podcaststudio-usb-bundle/

Other Positions • Conferences • Organisations • Stores/Distribution • Government

Conferences • Not that many conferences organised • But can be a place to influence the industry and academia by bring people together in a non-online manner – yep, really old technology • A good source of inspiration as they bring together luminaries from many backgrounds

Conferences • Is also a lucrative industry • Can make a living working in this area • Humans tend to work better when they have face to face time for networking purposes

Conference Examples • Game Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP)- http://www.gameconnectap.com/ • E3 - http://www.e3expo.com/ • Game Developer Conference (GDC) - http://www.gdconf.com/ • DIGRA (Academic Conference) - http://www.digra.org/dl/

Organisations Associations • Conferences are often run by organisations and associations within the industry • Such as International Game Developers Association http://www.igda.org/ • Games Developers Association of Australia http://www.gdaa.com.au/ • They employ people to work with the industry with regards to advocacy and professional improvement

Stores and Distribution • Relates strongly with the business ownership example given in the last lecture • I know at least one person in this unit owns a games shop, maybe more? • Large Franchised example is EB - http://www.ebgames.com.au/home/home.cfm • Market is very crowded with toy stores having a large market share

Stores and Distribution • Steam and Xbox Live are examples of distribution points for games • Careers may be found around this trading area of the games industry • But traditional game distribution methods are under threat from online media sources • This issue is being faced by other media businesses – I would not want to be an Australian TV channel now…or a video store www.megagames.com/news/images/pcstmstrtgfdlyo_s1.jpg http://www.command-tab.com/images/photoshop/xbox_360_live/xbox_360_live.png

Government • Another area is in the government sector supporting the games industry • Games industry is important to government departments due to its export earnings, profile and technical nature • Is a growing component of ICT and entertainment industry • Can anybody remember when we had a film industry in SE Qld…

Government • Roles here are about facilitation: • Access to government resources for games industry via grants • Setting up trade missions • Receiving trade delegations from overseas investors • Creating an overall environment by policy which helps the games industry to prosper and compete in overseas markets

Guest Lecture • David Waller - Senior Trade Officer, Export Capability, Trade and International Operations, Department of Premier and Cabinet

References • http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/11/us_game_magazines_hows_the_cir.php • http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=8192 • http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/76037-U-K-Game-Magazine-Circulation-Continues-to-Decline

ITB/ITN751 Games Production Lecture 11 - Game Culture