Casual Games SIG/Conference Calls/October 2006
International Game Developers Association
Table of contents |
[edit] Role Call
[edit] Who's Here
Jason Akel, Robert Carrol, James Gwertzman, Charles Merrin, Kane Minkus, Brian Robbins, James C Smith, Wade Tinney
Also present:
Dan Prigg, RealNetworks
[edit] Who's Not
Margaret Wallace
[edit] Next Call
- Tuesday Nov 7th 2pm ET / 11am PT
[edit] Old Business
[edit] GDC submissions
- Wade, Brian, Robert - any word back on submissions?
To date, no responses have been received. Each team member will let the team know when they hear something.
[edit] Process / Governage
- Charles is Secretary - take notes, send to Brian who will document into wiki. Brian is back-up Secretary when Charles is not able to attend.
[edit] SIG Constitution
- Brian, is a draft ready for viewing by group?
Brian expects to have an initial draft of the Constitution for internal review before our next call. It will be distributed via wiki.
[edit] Quarterly
- Wade - confirm dates -- 10/6 Web Version for review; 10/13 Release to public? CGA - Russian?
- Wade, please list final inclusions of quarterly for group
- Quarterly, or parts of, will be distributed via CGA and Gamezebo. Jason still to check with GameDaily.
- Call for Winter issue submissions
--Wade has solid drafts of the key articles in place
--Expects this Quarterly to be the biggest one ever - Congratulations and Thank you to everyone involved
--Current schedule
initial draft will be distributed via word doc for review by SIG by EOD Friday
initial draft in web version on Monday
updated draft for public review on 13 October
--current list of articles
Interview on DRM by Jason
Game design issues re: shopmania (will be translated into russian for Kiev game conference) by [Author name?]
Postmortem on Cake mania (will be translated into russian) by [Author name?]
High score hacking by [Author name?]
Audio consideration by Kane
Introduction to concept of game industry survey (analysis to follow) by [Author name?]
Review of last quarter's top 10 data by James (will be translated into russian)
Round up of Windows Vista by Jason
--next quarterly scheduled for 5 December to define contents, 29 January for release
ACTION ITEMS:
Wade: Investigate ways to post quarterly to blog style format to incorporate comments from whole industry
Charles: look at how real can contribute background to the article with our experience
[edit] Initiatives Overview
- Network reach of aggregators Jason (7 responses iWin, Intermix, Scandinavian Games, Exent, Skilljam, BFG, Reflexive - plan to inform reponders that I will post and community will fill in other providers' networks; pull only if strong objections; wiki post?)
--Jason will post information to Wiki
--will fill in other providers based on public information, and will reiterate that confidential information should not be posted
--will clearly indicate that information is estimated and not "Official"
- Data Standards Initiative James G moving forward per email week ago?
--James is trying to move this initiative forward any way he can
--PopCap will implement the model when they launch 3rd party games on their site, as will Playfirst
--RealNetworks and Reflexive are actively evaluating / implementing the model for internal use, and have not encountered any significant issues yet
--James has not received any responses to his email list posting
- White Paper Update Margaret, Brian, Kane
- Margaret, "...will touch base with Brian and with Kane to follow-up so that we can formulate an action plan. I'd recommend we poll the section editors and recent contributors to get feedback on how they felt the process went last year (since it's now wiki-based) and to gather recommendations for moving forward."
- Advertising Standards James G, Charles (continue, but probably post other things)
--It took time to remember exactly what the point of this action item was ;)
--How can we create standards, and how can we encourage portals to adhere these standards
--Charles will take the ball on this
- Awards Kane, Wade, Brian (Kane is lead - progress?)
- Wade in particular is interested in trying to have some sort of cross-portal "people's choice" style vote
- This could become a sort of marketing tool?
--this topic generated considerable discussion
--Need a list of portals to contact to gather data, although the question was raised: "What is a portal?" Decided the effort could focus on major portals to get enough of a sample
--Should awards focus on biggest traffic and / or revenue? on people's votes? on some other metrics?
--It appears the best way to gather information is by creating a neutral survey (IGDA sponsored? others?) and get major players to distribute an overview / link to their users. Need to create a path that minimizes the effort required by the portals - they won't make any effort.
--Need to get a large enough sample to make the voting accurate and legitimate
ACTION ITEMS:
James: document ideas and post to the list
Charles: Should we contact Joel at Gamezebo about working on this project?
- Evolve the existing mailing list? Wade
--is there a way to use of lists more effectively if they are segmented? How can we add archive search capability?
--This topic, while important, is a lower priority for now
ACTINO ITEMS:
Brian: Will take this item, will look for new technologies
Jason: Will consider ways to expand notoriety of list, and increase traffic
- Developer Outreach Margaret - progess update
- Need for more physical presence. Jason had suggested Minna Mingle type gatherings - more thoughts?
- GDC party? Participate with Minna Mingle next year?
--Pushed to next meeting in Margaret's absense
- Initiatives led by:
- Brian - Mailing list evaluation, GDC and Minna Mingle?
- Charles - Efforts to create an advertising standards document
- Robert - editorial efforts: articles for Jan quarterly, MSFT Q&A for XNA, content for IGDA site. Also looking at the Game booth space idea for GDC
[edit] New Business
Booth Space at GDC
--discuss program proposed by Doug Mealy (OM-PR company) to create a booth for small developers
--looking to charge 18 developers $4K each for the space
--trying to help small guys get some exposure, although a couple people asked if GDC was the right place for this
--agreed that the idea might work, and that he should post to the mailing list
--agreed that IGDA should not, and would not, offer an official endorsement
