Casual Games SIG/Conference Calls/September 2007
International Game Developers Association
Table of contents |
[edit] Role Call
[edit] Who's Here
Jason Akel, Charles Merrin, Brian Robbins, James C Smith, Wade Tinney, Dave Rohrl, Rex Sikora, Margaret Wallace, Jared Nieuwenhuis
[edit] Who's Not
Cherie Lutz
[edit] Next Call
- Tuesday, 6 November at 2pm ET / 11am PT
[edit] Initiatives Overview
[edit] Quarterly
- Wade
-- Post-mordem on Casual Connect printing
-- Summer issue
--Wade is pulling materials together, and is planning to have something up by 14 September (Summer Retrospective Issue)
--Total cost of printing (printing, shipping, layout, etc.) = $1,848. Initial estimate was $1500 or so. We can bring the price down by localizing printing, etc.
--everyone should be ready to support the short timeline.
Update:
--Quarterly is falling further behind.
--Wade is considering a smaller issue to get it out, and open more room for a more complete Winter edition.
--Need to find a printer in amsterdam (Charles / Zylom to help) - current Casuality is 6 - 8 February, GDC is 18 - 22 February.
Action Item:
--Everyone: If you are heading an initiative, please send Wade a summary of your needs by COB friday. He will use this to solicit support in this Quarterly.
[edit] Data Royalty Reporting Standards Initiative
- HAVE NO lead, Cherie second
--Playfirst found some issues with Adjustments, COGS, prepaid royalties. James will send out an updated schema to active partners.
--Real will be delayed in its deployment of the XLM standard due to a larger, company-wide royalty system overhaul.
--James G. is pulling together a list with the current status of partner conversations.
Update:
--Jared is not interested in taking the lead. Jason will look for another lead.
--GH has made the standard live which is good.
--need some ideas on how to push the initiative forward.
--brainstorming ways to make people more aware of the initiative, and how easy it is to implement.
Action Items:
--Jason: Ask Cherie if she wants to take the lead.
[edit] Webinar/Roundtable Broadcasts
- Jason lead
- Developing curriculum - solicited ideas from mailing list, a few responses
- GoToWebinar selected
--Jason has been doing some testing of technology. Likes what he has seen, but is concerned about pricing / cost. Go To Webinars.
--The IGDA is considering picking an association-wide solution.
--Jason is waiting on additional feedback from the community. He is trying to determine what the first topic should be.
--James suggested allowing the downloads / feeds for people to access after the fact. Go To corporate solution might allow this.
Update
--The first topic will be virtual worlds.
--Jason is working on the speaker list, and what they need to present. He is thinking that each person will have 3 slides.
--will promote through the list, quarterly, and possibly with Gamasutra
Action Items:
[edit] White Paper
- Dave R lead
Update
--sending out the call to action email today. It didn't go out due to several snafus - they will not be an issue today.
--sent out a draft of the schedule today. Targets 1 June completion date with a month of wiggle room.
--replicating the post on the wiki.
--for public consumption, move all dates forward by a few dates so people will come close to hitting the "real" dates.
--need to determine the right way to present at casuality. Concensus is that we should push for a smaller room, make sure the session is on the calendar, and combine it with our larger agenda (as opposed to a dedicated session).
Action Items
--Everyone: Please review the schedule and get comments back to Dave asap.
--Past white paper editors: please send comments.
[edit] SIG communication
- Cherie lead, Brian second
We need to improve our communications with our members and the IGDA in general. This will take many forms, including mail list, PR, at show elements (t-shirts, ribbons), etc. Messaging will need to be refined for consistency and format. Brian to create schedule/topics for mailing list outreach.
--Press release went out and was picked up by a couple of games news channels - Gamasutra, IGDA newsletter.
--Should releases be pushed to the wire? If so, we need a company to sponsor the cost. IGDA hasn't used the service for years.
--Thanks to Cherie and everyone.
[edit] Developer / Publisher Acknowledgement
- Jared lead
Portals are inconsistent about how they list information about the games they sell. In particular, they frequently list partial or no information about the actual developers and publishers. The ideas is to create a standard for how this information is listed.
