Part of Me: On the Smithsonian’s Art of Video Games

In the farthest reaches of the Smithsonian, at the end of a dark corridor, was a large screen indicating the entrance to the Art of Video Games exhibit. On the large screen were snippets of video game cut-scenes from various video games, old and new, from Pac-Man to Heavy Rain. What really caught my eye were not the images on the screen but the statement by guest curator, Chris Melissinos.

Last month, Destructoid’s Ryan Perez expressed his disdain for the industry’s need to validate itself by calling video games “art.” Mr. Perez notes at the beginning of his article that he is neither the first nor the only one to be tired of the “games as art” argument. I personally never bothered to validate video games as art or not art as I felt that if a medium—an experience—could mean so much to me and be such an important part of myself, does it really matter if the public believes it to be art or not?

I believe this to be the reason why I was refreshed to see the words written on the wall. In three short paragraphs, Chris Melissinos explains the importance of video games in his life, as some of the deepest personal and globally connecting experiences in human history. More importantly, Mr. Melissinos makes it clear that the exhibit was not created to educate viewers on why video games are art, but for viewers to make that decision for themselves, that video games “may even be” art.

The adjacent room, with concept art from a few games and videos of facial expressions captured while playing, housed a small gray panel which explained the goal of the exhibit further.

If I had ever argued that games are art, it was because I believed the definition of art was any piece that made a bold statement that resonated with me when I viewed it. I wondered after reading this panel if Mr. Melissinos wished viewers to leave the exhibit believing games to be art, while still allowing them to come to the conclusion themselves.

I believed that to be the case when I saw the next room, which was filled with demos of games from the original Super Mario Bros. to The Secret of Monkey Island to thatgamecompany’s Flower. Visitors were invited to play through a few minutes of each of those games in the hope that it would either bring back fond memories or help non-gamers understand the meaning of video games and the experiences they offer. Though I could not read what each player in the room was thinking when they were playing, I knew this room was intended to complete the equation explained in the gray panel: the conversation among the game, the artist, and the player.

The final room of the exhibit had a timeline of consoles on display, with video clips from games of different generations from the Atari VCS to the PlayStation 3. After getting my dose of knowledge and nostalgia (and an array of new photos in my camera), I wondered if the hundreds of strangers around me actually believed games are art, refused to believe they are, or were indifferent of the answer. Did each visitor fulfill Chris Melissinos’s goal of at least deliberating the question?

I took one last look at the gray panel: Three Voices—Artist, Game, Player. In this instance, the Artist is the game developer, the Game is the physical product created by the developer, and the Player is the consumer; the one experiencing the game. As I read the passage one more time, the definitions of each voice began to blur in my mind. I believed this to be the goal of the exhibit as well: to allow viewers—the players—to insert themselves into the concept art they saw, into the game demos on display, and into the memories that returned when looking at the different generations of consoles and games. Though we will never know what exactly emerges within each visitor, we can safely assume that each is wholly unique.

Personally, I still do not believe there is a universal truth on whether or not games are art. I could write an entirely separate piece arguing for the importance of the medium, but for now, I have at least come to this conclusion:

Each visitor of the exhibit is the creator of what they took away and of what they believe video games are to them. I chose to focus on what video games have made me and why I chose to agree with Chris Melissinos’ beliefs on the sacred bond the player makes with the game. For these reasons, I believe that the conversation between the game, the artist, and the player—and the blurring of the lines separating the three—brings about a fourth voice. And it is for these reasons that the identity of the fourth voice is up to the player to decide.

Surviving E3 2012

Whether or not E3 is still the games industry’s foremost gathering, or whether that honor has been usurped by shows like GDC or PAX, one thing about E3 remains true every year: It’s nuts. Whether you’re an exhibitor or a reporter, you can expect to run yourself ragged, staying on your feet for hours on end, scrambling to meet your various appointments while trying to wedge in just one more meeting in between the big presentations. Then, you’ll try to see just how much socializing you can do while trying to finish the rest of your workload that evening — assuming the Wi-Fi works in your hotel room — and convince yourself that 4 hours of sleep will be enough to let you get up and do it all again the next day.

This pattern of self-inflicted abuse is true for most conventions and expos, of course, but the brutal traffic of Los Angeles and the mainstream appeal of the biggest names in gaming makes E3 especially trying for even the most seasoned attendee. Thankfully, your friends at TriplePoint are here with another helpful set of tips and reminders to help ease the pain of next week’s quagmire. Continue reading Surviving E3 2012

The Growth of Collaborative Consumption

Many New Yorkers are gearing up for the July launch of Citi Bike, the bike sharing system that gives members access to over 10,000 bikes around the city. By heading to one of over 600 kiosks, New Yorkers can swipe their credit card to rent bikes that can be returned to any other station. Much like Velib in Paris or Bixi in Montreal, Citi Bike is being sold as a “cheap, easy, efficient and fast option for short trips by providing ready access to a bike, without having to worry about storage or maintenance (NYC.gov)”

Similar programs are popping up everywhere and they aren’t exclusively tied to bikes. The favorite of auto-less urbanites, Zipcar, or college students, Wheelz*, allow people to rent cars for a short amount of time, either through a large fleet of cars or peer lending, respectively. Over one million travelers have booked a room through Airbnb, the online site that facilitates vacation rentals of personal property, and Bag Borrow or Steal lets fashionistas rent the most coveted designer bags for a faction of the cost.

First introduced in the late 1970s, the term “collaborative consumption” has taken on a new life in recent years, comprising the backbone of many hot startups. The term, or “movement,” as some call it, boils down to sharing. Instead of personally owning property, items are shared over peer-to-peer marketplaces. As collaborative consumption continues to grow, it manipulates the ideas behind, as well as the necessity of, personal ownership. No longer are people required to physically purchase items that are only needed for the short term, helping to reduce the strain on pocketbooks and the environment.

The recent economic downturn aided this concept. While peer-to-peer marketplaces such as eBay and Craigslist have been around for years, people began looking for ways to make money or avoid large purchases as they became more strapped for cash. Subsiding the mortgage payment by renting out a spare bedroom through Airbnb or earning some extra cash for some time on Taskrabbit became appealing options.

