Course

What an awesome experience, the last 558 business of interactive media class, a 3 hour pitch-a-thon. Fun & learning was had by all! Everyone was on thier feet running...it was quite a show, check out a bit of the mayhem I recorded on my 6682.

Mon 11/28/2005 15:41

The Longer Tail, a talk by: Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, Wired Magazine



DATE: Wednesday, Nov. 9
TIME: 2:30 – 4:00pm
PLACE: Annenberg Center for Communication 734 W. Adams Blvd. (between Hoover and Figueroa)

"The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-target goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare."

Notes on the Long Tail from http://www.thelongtail.com/about.html

Any questions, please email: jhanley AT annenberg DOT edu

The results from the IGDA Game Developer Demographics Report are in. The first report of its kind, IGDA gathered responses from nearly 6500 game developers to attempt to get a clear picture on the makeup of the industry.

Key results of the demographic survey include:

Male = 88.5%, Female = 11.5%
White = 83.3%, Black = 2.0%, Hispanic/Latino = 2.5%, Asian = 7.5%, Other = 4.7%
Heterosexual = 92%, Lesbian/Gay = 2.7%, Bisexual = 2.7%
Average age = 31 years
Average years in the industry = 5.4 years
Percentage of people with disabilities = 13% (e.g., cognitive, mobility, sight, etc)
More than 80% have a university level education or greater
More than 60% of studios claim that obtaining diverse applicants is challenging

The Complete PDF Report

Coming soon to a game console near you: a Steven Spielberg video game. The acclaimed film director and producer has agreed to develop three new games under a long-term exclusive deal with video game maker Electronic Arts Inc. The deal to be announced Friday reflects the increasingly intertwined interests of Hollywood and the video game industry.

The deal involves much more than the Hollywood director merely putting his stamp on a game or popping in for quick consultations, said Neil Young, vice president and studio head of EA's Los Angeles studio.

Instead, Spielberg will have an office in EA's studio. He plans to work side-by-side with game developers to create original gaming content beginning with the concept — not a game based on a movie, or vice versa, both of which are common practices nowadays.

via Yahoo! News

More than 152 million Americans - some 70 percent of the total U.S. adult population - own portable entertainment devices, according to a new report issued today by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

According to the study, consumers show a reasonable interest in handheld content subscription services. However, lack of awareness may be to blame for the low number of consumers who currently subscribe to such services. Only 16 percent of online adults who own a portable entertainment device subscribe to a service that allows access to content, with 35 percent reporting that they were unaware of any companies that provided such services. This represents a significant opportunity for subscription-based content providers to educate the market and capture additional revenue.

http://www.cenriqueortiz.com/weblog/Mobility/?permalink=Mobile-Data-Usage.html

This makes allot of sense to me. Most of the mobile market seems to be patched with mediocre content, wallpaper and ringtones etc. After working for JAMDAT, I know very few people there go home after work and use the products they offer. I didn't want to either, I was so sick of crappy handsets by the end of the day, I didn't want to go near them.

This passage was particularly inspiring to me:

You know, handsets are first and most, a communication apparatus, a social device, to connect and interact with other people - friends, family, work. It is not only about ring-tones, and access to weather or stocks, and so on. This is why email and IM and voice! and blogs (i.e. communication) are the killer apps. We need to continue to improve, innovate how people communicate. And there is a lot of innovation to be done, to enhance the people-to-people communication (and social) experience.

http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?article_id=10650&filter=
According to a Telephia study, 36 percent of mobile games were free to download. Unsurprisingly, puzzle and strategy games have the largest market share, with a 27 percent share of revenue and a 48 percent share of all free downloads. A second study sponsored by I-play indicates that American gamers are more likely to show off their mobile games to friends and are more competitive about gaming than their European counterparts.

Autodesk today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Alias, a privately held developer of 3D graphics technology, for $182 million in cash. This acquisition will grow Autodesk’s expertise and offerings in the film and video, interactive games, media, Web, consumer products, industrial design, automotive, architecture and visualization markets. Autodesk anticipates that the transaction will close within the next four to six months.

Hi All,

I'm doing a focus group for a new video game idea this Friday, Sep. 30 at 6:00 pm on the USC Campus. I need people I do NOT know, who have played a console (e.g. XBOX, Playstation, Gamecube, etc.) game in the last 6 months to participate in this. It will be a short 1 hour time commitment and snacks will be provided. If any of you have friends that would be interested in doing this (and can commit to the time) please have them email Chris Riffey at riffix@gmail.com by Thursday at 5pm.

Thanks!

Dear CTIN 558 Students,



I’m writing to follow-up on our conversation from class yesterday afternoon, 9/12. This message contains two things:
1) specifics on what you should do this week for Assignment 2: Project Plan

2) a few more tweaks to the course plan (please read)

From ZDNet Research:

Currently, about 27% of those who own phones capable of playing games use them for such, up from 20% in 2004. 60% of the players are between 13-17. The average mobile gaming session, according to NPD Group, is 11 minutes long, and the primary motivation for playing games on phones is "to kill time or alleviate boredom". Those who spend money on mobile game titles pay an average of 57% more on handsets, spend 22% more per month on wireless bills, and use 48% more wireless minutes. Only a third of mobile gamers would pay for one.

Microsoft gives a free 60 day trial software package for Microsoft Project (the .mpp file). You can download it from the following address. (Or just go to microsoft's website and search .mpp - if this doesn't work)

http://www.microsoft.com/office/project/prodinfo/trial.mspx

This way you can open the "02_CTIN 558 Schedule Template" file and work on it at home, if you don't already have the software.

-Tom Cook

Coming out next week:

So You Want to Be a Producer (Paperback)
by Lawrence Turman



Larry is Chair of the Peter Stark Producing Program and Professor here in the School of Cinema-TV. He's an invaluable source of wisdom (and goodwill) and well known for the many great films he has produced including: The Graduate, The Flim Flam Man, The Great White Hope, The Best Man, Running Scared, Short Circuit, The River Wild, and American History X.

Here is a set of analyst reports from various game companies. They are not required reading but they may be of use to you as reference for your class assignments.

Thanks to Bing for making them available to us.

this version of the syllabus incorporates the notes from our discussion on Monday...
http://www.swaincorp.com/558