Tag Archives: 511

Introduction

Extending guest experience beyond the gates of a traditional theme park, and essentially, into guests’ homes, is already happening — through online presence, social networking and other strategic technologies.

Traditionally the guest experience began at the park turnstiles, but that model is changing. Now the strategy is about circular flow that begins when the guest initially considers and begins planning their trip. These new technologies and social mediums help the guest personalize their visit so when they return home they can relive their experience online, customize their memories, and share the experience with their network of friends and family.  In this way, the visit is never truly over, and one visit can connect seamlessly into the next one.

Social Media

Walt Disney was an excellent social networker, and was many years ahead of his time. Before Disneyland opened, he signed an unprecedented deal with the ABC Television Group that allowed him to promote Disneyland via an hour-long television special. The Wonderful World of Disney premiered on October 27, 1954 under the name Disneyland and introduced viewers to the magical theme park he was building on the west coast.  This brilliant act of synergy allowed Disney to air what was essentially a weekly, hour-long commercial for his park, thereby building a fervor that reached critical mass when the park opened the next year— everyone in the country knew about it and wanted to visit it.

Flash-forward to today where many new socially interactive technologies have taken the place of television marketing, all of which can be used to promote and customize a theme park resort experience.  The rise of Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and a myriad of other information streams have saturated the consumer market to the point where major companies have recognized their potential and started to embrace the concept of maintaining an online presence.  A clever example of this is Sea World’s “official” Twitter feed for Shamu, in which they hired a writer to regularly send out witty messages to subscribers that were actually written in the first-person character of the park chain’s aquatic mascot.  These “tweets” are not blatant advertisements and marketing, just clever messages that spread by word-of-mouth and help build brand allegiance over time.

Again, this extended the park experience outside of the turnstiles, as guests could interact with Shamu before their visit, and share their experience long after it.

Exclusive Access

Disney’s Magical Express at the Walt Disney World resort in Orlando utilizes a simple online interface so guests are able to print out luggage tags that they then affix to their bags at the airport before they even depart for their flight to Orlando. The next time they see their luggage is when they step into their hotel room in Orlando. So, Disney takes the tagged bags and delivers them directly to their corresponding hotel rooms that have been booked online.  A fleet of busses is also ready and waiting at the airport to take guests to their hotels. This investment in “courtesy” infrastructure is invaluable, as guests now have a tangible amenity (one less thing to worry about) and no reason to leave the property.

The advent of RFID-wristbands continues the trend of simplifying guest experience by linking everything from a hotel room key to credit card information on a lightweight, waterproof wristband.  No longer do guests have to worry about losing the valuable contents of their wallet, getting their credit cards wet on waterslides, or losing their park admission ticket. With a simple tap of their wrists, guests can charge a meal to their room, rent a locker, or open their hotel room door.  Of course, this wonderful convenience only works for facilities that are integrated into the overall resort. If the same family of guests wants to dine off-property, they would be subject to the inconvenience of cash transactions.

Here we see again that a resort can create an exclusive amenity that provides incentive to stay on-property and helps increase per capita spending, while the end user also wins because their experience is “plussed” in terms of convenience.

Interactivity and Repeatability

We are quickly becoming a videogame culture, where guests expect a degree of interactivity in their entertainment.   The Toy Story Mania! attraction located at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s California Adventure is essentially a virtual shooting gallery where guests ride on a moving vehicle through a physical space, shooting at targets while wearing 3D glasses.  At the end of the ride, guests receive a score that reflects their abilities. The targets are all presented via 3D media on large screens, allowing for the potential of new content updates (different targets, seasonal overlays, etc.) with little or no impact on facility or footprint.  The next logical step, which has yet to be taken, is user-generated content.

The reality is, guests are already doing this: creating their own attraction soundtracks, audio tours, and in-park Smartphone applications. For example, an ambitious fan and computer programmer has created an App called “Wishing Stars”.  This application is essentially a geocaching overlay mapped onto a physical theme park, in which guests make use of their phones’ GPS ability to guide them to locations in the park where they can answer questions and earn points.  Another fan has created a crowdsourcing App in which guests share information about an attraction while waiting in line, to create a virtual “info board” of up-to-the-minute wait times.