Trust forms the foundation for this new economic system, remove it and the system crumbles. While new technology easily facilitates these exchanges, people would (rightfully) be hesitant to submit their homes, cars, or other goods, without trust. Because of that, one’s reputation becomes a kind of currency–something that can be provided to insure that the transaction will be successful for all parties. Past reviews, user comments and recommendations are more worthy then any amount paid because they insure continued involvement in the program. And while more companies provide a form of security against disasters, incidents like the Airbnb ransack are the exception and not the norm.

Citi Bikes is set to be a huge hit, providing a unique, healthy, and green transportation network that can fluidly travel throughout the city. Anyone from tourists to fair-weather bikers will be able to bike for a (relatively) low fee. In many ways, collaborative consumption is still concentrated to early adopters and hasn’t cemented itself as a nonnegotiable economic movement. While time will tell the impact of large scale sharing, I know I will enjoy a leisurely bike ride in the scorching NYC summer.

To jump on the collaborative consumption bandwagon, check out this list of startups.

*Wheelz is a TriplePoint client.

PR Tips for App Developers

Which icon stands out in this sea of apps?

The secret to a successful app is a combination of factors, some of which you can control, others you can’t. In order to do well in the oversaturated app marketplace it’s essential to put yourself in the best possible position for success. App success starts with a great idea, it hinges on execution during development, and it is largely influenced by PR, marketing, timing, and luck.

Of those factors, PR is one that you can control. PR for apps is about how you present the product to the public, garner media coverage, and build users and awareness through proactive outreach. Here are 5 tips to help your PR effort.

Continue reading PR Tips for App Developers

Nintendo’s Battle for a Dedicated Gaming Platform: Throw In the Towel for Mobile?

Nintendo has been facing an incredible amount of pressure from existing and new entrants to the gaming space that has led to a decline of its market share. With only so much time in one day to consume media, consumers have a choice between “core” gaming, by way of consoles and PCs, and a more casual experience via browser and on mobile devices; Nintendo has found itself at the service of neither audience.

With the impending launch of Wii U, the company has taken a public stance in support of the core gamer, but is faced with overcoming the challenge of offering a superior online experience to the established leader in the space, Microsoft and its Xbox 360. Its track record with Wii Shop leaves many of us doubtful that it can rebound in this sense. Meanwhile, the mainstream audience that helped propel Nintendo to success in the last decade with the Wii is being abandoned in favor of more costly hardware and complicated controls of the Wii U.

Clearly, Nintendo’s platform is at risk of failure, and investors and Mario fans alike are clamoring for a shift in strategy. Most notable among the call for action lies with the leader and renowned innovator in software and hardware – Apple.  Prior to iOS, we had terrible interfaces that were counterintuitive to driving engagement of content and considered a 5% market penetration of games as a success. Since the debut of iOS and the App Store, we’ve seen the market expand to over 600,000 applications and indie developers rising to fame, claiming thousands in revenue, and in some cases millions. Google Play trails closely behind with over 500,000 applications available, although the platform faces piracy issues that leave it second to iOS in terms of developer support.

The new market opportunity is in mobile gaming, as Apple and Google continue to seed global audiences with smartphone devices that spur user engagement with various forms of content, most notably games. Should Nintendo bow to market pressures and take Mario, Zelda and Metroid to mobile devices? Certainly not now, without sacrificing its entire platform and affecting its remaining grip on the game enthusiast market. Let’s analyze the implications of what can be seen as a rash decision in several ways.

Shifts in Revenue

Nintendo’s revenues have taken a hard hit as a result of our shift to mobile platforms. Wii owners are largely content with Wii Sports, and those mainstream consumers have hardly converted into purchasers of additional software, resulting in decreased developer support. The 3DS launched to a cold welcome, but has since slashed prices and achieved moderate success among a stagnant core gaming audience.

The company recorded its first operating loss of $460 million for fiscal year ending March 31st, much of which can be attributed to the struggling Wii console, DS and 3DS, all falling short of sales expectations and incorporating price cuts in response to increased competitive pressures. We can also assume that much of the capital was allocated to continued support for game developers on each platform and R&D towards Wii U.

Meanwhile, Rovio released its 2011 earnings statement, highlighting $67.6 million in profit on $106.3 million in revenues that can be largely attributed to its Angry Birds property, 30% of which came from merchandising and licensing. Based on these numbers, we can estimate that around $70 million was generated by downloads of Angry Birds. Impressive numbers indeed and deserving of praise for the company’s immense success across the various platforms on which Angry Birds can be found.

Yet, Angry Birds is at the top of the food chain, and few (if any) can come close to matching the success that Angry Birds has seen. And in comparison to Nintendo’s current business, it fails to match the numbers of its own game platform business.

For fiscal year beginning April 1, 2012, Nintendo is expected to achieve $500 million in operating profit according to a forecast estimate compiled through a survey of 20 analysts by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The company controls its own fully integrated platform specifically tailored to gaming, similar to Apple’s hardware/software strategy that spans personal computers and mobile devices, not to mention the impending launch of the rumored iTV. Nintendo sells the hardware and controls the pipeline of software making its way to consumers, consisting of its own popular IP and an ecosystem of developers from which it generates additional revenues with every game purchase.

Let’s take a look at another example, one that would be on the lower end of Nintendo’s sales figures on a platform that is largely characterized as “struggling” – Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS. The title has so far achieved global sales of nearly 5.5 million units, running at $39.99 a pop. That’s nearly $220 million in revenues, over double Rovio’s business. Now, the margin on packaged goods isn’t really as significant, but even if we’re looking at a 20% profit margin, we’re talking about approximately $44 million in profit from a single title that has been on the market for only 6 months and on hardware that isn’t even considered a mainstream success. Looking forward, it’s not a stretch for Nintendo’s hardware to go strictly digital as industry trends indicate and eliminating the packaged goods channel, increasing margins and generating even greater profits (considering a premium price point maintained through “deeper” gaming experiences of Nintendo hardware). Also, this is just for one title – consider all the other games moving through the 3DS, controlled 100% by Nintendo and generating even greater revenues from both 1st and 3rd party games.

For Nintendo to trash its own closed gaming platform for Apple’s in pursuit of revenues that have not publicly achieved the scale that Nintendo currently maintains just doesn’t add up. It’s also understandable that Nintendo derides the thought of having to pay Apple the 30% cut, which would make it an even greater challenge to achieve success on the scale of its current games business. A counter argument to this is that Nintendo can offer games on each platform, which doesn’t come without merit, but let’s take a look at this audience.

