Joystick vs. Mouse & Remote: the Games Experience

1. Joystick vs. Mouse & Remote: the Games Experience Dr. Thanos M. Demiris Development Programs Dept. Area Leader Digital Content Management Intracom S.A.

2. Outline • Games History and Culture Timeline, Genres, Profiles of Gamers, Sociology of Games • Games Economics Market Shares, Support of Economy, Support of Research • Games Technology HW/SW parts of Games, 3D Graphics, Animation • Games meet Broadcasting and Telcos Case Studies: PISTE and MELISA • Games’ Future (Conclusion)

3. 1. Games: History and Culture…

4. The early days • 1959: Tennis??? • 1961: Spacewar • Stephen Russel, Harvard • Based on the science-fiction-saga Skylark • Later classified as Action Game • 1972: Pong • Bushnell conceives the possibility of introducing it in bars

5. 1961: Spacewar 1971: Magnavox develops Odyssey (Pong as TV Plugin) 1976: 1st single circuit computer: Apple 1 1983: Apple rel. Lisa 1989: Sega rel. Genesis 1966: Sega rel. Periscope 1974: Atari rel. Home Pong 1981: IBM rel. PC with MS DOS 1.0 1985: Nintendo Entertainment System 1989: Nintendo rel. Gameboy Timeline (*) 1960 1970 1980 1990 (*) From IDSA 2001 Report

6. 1991: Nintendo 16bit Super NES Mario Bros 3 1994: Sega Saturn & Sony Playstation Rel. in Japan 1995: Sony rel. Playstation in US 1996: Nintendo 64 Rel. in the US 1997: Entertainment SW Reaches $4.4bn 1991: S3 rel. single-chip Graphics accel. For the PC 1993: Panasonic rel. 3DO, 32-bit video Game device 1994: Cyan rel. Myst, Bestselling CG 1995: Entertainment SW Reaches $3.2bn 1996: Entertainment SW Reaches $3.7bn 1994: MM PC sales take off 1996: First Barbie Game 1998: Zelda generates more revenue than Hollywood Timeline (*) 1990 1995 2000 1997: 3D accel. For PCs enter Market in big volumes (*) From IDSA 2001 Report

7. Timeline - 2000 • Sega releases Dreamcast, the 1st 128 bit console • Sony releases PS2 • MS announces X-Box • Nintendo announces Game Cube (*) From IDSA 2001 Report

8. Genres • Action Games • From Pong to Doom • Fast Reflexes and Coordination Ability • Adventure Games • From Lord of the rings (1976) to Asheron’s call • Logical thinking and persistence

9. Genres • Strategy • From Hammurabi to Dune II • Balance between resources and various elements • Simulation • SimCity and the Sims • Real world situations • Today: • Many more sub-genres…

10. Who plays games? • In the US • 43% Women, 57% Men • Computer Games Player • 42% over 35 • 30% between 18 and 35 • 28% under 18 • Video Games Player • 42 % under 18 • 37% between 18 and 35 • 21% over 35

11. General Preferences… • IDSA’a polled more than 1600 US households about fun activities: • 35,5% Playing computer/video games • 18,2% Watching TV • 15,3% Internet Surfing • 13% Reading Books • 11,1% Going to movies • 6,5% Renting movies • 0,5% Pay-per-view TV

12. How long do they play?

13. The Korean Case • In December 2001 "World Cyber Games" (Sponsored by Samsung close to 10 million EUR) • 400 players from 37 different countries • The matches are broadcast on giant screens for the audience, and live on one of Korea’s two cable TV channels devoted to the Olympics: Ongame or GemBC. • The 2002 in Taejon from Oct. 28 October to November 3 with 8 additional countries

14. The Korean Case (2) • National sport • Close to 1000 pro players • For the most part employees of leading Korean manufacturers • Samsung, South Korea Telecom, Korea Telecom Freetel, Hanaro Telecom, IAPs Netian and Intz.com and software developer Web Net Korea • Professional league created in January 2000: the Korea Internet Game League (KIGL) • Sponsors provide the players with a vehicle and a flat. • They spend an average 10 hours a day playing

15. What games are played? • 21,35% Strategy/RPG • 17,42% Action • 14,95% Sports • 10,08% Racing • 7,44% Family Entertainment • 5,23% Children’s Entertainment • 23,53% All other games

16. Top Titles in 2000 • Pokemon (Nintendo) as a Video Game vs. • The Sims (EA), Who wants to be a millionaire (Disney Interactive) Based on units sold Source: NPD interactive entertainment SW Services

17. Online Games • All about avatars • Communication and chat between players forms a new medium of social interaction • Gamers display social action patterns comparable to the physical world • Risk-averse, fairly rational etc.

