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Archive for April, 2008

Games:Edu Post 2: Nick Burton on making relationships work…

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

Between education and industry, obviously. Nick was speaking to a mixed audience of industry practitioners, lecturers and students at Games:Edu and gave out some pretty good advice for brokering relationships between education and industry.

Nick (and Rare) is keen to see more people doing it, ‘evangelising’ about games, engaging with academics and students.

Two sections then, first up, advice for developers thinking about talking to universities:

+ if asked for content advice make sure you think about the whole industry and not just your own company
+ graduates are not just cheap labour
+ don’t just focus on the top five – cast your net wide and you may get lucky
+ helping courses develop may pay off further down the line with top quality staff and ideas fed into your studio
+ avoid hard sell lectures students are interested in proper lectures on proper subjects - this will attract far more interest that a talk on how wonderful your working environment it
+ tell the truth to students (about crunch etc) new employees finding this out the hard way may leave your studio
+ it is hard for one studio to visit every courses – so collaboration is going to be necessary
+ academics don’t bite!

And some advice for academics:

+ some developers will try and treat you like an assembly line
question all the advice your given and look for the core patterns in all the contact you have with multiple developers
+ don’t try to fill a single developer’s needs – core skills are forever and will serve the students better than specific skills with specific tools
+ students should cast their net wide and look for as many opportunities as possible.
+ developers don’t bite! – but you need to consider things from their perspective and understand the pressures created by working in the games business

I think if everyone follows these nuggets, we’ll be halfway to sorting out this whole issue, and will have more games courses working in partnership with the games industry, and focusing us all on what is needed to keep pushing the industry forward.

Tags: events, graduates, higher education
Posted in Games | No Comments »

Games:Edu – Matt Southern on Games Design

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

I’ve been to Manchester (didn’t stay for the football though) for Games:Edu and was intending to post live from the event, unfortunately, an unscrupulous wireless provider was unwilling to part with a connection for less that £350.

However – here are my thoughts on (must stress) Matt’s own thoughts which are not in any way representative of either Evolution or SCEE.

Matt’s morning session raised an interesting point, in highlighting attitudes towards games courses in industry alongside some of the more rabid musings of the mainstream press. In identifying the classic entertainment cycle (experienced by books, films, rock and roll and TV) of formation, damnation, acceptance and celebration.

Looking at this, and games themselves seem to be hovering in between damnation and acceptance, it strikes me that the games industry itself is guilty of applying this cycle to games courses.

(more…)

Tags: game design, games:edu, graduates, higher education
Posted in Games, Skillset | No Comments »

Introducing…

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

Suzanne Ashley, Skillset’s brand new Publishing Sector Manager, and the newest author on the Skillset blog.

Suzanne will be keeping us informed and intrigued by goings on in the publishing sector and you can keep track of Suzanne’s posts, or follow the brand new publishing category to keep up to date.

Tags: , author, blog
Posted in Publishing, Skillset | No Comments »

Beijing, 8pm, 08/08/08

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

Beijing’s Olympic Games will open on Friday August 8, 2008, at 8pm local time. In the marketing and media sectors there is ferocious activity as companies race to prepare. But as Universal McCann discuss in a recent paper, in many respects this race would be happening even without the Olympics as China’s marketing infrastructure is in a big hurry to meet the demands of a wealthier, more educated, media and brand savvy consumer base. Its just that the Olympics is focusing every-ones minds, raising the ante ten-fold.

This will be the Technology Games. 3G telephony, WIFI and IPTV in and outside China will open new viewership and opportunities to leap frog what we have experienced in the past. Companies are jealousy protecting their plans to avoid ambush and how much international and Chinese companies will spend in national media remains to be seen. Manpreet Singh, CEO at Universal McCann, reckons media expenditure will grow more than 24% this year, television spend by 50%, with CCTV, the national broadcaster and right holder, the big winner. Online media spends will double to about US$2million, accompanied by a huge explosion in user generated content where China clearly leads the world. Television viewing in China will increase 20%-40%, but the Olympics will be bad news for program platforms such as soaps, serials and drama with audiences set to fall 5%-13%.

Online audiences will grow. Sina.com, the largest Chinese language infotainment web portal, reported that during the FIFA World Cup 3.4 million comments and reports were generated. China leads the world in sheer numbers of blogs, with 42 million compared to the US at 27 million.

UM have also recently published a very interesting comparative study of social media trends such as blogs are a main stream media world wide and a collective rival to traditional media – China has the largest blogging community in the world, with the 42 million bloggers mentioned earlier, 73% have read a blog, 45% have started a blog.

And in Wired this month, one of their top ten business trends is ‘China: the next Global Innovator’, on a sharp spur to innovation. US Venture Capitalists committed 1.4 billion to Chinese companies alone last year, ‘made in China’ fastly changing to ‘invented in China’.

So lots more going on than just the Olympics, as predicted.

And I am off to re-visit Philip Dodd…..

Posted in Facilities, Games, Interactive | 1 Comment »

New Finances for the Games Industry

Friday, April 25th, 2008

I’ve been meaning to do this update for a few days – but that has been useful to run this topic by a few people. My interest has been sparked by attending a BSAC event on Monday night in the West End, which focused on new models of funding for the games industry, and ways in which developers in particular can access investment, without having to sign exclusive deals with publishers.

BSAC’s involvement was to suggest that the games industry can learn a thing or two from films and the ideas of slate and portfolio funding, better bonding practises, and other financial safeguards, to ensure that investors get their money back whether a game is a hit or not.

In addition there was a theme (I expect to do with the presence of Tiga) of empowering developers by giving them less restrictive partnerships with financiers – ie someone who is interested in return on investment, not on the content of the game.

So – it seems one of the key challenges for games companies going forward will be raising finance for games. This is something that has traditionally involved successfully pitching ideas to publishers but will now include convincing investment bankers to take a percentage stake in a company or property.

There are a few companies doing this already but are the skills needed for this financial world present already in games, or will they need to be developed?

(more…)

Tags: business, developers, finance, funding, investment
Posted in Games | No Comments »

“Citius, Altius, Fortius”

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

Swifter, higher, stronger; the Olympic motto, as established by Baron de Coubertin.

Last night a number of leading lights in different industry gazed into the crystal ball and tried to predict what the creative media industry might look like in 2012, and what skills and jobs will be needed too.

BBC Sport, Pearson, PA, Ascent Media, radio professionals, photographers – all came together to give their views. Skillset is the (more…)

Tags: 2012, Audiences, Olympics, Sport, Technology, Television
Posted in Skillset | No Comments »

Skillset on the search for a Consultant to help with Engineering

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

As reported earlier, we have been looking at the issues facing the creative media industry through the lens of Engineering and Technologists. As a result, we are now looking for a consultant to help:

- Examine and describe the engineering needs of the different sub-sectors of the creative media industry

- Examine and describe existing Engineering qualifications and accreditation that the industry currently use

- Examine the embryonic MITC scheme being rolled out in Australia and describe its relevancy for the Creative Media sector

- Discuss with the wider stakeholder group (including international partners) and create an analysis of context and fit with global work

- If appropriate, create a detailed project plan to implement MITC (or equivalent)

- Examine, and if appropriate, source further sustainable funding to carry out implementation.

The full tender document can be found here – Tender Specification – so feel free to send this to anyone you think might be appropriate.

Posted in Facilities, Skillset | No Comments »