Resort and park owners and operators shouldn’t contest this treasure trove of user-generated content, but actively engage their most passionate fans and embrace this fundamental change in the resort experience.

In the not-too-distant future a great transformation is coming to location-based entertainment design. Imagine the resort of the future where your schedule is itemized via smartphone and every cast member and audio-animatronic figure knows your name via RFID ticketing.  All of a sudden, the illusion of a personalized experience has become reality.

Currently, designers and engineers are embedding this technology infrastructure into resorts worldwide, even if it won’t be utilized in the immediate future.  Although it might not seem to make financial sense to add “unnecessary” infrastructure cost up-front, it will pay off in dividends when the resort has a competitive advantage by allowing for quick implementation and more immersive integration of new technologies.

Conclusion

Many of the amenities described above are already in use in theme park resorts around the world, but they are still in their formative stages.  The technology is proven, but successful large-scale implementation of it is still in its infancy.  It is time to aspire to make that next leap in location-based technology integration.  The right touch of technology will enhance and complement a guest’s experience, rather than detracting or worse, distracting them from the carefully-created environments that they are visiting.  When the right mix of non-intrusive technological integration is achieved, it will provide a more complete and inviting guest experience.  More importantly, it will be the amenity that separates whoever does it first from all other resorts.   Imagine personalized, concierge-level service for every guest — eliminating stress and offering guest service that can’t be beaten.

Topic:               IMD Project Showcase
Time:               Wednesday, May 1, 6-9pm
Location:        USC’s Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 122 [ZML]

Featuring Spring Semester Class Projects from :
- CTIN 405 Design and Technology for Mobile Experiences (Essen)
- CTIN 484/489 Intermediate Game Design (Brinson/Lemarchand/Essen)
- CTIN 492 Experimental Game Topics (Lemarchand)
- CTIN 499 Special Topics: Games for Animation (Brinson)
- CTIN 501 Interactive Cinema (Kratky)
- CTIN 544 Experiments in Interactivity II (Kontopolous)

- CTIN 590 Directed Research

and more….

Food and Drink will be provided starting at 5:45.

Speakers:        Sean Stewart & Maureen McHugh
Time:               Wednesday, April 24, 6-8pm
Location:       USC’s Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 122

Maureen McHugh’s first novel, China Mountain Zhang (1992), won the Tiptree Award, and was acclaimed for its nuanced and sensitive portrayal of diverse characters in a Chinese-dominated future world. Her subsequent novels include Half The Day is Night (1994), Mission Child (1998), and Nekropolis. Her writing is emotionally powerful and politically engaged; she has become one of the most prominent authors of her generation. Her short fiction includes “The Lincoln Train,” which won both Hugo and Locus Awards. Her stories have been collected in Mothers and Other Monsters (2005) and After the Apocalypse (2011). Publishers Weekly named After the Apocalypse as one of its ten best books of 2011 (in any genre). In recent years she has worked on a number of alternate reality games (ARGs), including Year Zero and I Love Bees, and is a partner at ARG company No Mimes Media.

Sean Stewart is one of the most influential digital storytellers in the world.  As the lead writer on projects such as The Beast for Steven Spielberg’s A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Halo 2’s I Love Bees and Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero, he co-created the Alternate Reality Game (ARG) genre, and was instrumental in exploring what “web-native” story can be.   As a Founder and Head Writer at Fourth Wall Studios, he helped develop the Rides.TV platform; Fourth Wall’s first show, Dirty Work, won a Primetime Emmy for Online Programming. Stewart is also an accomplished sci-fi and fantasy writer, winning numerous honors, including the World Fantasy Award for his novel Galveston.  His two careers came together with the New York Times and internationally best-selling Cathy’s Book transmedia novels, now published in more than twenty countries around the world.

