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.
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…..
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?
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
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.
Aw - how come I always miss the fun stuff. I’m away on holiday unfortunately, but I love the idea of an ‘unconference’ for games full of informal fun types of learning and playing and things.
Saturday May 3rd then. Will you be going?
All the details: www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamecamp
Exciting times - this week Skillset has partnered with Nicktoons to launch a, frankly, brilliant competition for students on our network of industry approved degree courses.
Nicktoons, gawd bless em, have agreed to see pitches for 10 second short films from 80 (eighty, thought I needed to spell it out) students. The winning five will see their films given a professional audio mix and then be aired on Nicktoons UK.
The overall winner will also be offered an internship at Nickelodeon.
I couldn’t be more excited about this one.
It’s exciting and fantastic - a whole world of questions and responses - what do you think about your industry, what are your skills needs, and, how old are you?
We’re asking all these and more of everyone in the Creative Media sector, there’ll be so much information, I’m sure we’ll struggle to find uses for all of it - but - its going to be interesting.
Clicky the little man to do your bit.
For more info on the survey - see the main site: www.skillset.org/research
News from Japan. Famitsu reports (no - can’t read Japanese either) that Nintendo is opening its ‘Game Seminar 2008′ for applications. Develop has all the details (in English).
How exciting is that - being a lifelong nintendo fanboy who still feels perpetual guilt over not having bought a Wii yet (low ceilings - best not to really) the idea of learning how to make games from the people that design Mario and Zelda games is enough to bring me out in geeky hives.
Develop doesn’t fancy your chances of getting onto the course if you’re not based in Japan - so - should we get them to run this in the UK?
News is out (alright I’m a day or so behind) that Channel 4 is sponsoring Dare to be Digital this year. But - interestingly it’s not a hands off, give the money and run number. Channel 4 have offered an optional brief to the teams of students on the competition to produce something specifically with them in mind.
Real world experience then for the Dare entries. Besides wondering how many will take them up on their offer, I’m interested in how this will develop. Dare has traditionally been a place for students to experiment with new IP before entering the games industry where they wont get that kind of opportunity immediately. Working to a commercial brief puts a different kind of strain on teamworking and idea creation.
That said - it’s brilliant experience for life in the real world where what you do on a project like this can be dictated by the financiers rather than by the creatives. It will be interesting to see the students cope with added demands.
More details on the brief after the jump.