Can Mario Wear Different Hats?

For Nintendo to reach the scale of success on Apple’s platform that it currently achieves within the confines of its own closed platform, let’s assume two scenarios: 1) that the game experience is rich enough to sell on the level of Angry Birds (that’s 1 billion downloads!), or 2) that Nintendo sells at a premium with less market penetration. Both situations would have to involve the creation of new games based on its popular IP, rather than a direct port of old games which would only have a minimal impact on Nintendo’s bottom line, not to mention potential disappointment in the controls for some of our most favorite classics that were built for console controls.

The first scenario would be largely targeted at the expanded mainstream audience, one that Nintendo did a great job of penetrating with the Wii and DS. Yet, we have to ask ourselves if the casual gamer of an older demographic and one that skews female would be willing to purchase a Nintendo device if Mario could be had on an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. Facing limited time in one’s day, chances are that this gamer would skip the purchase of a game-dedicated device and invest $0.99 on a more casual Mario experience. Asking my wife and her 21 year old sister if they’d purchase a new Mario for Wii if they had Super Mario World on their mobile device, they both confidently answered “no way, the app would be good enough”. This would affect the purchasing decision of millions of consumers and cannibalize Nintendo’s gaming platform at a much more significant loss than what it can possibly recover in $0.99 downloads. This isn’t a risk that Nintendo can afford to make, at least not right now.

The second scenario involves a very challenging balancing act of pricing games at a premium, say $9.99, and selling through enough downloads to generate a return on development costs. This would carry an even greater risk of cannibalizing Nintendo’s own platform as these premium games would also come with a deeper and richer gaming experience that could potentially directly compete with Wii U, DS and 3DS game quality. If I have a great Mario title on my mobile devices at $9.99, chances are that I’ll skip the dedicated hardware and $50 price tag for the game.

Additionally, either decision would send a very negative signal to the remaining developers who still believe in Nintendo’s gaming platform, causing additional speculation about those consoles’ impending demise, an even further loss of support in game development, and all but hammering the final nail in the coffin of Nintendo’s platform.

Finally, do we really want an innovator in the gaming space to drop what it does to hop on the iOS bandwagon and solely rely on a touchscreen interface? Is the future of gaming really only about the touchscreen, perhaps with gesture and voice recognition integrated within? Imagine where gaming would be now if Nintendo bowed down to economic pressures back when the GameCube was being labeled as a failure and the Wii and DS never happened. All those Wine, Cheese and Wii parties would have never happened, and one could fairly assume that the Kinect and Move gaming experiences may not have been inspired into market release, perhaps confined to TV integration and never having impacted the games we play.

“Tiiiime Is On My Side, Yes It Is”

Mick Jagger’s voice resonates in my head as I read that Nintendo is sitting on a pile of cash amounting to $14 billion. Not only is Nintendo expected to turn a profit for fiscal year 2012/13, but it has a war chest to conceive and define the “next generation of gaming” through a fully integrated hardware and software platform, one that’s made exclusively for gamers and consumers seeking a good time. Even though the new Wii U doesn’t spur much hope with industry analysts and other market players, such efforts would be completely lost if confined solely to the hardware and interface design choices of Apple, a company whose business is far greater than the games sector to justify a focus on giving us new ways to experience video games.

But how much time does Nintendo really have to make a decision? Even with $14 billion to cover years of operating costs, Nintendo can’t afford to sit around forever. A fair guess at the amount of time that Nintendo has to evaluate the marketplace and give a shot at maintaining a unique gaming experience lies perhaps in the 5-10 year range. Most everyone will understandably argue that this is too much time, but Mario, Zelda and Metroid aren’t going anywhere, and if Nintendo’s own platform faces a demise there will always be an audience ready to pounce on these titles when made available on iOS, Android or any other platform outside the company’s own walls.

Atari, who is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, has hit a milestone of 10 million downloads just a year after releasing a number of classic and new games based on its renowned IP. Even decades after spending my hard earned weekly allowance in the arcades on Missile Command, Asteroids and Super Breakout, I can count myself among the millions that are downloading these games on iOS and Android (disclaimer: Atari is a TriplePoint client). You can bet that team Mario will have a lasting impact on consumers and maintain brand recognition that results in downloads 5-10 years down the road.

Losing Share to Angry Birds

Kids everywhere are wearing Angry Birds shirts and socks, while plushies continue to fill the rooms of children around the world. The ~$30 million merchandising/licensing business around this IP is a strong indicator that the property is capturing the mindshare of consumers, certainly at a loss for Mario. This perhaps is the greatest challenge facing Nintendo the longer it waits to nail down and execute a strategy for distribution on iOS and Android. Yet, the company has a history of bringing fans of its various 1st party IP a reason to buy back into the franchises, and the continued power of those brands will no doubt ensure that it continues to sell hardware and games, and that the expanded audiences take notice as well, even if these casual audiences may no longer be willing to purchase a Nintendo gaming device.

When all is said and done, nothing can sway Nintendo from sitting on its bankroll to continue attempts at innovating gaming fun as we know it, not as long as the market opportunities in mobile fall short of the rewards of maintaining its own closed gaming platform. A company that has over 120 years of history shouldn’t be swayed so easily by market pressures to ditch its game-focused platform for a new market that has been hot during the past 4 years (App Store launched in 2008). A survivor of the turbulent gaming market in the 90s and one that has stood up to Microsoft and Sony, we should be cheering on Nintendo to come up with a fresh gaming experience that takes us beyond a simple touchscreen interface dominated by a company that (understandably) deprioritizes gaming among all forms of digital media. Mario and team may one day land on our mobile devices, but considerations for its existing business should be taken into account, and we’ll always be ready to download Nintendo’s games years down the road.

 

A Visitor’s Guide to Silicon Alley

TriplePoint New York is often asked about life in Silicon Alley. We get questions such as “what companies do we need to meet, what co-working spaces do we need to check out,” and more from our colleagues and contemporaries on the West Coast.

While there are numerous growing technology companies with offices in the “Alley,” including Tumblr, Bonobos, AppNexus, Birchbox, Boxee, Learnvest and more, there are also many favorite communal spots of the NY tech community. At these staples, you’ll find everyone from founders to VC’s to hackers plotting their next product feature or closing a funding round.

Here are some of the most popular destinations, complete with insider tips from TriplePoint and various tech influencers.