18. 2. Games: Economics

19. Market Shares

20. Sales…

21. Growth and Crime • Growth numbers (15% between 97 an 2000) are up to 3 times higher than then national ones • The Games market outnumbers the box office (cinema) • $3bn lost to crime in 1999 in the US (highest category) As opposed to • $1.2bn lost to residence burglary

22. Resources • The game publishing industry in the US employed: • 219600 people in total • $7.2bn in wages ($1.7bn in taxes) • 29500 people in the IT sector • $2.5bn in wages ($592ml in taxes) • Sectors affected by computer games • Information, Trading, Transportation

23. Games and Research • Game Companies invest in research more than other sectors • Indicative numbers: • Sony spent $1bn on the “emotion engine chip for PS2” • Microsoft committed further $2bn to Xbox projects (May 2002)

24. 3. Games: the Technology behind

25. Games: Bits and Bytes… • Most common subcomponents of a game: • Graphics (rendering, video, platform API) • Sound • User Input • Game Logic / AI • Networking

26. From Robert Montgomery’s “Lady in the Lake” 1946 3D Games • 1st fully texture-mapped 3D game in 1992 • Looking Glass Technologies: Ultima Underworld • Id Software: Wolfenstein 3D (introducing the genre of 1st person shooters) • HW acceleration in 96 with Voodoo Graphics 3dfx and proprietary API (Glide) • Riva TNT by NVIDIA denotes the turning point where PC graphics are equal to expensive graphics WSs

27. Hardware • PC Games • Consoles • Dreamcast • Playstation 2 • GameCube • XBox • Mobile phones • Internet

28. Console wars (1/4) • Dreamcast: • $99 with a controller • Pirate-prone • Many titles available, some best-selling • CD-Rom

29. Console wars (2/4) • Playstation 2 • $399.- with a controller • Hard to develop for (3 vector units need to be optimally deployed to achieve good graphics) • DVD player • Many titles, backward compatible to PS1 • 33m units sold worldwide • Gamers call some titles “killer apps” (reasons to buy the console for) • Broadband module released

30. Console wars (3/4) • Xbox • Geforce 3 • 700MHz processor • DVD Player • Broadband module • Local storage • Xbox games look like PC Games

31. Console wars (4/4) • Gamecube • Classic titles • 1,5GB capacity, but Video-disc and DVD support in separate versions possible

32. 4. Games: Intrusion into Broadcasting and Telcos

33. The evolution of games into reality • Current games: • Do all the work offline • Try to simulate the kinetics of specific athletes (the athlete’s “body-signature”) • Use extremely expensive equipment of methodologies • Repeat movements in a movement cycle

34. Sports: the evolution of reality into games • Analogy to Medicine • Non invasive visualization systems are asked for • Glossy Visualizations of in-vitro images deliver ideal learning material • Algorithmic research is still underway (and has been for decades now…) for processing of in-vivo images

35. PISTE: Immersive Sports TV

36. AR Broadcasting Enhanced Content Creation MPEG-4 and MPEG-7 over DVB Enhanced Content Manipulation Conventional Capture

37. Betting:a different type of Game… • 16% of ALL Europeans are betting on a daily basis • People spent time • Collecting information • Discussing odds • They prefer to bet very close to the event • Introduction of iTV betting in the UK increased the amount of players (the Ladbrokes “neighbourhood-shop” case)

38. MELISA: In-play betting

39. 5. Games: The Future

40. The market development

41. Current Research Focus • Advanced Immersion (mainly be means of HW) • Embedding in real-world context (mixed reality) • Emotionally advanced • Innovation in the interaction with the user

42. Conclusion • Gaming is a highly complex area, bringing together • Art • Business • Computer Science • Psychology • Advances in gaming will influence the Entertainment of the future