I saw a bunch of talks during GDC this year, but the one I’ve found myself telling people about the most was titled “The Applied Value of Player Psychology: Putting Motivational Principles to Work”, given by Scott Rigby from Immersyve and Troy Skinner and Lowell Vaughen of WB games. During this talk, Rigby and Skinner presented a division of AAA XBox games into two tiers: Tier 1 games had earned “a lot” of revenue, and Tier 2 games had just been profitable. The profit margin difference between the two tiers was millions of dollars, so for example the #1 game in Tier 1 is Call of Duty: Black Ops, and the #1 Tier 2 game is Dragon Age: Origins. The purpose of the talk was to discuss the difference between these two tiers of games and to investigate a hypothesis about how a game jumps the million-of-dollars gap between the two tiers.

The speakers used Mass Effect as a case study for a game that failed to jump the gap, despite taking all of the seemingly “right” actions. When EA released Mass Effect, they had spent millions of dollars in marketing, public relations, and they earned a very high metacritic rating. It was a Tier 2 game, but common sense tells us that this is a great position for EA to be in: they have a great game, a potentially successful franchise, and the money to buy a lot of publicity. For Mass Effect 2 they increased spending on marketing and public relations and the game earned an even higher metacritic rating, but the game failed to jump the gap; it remained a Tier 2 game. The big question of Rigby and Skinner’s talk was: “If successful execution of all obvious actions wasn’t enough to push Mass Effect 2 into the Tier 1 category, what is?” Their answer lies in understanding the motivational psychology of the target market: hardcore console players.

The speakers identified the first portion of this market as the “Connoisseurs”. A Connoisseur is a dedicated consumer that self-identifies as a video game player. They probably purchase 12 console games a year and are likely to complete all of them. Connoisseurs require innovation and depth from a game: perceived innovation motivates them to buy, and then depth in a game earns their loyalty. The Connoisseurs drive the market: they’re the ones waiting in line overnight for the release of the Wii, and then they show the system to everyone they know. In this case, the Wii would be abandoned for it’s lack of depth, but a Connoisseur got their grandmother and girlfriend to buy one before they threw it in the back of their closet. They’re a powerful part of the market, but they only make up 15% of it.

65% of the market is what Rigby and Skinner called the “Bro Gamer”. The Bro Gamer doesn’t identify as a “gamer”, but he plays to be entertained. He needs to be competent quickly and doesn’t feel the need to complete anything; he just wants to have fun. In fact, Bro Gamers prioritize fun over challenge, and they purchase only a few games a year. What tends to happen is a Connoisseur player will buy a game, and if he likes it he’ll tell his Bro Gamer friends about it. They trust the Connoisseur’s opinion and are likely to purchase it, but both groups have to be satisfied with a product in order for it to spread into the farthest reaches of the market and jump into the Tier 1 category.

The speakers used Batman: Arkham Asylum as a case study for a game that successfully met the needs of both the Connoisseur and the Bro Gamer. The game only has 2-button controls at it’s most complex, so it’s quick to pick up. If you choose to button-mash, you’ll still have a great time because you’ll feel like Batman beating the face off a bad guy, but if you need additional depth then you can dive into complexities of the combo system. Timing-based skills, such as blocking during a fight, have UI elements that help the player be successful without taking away any sense of accomplishment. And since it’s a fairly linear action game, Arkham Asylum doesn’t let the player fail more than a few times before providing aid with diagetic cues. An experienced player will never encounter the help, but a struggling player won’t feel like they’re banging their head against a wall.

In conclusion, Rigby and Skinner readdressed the original question: why didn’t Mass Effect 2 make the leap into the Tier 2 category? If their hypothesis is true, then making a good game great doesn’t improve sales. Mass Effect had already earned a good reputation such that making a slightly better game didn’t make a difference – players who enjoyed Mass Effect were already planning to purchase the next game. What EA should have done was increased their potential audience by making accommodations for both the Connoisseur and the Bro Gamer.