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Thanks to @Mashable, @Birchbox, @FredWilson, @Naveen, @NihalMehta, @Benpopper, @Digital_sweet, @CBM, @LonisTweets, @Daveambrose, @Bonobos and all the tipsters within. Here’s our full list:

Ace Hotel Lobby (29th and Broadway):Get there early if you need seating for more than yourself. Make sure to grab coffee from Stumptown and if you have time, have breakfast at the Breslin.

Shake Shack (23rd and Madison): SF has In-N-Out, but we’ve got the shack. Give me a Double Shack Burger with a black & white shake in Madison Square Park over In-N-Out’s loud fast food environment any day of the week.

Birreria, at Eataly (23rd and Fifth): Situated atop Eataly with a retractable roof, Birreria is enjoyable year-round, but unbeatable when the weather is nice. The Shiitake mushrooms is one of the best dishes in the entire city.

General Assembly (20th and Broadway): What sets GA apart from the rest of the coworking spaces is its robust education program. If you don’t take a class, you’re missing out.

Tarallucci E Vino (18th and Fifth): Tucked around the corner from General Assembly, this Italian cafe is a regular on the tech breakfast and lunch circuit. You can’t go wrong with a croissant or the custard cream doughnut.

Grey Dog Cafe (11th and University): South of Union Square and only a few steps away from Dogpatch Labs, Grey Dog is often packed with various techies. Get the “Grey Dog’s Breakfast,” and thank me later.

Intellectual Property vs Inspiration

A little book hit the shelves recently, called Fifty Shades of Grey.  The racy trilogy by Australian author E L James has spent nine weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List for combined eBook and print fiction.  The sequential two books have been steadfastly trailing along in second and third.  Prior to its success as a print book, readers had already been clamoring to read the series in eBook format, downloading it hundreds of thousands of times.

Since then, James received six-figure advances for US print publishing rights, UK and Commonwealth, as well as film rights.

What may not be immediately apparent is that Fifty Shades of Grey began as a piece of Twilight fanfiction.  E L James took Stephenie Meyer’s characters of Bella and Edward and reimagined them in an alternate universe for the basis of Fifty Shade of Grey.  So the question becomes, as Jason Boog states for NPR:

“Does the book owe more than just character names to Twilight? Even though the names and relationships have changed, Fifty Shades of Grey reproduced the mad thrill of reading Twilight, the moody relationship at its core and the endless emotional analysis.”

Boog further speculates that this may be a trend that publishers are going to have to tread lightly around as they hope to also capitalize on the series’ popularity.  But the larger implication is on authors’ intellectual property.  Authors are a divided camp when it comes to fanfiction of their works.  Some openly support it, such as Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman, and JK Rowling.  Others are staunchly against seeing their characters and environments used by others, most notably Anne Rice and George R.R. Martin, whose arguments against focus on legal copyright and intellectual property.

Writers of fanfic generally are under no disillusion that they’re using someone else’s creations, often including on sites such as fanfiction.net disclaimers that they don’t own the original source or characters within.  James’ story created a new environment for the Twilight protagonists, set in modern day Seattle, also changing the relationship between the two and molding it into a different story.  Others writers have used fanfiction as a launching pad, such as YA author Cassandra Clare, who cut her chops writing Harry Potter fanfic.  Her popular fanfic was not adapted for mainstream publishing; she instead wrote a new original series.

The issue with Fifty Shades of Grey is that at its heart, it and its characters were inspired by Stephenie Meyer’s works, begging the question of where to draw the line between copyright infringement and an inspired homage.  Is Fifty Shades of Grey a derivative of Twilight or can it be seen as an original work?  It is, admittedly, a rather grey area that can’t be answered simply.

Vintage Books included a disclaimer acknowledging the book’s fanfiction origins, and the original fanfic has been removed.  As self-publishing continues to rise in popularity there’s a likelihood that more works based on fanfiction or existing IPs will crop up, and the definition between derivation and influence may need to become more black and white.

Bourbon Cupcakes, BBQ, and a Sense of Community at the East Coast Game Conference

Two weeks ago, hundreds of game industry professionals and industry hopefuls gathered for the fourth installment of East Coast Game Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. While the southeast doesn’t quite have the bustling industry reputation of San Francisco or Los Angeles, attendees didn’t seem to mind in the least. That a show planned almost entirely by a board that has separate full-time jobs, competing with giant expos that bring in 30 to 70 thousand people, continues to thrive says a lot about the industry today.

The expo hall, much like the show’s attendees, featured a unique split of well-established companies (Insomniac, Funcom, Red Storm), growing independent developers (Spark Plug Games, Mighty Rabbit), and industry-focused businesses, all rubbing elbows as they showed off their work and wares. Panels and presentation topics ranged from business to mobile and social gaming, along with a standalone track led by the region’s most recognizable name: Epic Games.

Of these varied panels, one in particular provided some helpful insights into the continually evolving relationship between consumers, journalists, and public relations in the gaming industry. Within trappings of bourbon cupcakes and actual bourbon, covered to great effect by Kotaku’s esteemed Mike Fahey here, editors from Polygon, The Escapist, Kotaku, and IGN spent an hour going over some of the tougher ethical questions they face in their work.

At the end of the final day, as the expo hall closed and the last panels wrapped up, the unique spirit of the NC Triangle’s gaming industry became a bit more apparent. Attendees lingered and chatted as they broke down their booths, some helping others as they packed up to head home and very few seeming in a huge rush to leave.

While it’s true that hubs like SF and LA lead the industry in size, there’s a lesson to be learned in the continued success of the ECGC. No matter how competitive the space gets, or how much worry goes into predicting the future landscape, we’re all in this together in the end.

Oh, and one more extremely important takeaway from the show: bourbon before noon can be dangerous. Drink responsibly, and preferably a bit later in the day. Cupcakes optional.

Adventures in Hindsight

The games industry hasn’t been able to get enough of Kickstarter since Tim Schafer and Double Fine managed to pull together $3.3 Million for an as-yet-nonspecific adventure game title. The story has given everybody a new theory about what is possible with regards to game publishing: esoteric designs and genres finally have a way to get around cautious publishers. The adventure game is not dead. Gamers will gladly pay a reasonable price if their wishes are being met. Finally, game design can be a true meritocracy.