UPDATE: "So far I been researching and developing a spreadsheet that tracks how and if each portal gives credit to the developer and/or publisher of a game. And if they do give credit, how do they give it? Logo? Company name? Based on this research, I will start to develop an initial standard with the intention of it being reasonable and theoretically easy to implement. At this point, I would want to share and get feedback from some of the major portals to see if this is doable as is, how they might change it and if they would be willing to adopt it."
Update:
--Jared just sent an email on what the acknowledgement might look like. Everyone should provide feedback.
--Once the matrix is done, Jared will speak with the individual portals to see their response. What is the right way to go about this process? Need to develop an organized campaign to reach people and communicate.
--What are some of the objections we are likely to face? Should we develop some recommendations on minimum implementations? Differentiate between the real obstacles and the business obstacles.
Action Items:
--Jared: work on answers to these questions.
[edit] Advertising Standards
- Charles
In-game and HTML advertising is becoming more important to casual games. There are currently a number of standards / initiatives underway, including CAST, Google, and real. It is important to try to guide them all towards as much standardization as possible. And in the short run, to facilitate communication to the group about what is happening.
--Adoption by IAB is going slower than expected due to politics. IT is not dead - just moving slower than expected.
--Talked with Google to get them thinking about standards as well.
Update:
--None. Trying to get information out of people, but it is slow.
--point brought up about integration of community elements (badges, etc.), similar to MSFT's GDK, etc. How could this be integrated into another initiative.
--to be clear: the current initiative is targeted at standards for in-game advertising is downloadable (and some online) games.
--the IGDA can offer support / guidance to validate the process for a community standard project (being led by another group).
[edit] DRM Standardization
- Rex lead, James C. Smith second
-- Come up with a standard way for games and DRM to talk to each other. Advantages include:
-- Allow for content limited trials instead of time limited trials. On PopCap.com we’ve found over a series of tests that giving users unlimited play, but cutting them off at a certain level until they buy the game, results in the highest conversion rate. But this can’t happen until the game can ask the DRM in a standard way “should I stop yet?”
-- Allow games to do things like show trailers when they are cut off instead of simply shutting down. Again, in our own trials, showing an attractive in-game “trailer” had a higher conversion rate.
-- Prevent “one hour hopping” where savvy users hop around from site to site getting another free hour from each.
-- Better anti-piracy protection. Wrappers have some inherent problems, but a clean API between the game and the DRM may be more reliable.
Other initiatives that were discussed but not assigned an owner:
Update:
--Rex trying to determine what the right way to approach this problem is. Big companies have little incentive to cooperate / care.
--Some ideas:
--presenting information in different formats - time locking, level locking, etc.
--limiting DRM hopping
--standardizing upsell messages
--Going to face real issues with DRM capabilities, such as level locking. Need to consider how to standardize this issue.
--in reality, how do we approach DRM hopping? Can we put more burdon onthe game developer that determines whether the game has been installed or played somewhere?
--there are myriad problems here - doesn't this require exposure of DRM core techniques.
Action Items:
--Jared will come up with some hypothetical solutions, and present them to the steering committee for comment.
[edit] Business model education
It is important for the entire industry to understand what models are being used, and what they mean to the developers. For example, what are the implications of clients, subscription models, advertising, etc. IT was agreed that this probably wasn't a separate initiative, but will be woven into many of the other initiatives, such as the webinars, quarterly, and white paper.
[edit] Developer Showcase
This would be an independent destination (probably a website) where all developers can have a profile and information about their games. It will likely be most valuable for smaller, independent developers. The initial goal is to determine what format the showcase will take, then to determine how to implement it.
[edit] Surveys
Survey SIG members to see what they want from the SIG and from the SC. Survey actual end users to gather information to help everyone in the SIG. Unlike Real, MSFT, and other larger companies, the smaller developers don't have the means or the reach to do this for themselves.
Update:
--Charles started survey and is targeting draft for 22 October.
Action Items:
--Everyone: please send thoughts and comments to Charles so he can incorporate them into the draft.
[edit] Other Business
- Press release deployed
-- Coverage in Gamasutra, IGDA newsletter
- HTML emails
--Reminder that we have this format to send notices, distribute materials (quarterly), run surveys, etc.
- Update on Charles
- Gameplay Help Database initiative
--James S is lead
--Reflexive is working on an initial implementation which James can use as a foundation for the greater initiative.
--James needs to do more research on what to include, what the portals need, how it will be used.