These are mostly exaggerations, mind you. Not every aspiring game developer gets to be Tim Schafer, with an existing track record of critically acclaimed games and significant cachet among press and fans. Double Fine may have raised an incredible sum, but there have been plenty of also-rans who have failed to magically capitalize on this amazing new source of revenue. Continue reading Adventures in Hindsight

Silicon Valley Roots: Is What the Dormouse Said Still Audible?

Industries in the United States have always defined various geographic regions of the county. In the nineteenth century, indigo and cotton plantations became symbols of the South, while Northern life was literally built around factories. In the early 1900s, Detroit became the Motor City and the Midwest established itself as the Corn Belt. Countless other examples of geographic specialization exist. Even after some of these industries collapsed, their cultural footprints were fossilized in the structure of towns, city architecture, street names, geographic landscape, and, most importantly, the pace of life in these regions.

Silicon Valley is the technology hub of America, but as businesses from the Valley continue to sprout after seed funding, many seem to drift further and further from their cultural roots.

The history of Silicon Valley, predating the well-known stories of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, is captured in John Markoff’s 2005 What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry. Markoff follows the unsung heroes of the computing industry, tracing their personal and professional paths across the mid-twentieth century in Northern California. But mostly, What the Dormouse Said also presents how, in one rare instance of American history, an extraordinary culture birthed an industry.

The founders of the Silicon Valley were in many cases misfits –  gifted minds who fled the stifling culture of East Coast suburbia for the freedom of 1960s counterculture in California. They found passion envisioning a new way of life aided by technology. They lent their time to corporations and the government as they dedicated their minds to projects of personal interest, embracing the freedom espoused by the Free Love movement. This zeal is also present in the histories of some recent companies. Both Facebook and language translation company Transperfect grew out of college dorms.

During the age of the corporate-ladder-climbing crony, the majority of men were buttoned-up in strict hierarchies, often working 30+ years with the same company. Myron Stolaroff, however, prototyped America’s first magnetic reel-to-reel tape recorder and then began guiding Silicon Valley residents down the rabbit hole of group-moderated LSD trips, meant to “open their minds to new creative visions.” Meanwhile, Robert Albrecht was facilitating knowledge flow throughout the Valley with the People’s Computer Company newsletter (named after Janis Joplin’s band, naturally). Fred Moore and Gordon French took Albrecht’s vision a step further, holding meet-ups to foster hobbyist computer passions and encourage idea-sharing among a gifted young crowd, including Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, with their now famous Homebrew Computer Club.

This insular community of techies created a camaraderie unique to the West Coast. This camaraderie gave rise to a dynamic personal computing industry that morphed and progressed parallel to the minds of its members. But as years have distanced the personal computing industry from its roots, a new question has sprouted: is “what the dormouse said” still audible?

Silicon Valley, though still our country’s undeniable tech hub (no offense; keep truckin’ Silicon Alley), seems to have forgone the collaborative growth of times past in favor of reality shows, buzzwords, and Klout scores. Self-proclaimed serial entrepreneurs build businesses for profit, then cash out to start the venture over again.  Even in the 70s gifted minds in the personal computing industry looked to turn their enthusiasm into profits, and Moore’s Homebrew Computer Club generated a variety of companies including Apple and North Star. This isn’t a new or terrible phenomenon; if businesses were started solely out of passion, our shoes would likely lack laces and plastic bags would be a scarce commodity. But it is, in a sense, a perversion of the process. In a complete turn-around from the Silicon Valley of the 1960s, start-ups are driven by the desire to build a financially successful tech business rather than build on a passion for a better tomorrow. The result is a slough of clones — so many iterations of the same product that companies can’t always justify their versions as improvements upon a concept (much less as new original concepts), different brand names notwithstanding.

The scientists of personal computing history approached innovation from multiple angles. IBM set the computing standard with punch card computing. From there, Hewitt Crane pushed magnetic computing. And Doug Engelbart, close friend and colleague of Crane, opted to raise digital computing from its nascent form, creating the framework for the Internet and personal computer, including the mouse, display, and html, and then unveiled them in an epic demo (thought Steve Jobs came up with those moves himself?). Though Engelbart’s concept won out, each took his individual concept as far as possible and then allowed the ideas to coalesce into a more refined product. There were failed companies and mutinies, but throughout the process knowledge was constantly shared at sociopolitical hubs like Kepler’s Books. Today, talk of idea-sharing among companies is usually in reference to patent lawsuits.

There are some companies that are innovating and not creating replications of already successful products. The tablet has long been seen as the only child of the personal computer, but some start-ups are looking past the tablet and furthering the spirit of Silicon Valley, taking the personal computer to extremes. Livescribe smartpens house a computer in the shell of a pen and turn paper into an interactive display. Google, opting to bypass the tablet route, aims to further integrate computing into our lives via Project Glass. And both Microsoft and Burton are attempting to make William Shatner proud by developing 3D holograms. There are also myriad start-ups bringing innovative ideas to an increasingly tired space. As Silicon Valley progresses, the companies that are planting new seeds rather than adding tepid water to saturated soil are those that are paying mind to the flowering culture that bore their industry. What’s left to the rest is to be inspired by the inspirational, but go beyond what exists. And remember what the dormouse said–feed your head.

Livescribe is a TriplePoint client.

Why Isn’t Instagram at Least as Evil as Zynga?

Instagram selling for $1 billion dollars generated surprise, and envy.

Perhaps people can understand a strategic rationale for Facebook buying it, or competitive impulse, but the befuddlement remains.  You can hear the suppressed snicker coming from the mainstream business prairie: they weren’t making money, but hey, for the team itself, hooray!  Everyone agrees they’re really nice young men, who network and took risks.  They are poster boys for the Stanford-Silicon Valley axis.

Would people feel the same way about Instagram as a company if they did make money from their users?

They could insert an ad, spam your friends, or give you a premium upgrade only if you filled out a survey. They would share in Zynga’s original sin. There are other reasons Zynga may or may not be evil — options cancellations, labor practices and the like — but it is unlikely these are abnormal and surely the case that they are examined intensely only in the wake of their basic game philosophy of, and success from, compulsion loop design.  “Copying” is the other charge, but widespread in the industry, and goes back to the dawn of video game time.

Imagine an alternate history where Zynga relied on the capital markets instead of their user base to monetize. Imagine they sold for $1 billion just on the promise of how a user base could be monetized rather than how they actually did monetize. Zynga monetizes now, Instagram monetizes later, and by a different corporate entity.  Anyone that believes “Zynga is evil” must also hold that the corporate shower of riches on Instagram is even more nefarious. Their user base was “hooked” on beauty instead of compulsion loops, only to be revealed ultimately as corporate assets, passively awaiting their harvesting by Facebook.

When Shay Pierce of OMGPOP turned down the offer to join Zynga, he went out in a blaze of Gamasutra glory.  He warned:

When an entity exists in an ecosystem, and acts within that ecosystem in a way that is short-sighted, behaving in a way that is actively destructive to the healthy functioning of that ecosystem and the other entities in it (including, in the long term, themselves) — yes, I believe that that is evil. And I believe that Zynga does exactly that.

A “good” company is one which provides goods or services of real value in exchange for a fair price. A good game company recognizes that its developers are the ones who create that value, and treats them as valuable, especially if they are good at what they do. It follows practices that are sustainable. And it ensures that, at the end of the day, the world is a little better for having their goods and services.

An evil company is trying to get rich quick, and has no regard for the harm they’re doing along the way. It’s not making things of value, it’s chasing a gold rush.

This evil company moving fast on an acquisition was taking very normal preventative steps for their intellectual property. But the game Shay made and “loves,” Connectrode, was in jeopardy, or so he thought.  A game whose video is self-described as an “Addictive” “evolution” of Bejewelled, Mario, and so forth.  In other words, Zynga, just not as successful.  Even the art form of the haughty public resignation letter was an iteration on something that had been just been done two weeks before.

What are the PR lessons from the respective public responses to the startling ascendancy of these two different companies?  The strategy for public positioning of companies needs to take two powerful psychological biases into effect: anchoring and confirmation. One creator of addictive iterative games calls Zynga evil and it is uncritically accepted and propagated. NimbleBit’s Tiny Tower rips off Corporation Inc. only to have Zynga do the same to them, but is lauded for their sarcastic lob.

While a private company, Zynga was transparent to the point of being cavalier about their culture, aims, and monetization.  That could have originated out of Silicon Valley philosophy, carelessness, or speed.  Whatever the reason, no effective or persistent defense was made about the value that they were bringing to bear.  The fact of the matter is, Zynga games are fun too: objectively so.  Fun in the very elemental sense.  They are friendly, brightly colored, and not too taxing.

Is this worse than any other form of consumer entertainment product that isn’t a labored indie film?  “Gamerz” protest too much and play these games in bespoke fashion. Yup we’re just doing it for research. For our kids. To see what’s happening in the industry.  Let me see just how stupid…level 10 is.

Cow Clicker is a nice shot at Farmville — it’s also a shot at Skyrim?

Skyrim is so much higher quality but, quick, what is the literary quality of these place names: Eastmarch, White Run, Dragon Bridge, Winterhold.  Quality is a difference of degree rather than type. In each game you customize, click, and level up, with a different number of dimensions and more bloodshed than in Castleville.  Obsessed with communicating their corporate growth, Zynga never made it OK to like or admire their games as a product.  The financial prospects Zynga demonstrated saved the game industry from a normal console transition downturn.  There is no Kabam, Kixeye, Funzio, Crowdstar, and so on without Zynga.

Don’t flash your headlights in urban areas.  Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet.  Zynga is evil.  People look uncritically for confirmation of their beliefs.

Take two casual photographs: Mark Pincus is photographed in Vanity Fair, lord of all he surveys, from his condo.  He’s already rich.

The most smug photo I can find of the Instagram guys is still that they’re jus’ brogrammers, in some class B office space, maybe fresh from hacking:

We can not help but interpret these photos with information we already know.  Imagine the positions were reversed: the above photograph was of a photo filter CEO.  Beautiful city, shaded to orange.  Below, the punk manipulators of lonely middle America.  Don’t the smiles look a bit more cocky, the office more ominously clinical?

The lessons between Instagram and Zynga, both dazzling and great companies with different public perceptions:

1) Companies should zealousy discuss the value they are bringing to the world.  Discuss the vision that inspires the product line, not just the anecdote behind the corporate name (though that humanization is probably Zynga’s most effective consumer media message.)  Failure to do so opens interpretation to lowest common denominator possibilities – you’re just in it for the money.

2) Companies — but more particularly, the people creating them — should not talk about the financial benefits they have subsequently reaped or were going to reap.  Descriptions that someone is now “rich” are hard to latch onto, be envious of and tear apart.  Specific dollar figures are easy to.  (See any public executive officer compensation report.)  Rare is the response of a Paul Graham to any quantification of income inequality.  This works in reverse too. Simply saying one is charitable has minimal effect.  Giving away half of your income is tangible: even if you’re not giving it to old Skype employees.

3) Transparency is only effective if complete, and properly segmented. There is no such thing as complete information. If your transparency is simply “shocking revelation” (or even tongue-in-cheek revelation, or whimsical attention-getting revelation) it will be pulled out of context.  Zynga was transparent, Instagram was not but Zynga didn’t win any points from the blogosphere or the professional community for it.  When in conversations you need to know the motivations of the reporter (/analyst/blogger/customer.)

4) When monetizing something that had previously been free (or uncluttered), you have perilous waters ahead.  Success with many customers will mean failure with others.  You may risk backlash.  Proper messaging about the changes need to be done in advance, not in response.

Communications plans should incorporate strategies for success as well as failure. Aim for transparency but support it with a clear narrative.  Journalists start out wanting to like you. They want to see a company succeed; to talk about the transformations made possible by technology, and see the local kid do good.  Zynga was once that kid, just like David Morin’s path.io might be today – and at a crossroads. Are they a visionary networker or cynical monetizer?

 “A few weeks before f8, Morin had coffee with Mark Pincus, the erstwhile founder of Tribe.net, co-owner of the sixdegrees social networking patent, and early investor in Facebook.  Pincus told Morin excitedly that he intended to build a poker application for the new platform.  “It won’t work,” Morin asserted dourly.  “Games aren’t viral.” Pincus went ahead and launched Texas HoldEm Poker on Facebook, starting a company called Zynga, which was headed for huge success.” –David Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect

When pushed, most entrepreneurs will confess their jealousy for this early insight. It is easier to discount the visionary as evil, that they are somehow winning through unfair play. “Zynga is evil” might be the Phiten necklace of the videogame industry: Something objectively not especially true but a (consoling) motivator, at least until the Zynga buyout offer comes around.

 

 

How to Be Innovative

There must be something in the water. In Silicon Valley, innovation runs deep and entrepreneurs seem to be everywhere you look. There are countless go-getters who all believe they have the next big idea and are willing to drop everything to prove it. Even beyond the world of tech meetups and conferences, it seems like every weekend I chat with servers, bartenders, bus drivers, lawyers, and bankers who admit they are working on a side project, creating a new product and dreaming of one day running their own business.

With so many ideas brewing in the Bay Area and entrepreneurs so confident that their idea has what it takes, it is important to stand out from the crowd which can be difficult when everyone around you is trying to be “different.”

How do you keep up your mind sharp and continuously innovate?  Here are a few ideas you should try:

1) Stop calling company brainstorm meetings

The idea of brainstorming first became popular in the 1950s, thanks to B.B.D.O. advertising exec, Alex Osborn. It’s a nice feel-good idea because in a brainstorm, no answer is allowed to be criticized. The idea is that people will share more ideas because they are not afraid of ridicule. However, Jonah Lehrer — a science writer and expert on how companies can encourage innovation, and author of Imagine — explained in a New Yorker article that research has repeatedly found that, despite the popularity of brainstorming, group performance declines as the group size gets bigger. It turns out groups generate more ideas if they work alone and pool ideas together later.

Groupthink

Psychologists have found that in large groups “groupthink” sets in. People tend to want to avoid tension and disagreement, so they end up gravitating toward agreeing rather than considering alternate viewpoints. Critical evaluation of ideas is beneficial because it challenges people to reassess their arguments, consider other perspectives and discover new viewpoints they may not have considered before. To be innovative, it is best to skip the brainstorm and instead share thoughts with only a few people, evaluating and challenging each other’s ideas.

2) Accidentally run into people that are different from you (on purpose)

Intellectual diversity is key to innovation. Encouraging people with different backgrounds and areas of expertise to converse and bounce ideas off of each other can help them think beyond their normal patterns of thought. Steve Jobs understood this and purposefully planned Pixar’s headquarters to be built in a circular fashion around an atrium. He wanted to encourage people from different teams to ”accidentally” run into each other every day and share ideas. In order to increase foot traffic, they eventually put all the bathrooms in the building in the atrium. This way, the Pixar staff was more likely to strike up chance conversations outside their normal teams multiple times a day.

3) Encourage an “aha” moment by taking a shower or watching comedy

Make them laugh

Have you ever solved a puzzle or thought of a new creative idea in the shower? Or after taking a stroll or a quick a cat nap? Many creative moments reportedly pop up when least expected. These moments of insight typically come out of the blue, when your mind is not focusing on the problem you are trying to solve.

Part of this has to do with being relaxed and in a good mood. EEG studies (that measure electricity in your brain) have found that people who are more relaxed are able to solve more puzzles. In a study by researcher Mark Beeman, researchers found that participants that watched a clip of Robin Williams doing stand-up comedy were more likely to solve insight puzzles, with the average success rate increasing 20%.

4) Let them eat cake! …or nap, or play Ping-Pong…

Jonah Lehrer has also studied the work environment of the innovative company, 3M. 3M gives every engineer an hour to do anything they want, as long as they promise to share it with their colleagues. It could be anything – and employees have the freedom to choose — from playing a video game, to taking a nap, knitting, or going for a stroll. As Lehrer puts it, they are encouraged to “manage their own attention.” This gives engineers the chance to step away from their desk and do something else, which often helps them be more productive even if it could potentially look like they are wasting time.

5) Paint your walls blue

If all else fails, one quick fix that could help is to paint your room blue. John Lehrer has noted that people working in a room that is a relaxing shade of blue tend to solve more puzzles and think more creatively. Those in a red room are able to focus more on details, which can be good for certain tasks, but blue rooms encourage relaxation and thinking in more abstract terms.

Paint the walls blue

Sources:

Scott Berkun Blog: http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/

Susan Cain, “The Rise of the New Groupthink,” The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Jonah Lehrer, “Groupthink,” The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all

Jonah Lehrer, Imagine

NPR Fresh Air interview: http://www.npr.org/2012/03/21/148607182/fostering-creativity-and-imagination-in-the-workplace

 

Playing in an Asynchronous World

The recent rise of mobile as a key platform in the gaming space is accompanied by meteoric growth in asynchronous gameplay. Not what you typically envision when hearing of the latest “multi-player videogame,” asynchronous games do not require the two or more participants to be playing simultaneously; rather, players make turns at their convenience. Chart toppers such as Words With Friends, Hero Academy and Draw Something have millions of people around the world playing asynchronous games daily.

The appeal of this detached gameplay mode on the mobile platform is obvious: by not having to participate “in-sync,” players are free to go about their day, logging in to make a move only when it’s convenient. Growing up, getting a quick game of StarCraft going with my friends required planning in advance to ensure everybody was free (or hoping they were signed into Ventrilo). Now the rich, social experience of multiplayer gaming is available anywhere, anytime, and with any of your hundreds of Facebook friends.

Without a doubt, asynchronous gameplay is bringing millions of new gamers online. Everybody from busy professionals to even busier moms can find time throughout the day to glance at their phones and lay down a quick 20-point word or crudely sketch a sunflower for their friends. These types of people that could never carve out a two-hour block of time to delve into the latest RTS or explore the world of a new MMO are exactly the target audience for asynchronous games.

Recently, I became completely addicted to Zynga’s Words With Friends. My phone buzzed constantly with updates – after all, with 10 or 15 games happening simultaneously, there’s always somebody free to play. I am, and imagine I always will be, a huge Scrabble fan, and my initial enthusiasm motivated the first few weeks of play. However, after a few months of playing WWF, I found myself oddly numb to the experience. Sliding my finger across each subsequent “New Move” notification pop-up seemed more and more of a chore and less about enjoying the game. I was no longer playing because I was immersed in the game, but rather because felt beholden to making the next move so my friends would not be left hanging.

A few months back, I finally snapped out of my daze and started reflecting on the experience, ultimately concluding that I expected too much of asynchronous gameplay. Like most of my daily electronic information flow, the game simply became another source for that short, addicting burst of serotonin so many of us crave in the Digital Age, with little to gain that could not be found in a casual glance at Twitter.

I may think that I’m a busy person and at times certainly am, but I’m no mom rushing kids to soccer practice and dance recitals. In retrospect, I probably spent close to two hours a day keeping up with WWF – not exactly a “non-disruptive” amount of time. Keep in mind, this was not two hours I scheduled specifically for play, but like with most players, time taken in small increments throughout the day that quickly added up to the point of distraction. This most convenient form of gaming was not only sucking an hour or two out of each day, but also doing so when I should have been focusing on work or enjoying the company of friends.

A few months free of Zynga’s iron grip and I’m making a point to schedule time for the sort of immersive gaming that I used to know and love, inviting friends over for a game of Super Smash Bros. or investing the time to set up a game of Risk or Settlers of Catan. I still play the occasional game of Draw Something or Scramble With Friends, but my notifications have all been turned off, and the icons are gone from my home screen. Now, I play only when I’m truly not busy or have made a point to invest some time.

Asynchronous games are part of a wider push in the tech space to make everything as convenient, connected and on-demand as possible. “No time to sit down and play? Just have these bite-sized snippets instead!” That’s great for people on the go, but for those of us accustomed to the deep immersion that comes with truly investing yourself in a game, with setting up your StarCraft hotkeys and arguing over which dictionary to use for Scrabble, there is more than a bit of magic missing so far, in asynchronous gameplay.

While I may sound like the exception to the rule in the face of so much overwhelming success, evidence suggests many others experience the same burnout and disappointment after the initial rush to play. However, I’m confident that the next generation of asynchronous game developers will mitigate these issues with innovative new features that not only keep us hooked, but also tear us away when things start to get out of hand and our entertainment threatens to become a chore.

 

Should Gaming News Report on Anders Behring Breivik?

On July 22, 2011, Anders Behrig Breivik killed 77 people in a horrific tragedy in Norway.  Within a day, game-centric journalism sites and blogs began covering stories about the killer because Breivik wrote a 1500 page manifesto that included recommendations on using Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as training for an inevitable war with Islam.  He also discussed using an obsession with World of Warcraft as a cover – saying you couldn’t answer your phone because “you were busy raiding” isn’t likely to invite any questions.  “If you’re planning requires you to travel, say that you are visiting one of your WoW friends,” Breivik writes, “or better yet, a girl from your ‘guild’ (who lives in another country). No further questions will be raised if you present these arguments.”

Violent events have been linked to videogames countless times in the mainstream media, usually to the dismay of gaming journalists.  While some have strong connections, such as Breivik explicitly saying he used Modern Warfare 2 to train, others have much more tenuous connections, like when the Denver Post claimed the Columbine school shooting was caused by parents revoking the shooters’ videogame rights.

Continue reading Should Gaming News Report on Anders Behring Breivik?

Social Media Circus: Harnessing Social Influence for Games

Which social ploys do you employ in trying to generate discovery for your game? Here are a few of the usual suspects:

The Persistent Pesky Pop-Up
“Hey, you just set a high score! Want to share it? Oh, you’ve leveled up, that’s awesome; you ought to post about that! Did you know this game is more fun with friends? You might think about mentioning that to some friends you can have fun with! Oh, no way, you just harvested your 37th crop, hey you know what would be great is if you posted about that!!”

The Bald-faced Bribe & Blackmail
“Say, you’ve gathered enough experience to reach level two! Now all you need to do is get five friends to click on this for you. You do want to get to level two, don’t you? Oh, and look at how nicely you’ve set up your mafia empire – it would be a shame if it were to burn to the ground while you’re offline. Maybe some friends of yours will keep an eye on it for you by clicking on this post you’re definitely about to make, eh?”

The Gut-punch Guilt-trip
“Thanks for playing this game of ours. This free game we provided to you, for no cost, out of the kindness of our hearts, which you’ve been playing for 5 hours now for free. We know you care about indie development and small studios – like us! – and you want to do your part to keep us afloat. Surely you can take a moment to write us a 5-star App Store review, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook, can’t you? After all, we live or die by your support alone, and if you like this game, and don’t want its creators to starve, alone, in the street, you could mention us to a friend… that’s not so much to ask…”

Nearly every social game is guilty of one or more of these “Please, please, share us with your friends” tactics, and it’s not restricted to Facebook. Show us an iOS game that doesn’t continually ask you for an App Store review, and we’ll show you a development team that forgot something. While you’re at it, ask us if it’s coincidental that every Steam Holiday Sale includes “write a recommendation” as one of its prize-worthy achievements.

Don’t think too poorly of the developers and publishers, though, for trying their hardest to leverage your social network. The personal recommendation still carries more weight than the advertisement for most of us, and as discovery becomes an ever-harder proposition in the crowded marketplace, it’s not just enough to get a few of your friends to talk to you; publishers need all of your friends to talk to you.

As social media continues to supplant traditional media in our attention spans, so too must our mass-media strategies adapt and evolve. In a world where the Internet has given a voice and platform to every single person you know, friends and family have now become analogous to the different channels on your television. Your daily Facebook crawl has taken the place of grabbing the remote and surfing to see what’s on. Furthermore, while we’d never admit this to our friends’ faces, let’s face it… there are channels we like and trust, and channels we almost always just flip past.

Much in the same way that we favor the opinions of certain news outlets, we categorize our friends and their “channels” for trustworthiness and taste. The decisions we apply to television (Bah, those hacks on channel 51 are so biased, and the guys on channel 28 just show fluff pieces. Oh, an interview on channel 12? This I’ve got to see!) have now migrated to social media (Ugh, Jesse posts a message every time he clicks a cow; I’ve just begun to tune him out. Wow, Kate usually hates all social games and works as a developer; if she posts about a game it must be amazing!).

Better Learning through Social Games

This carpet-bombing of coercion is the new version of a broad ad campaign across several TV networks, in an effort to secure as much attention as possible. It’s no longer enough just to get the casual posters to share a link to a game; it’s important to get a wide cross-section of evangelists who can capture an equally wide audience with their recommendations. There are thousands upon thousands of games out there, all hoping to turn into the next FarmVille, and they can’t do it with an audience that isn’t growing.

Until there is a scientific way to codify who the key influencers are in your social sphere, via Klout or otherwise, developers have to assume that every one of us could be the most trusted name in gaming to our friends and relatives – the Leonard Maltins and Roger Eberts of our own private circles, whose opinions drive the purchasing/playing decisions of the world. You are a media empire unto yourself, so you’d better get used to being schmoozed.