Speaker:        Marientina Gotsis
Time:              Wednesday, April 17, 6-8pm
Location:     USC’s Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 122
Title :             “Taking No For An Answer: The Art of Trying”

This short intro to grant writing will introduce you to thinking and planning about funding opportunities that can help fund your project, training and post-graduation career with an MFA degree. Conventional and unconventional funding sources will be covered, with the goal of demystifying the initial process of searching, trying and learning from rejection.

Marientina has a broad background in arts, design and engineering with special interest in medicine, public health and health behavior. She and her team have developed several innovative applications using games for health behavior change in topics such as child development, wellness, obesity, nutrition, exercise, autism, PTSD, rehabilitation, and eye disease. Gotsis has developed partnerships and projects with funding by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Norlien Foundation, National Institutes of Health (NIH), US Department of Defense-TATRC, US Department of Education-NIDRR and the Shafallah Center for Children with Special Needs. Formerly the Media Lab Manager for the Interactive Media Division, Gotsis managed technology infrastructure and contributed to several research projects funded by Electronic Arts, Intel, Microsoft and Nokia. She has taught at USC (School of Cinematic Arts, School of Social Work, Roski School of Fine Arts), Northeastern Illinois University, Columbia College Chicago and Harold Washington College, and she has consulted for small businesses and not-for-profits. Gotsis has 18 years of experience as a designer and technologist. She received a BFA in photography/film/electronic media and an MFA in electronic visualization from the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Also, there will also be a special Pecha Kucha Session to close the evening.

I was in San Francisco for most of GDC (I left Wednesday evening), and like most people in our program and industry, I followed the events, parties, and conversations about events and parties from afar.

There are two reasons for my (non) attendance of GDC this year: first and foremost, even the “affordable” tickets are incredibly expensive (and you all know how easy it is for us to get funding for going to an event like GDC), and second, I suspected that I wouldn’t get as much of it this year as I got out of it last year, when I paid an immense amount of money to see everything. While there are a few talks I wish I had not missed seeing in person (I’m especially sad that I missed Mitu Khandaker’s rant), I found that what I most wanted to do, professionally and personally, was meet people outside of the talks and, well, talk. More and more, it’s being brought home to me how the people to meet and talks to see are free (like the well-populated Lost Levels, which I’m also kicking myself for missing), because they’re designed that way, or because you meet someone and go to a bar, or a coffee shop, and talk to them in a space where you can really get your points across, and let them do the same.

This year’s GDC saw two organizations (Notch’s Mojang and the IGDA) show themselves to be mired in the wider industry’s problematic approach to gender and sexualization. The industry (whether it’s AAA, Indie, or Even More Indie) is certainly changing and becoming less male, less white. GDC is certainly a less exclusionary/threatening space than, say E3 is, but it has such a long way to go yet. I wonder how far behind the newest members of our community it’s going to lag behind in the coming years. That’s certainly the nature of large organizations and groups: to respond to new ideas and criticism with a lumbering, defensive stance. I hope we do better now, and in the future, because we have to.

For myself, I was happy to avoid the main conference, and meet old and new friends outside the walls of Moscone. If I feel like it next year, maybe I’ll change my mind and attend (assuming I have the imaginary money to spend on this strangely opulent event). I doubt I will: the people, companies, and conversations that are looking ahead don’t need you to wear a badge to go up to them and strike up a conversation.

I went to a couple of poster sessions at GDC, and one of the ones I found most useful was given by Mordechai Buckman, also known as the guy who designed “Gamer Mom.” The poster was entitled “Interactive Fiction: Traditions vs. Potential”.

Mordechai discussed a few things in his talk that I found interesting. He pointed out that point-and-click games or interactive fiction are genres essentially devoted towards telling stories. They are a combination of adventure games and puzzle games—both of which have their own dedicated audiences. Point-and-click games attract people who are interested in the story of that game, rather than in the game mechanics.

Another point that I liked was when he talked about how we often define and form ideas of a person’s character through their actions. In most game genres the player controls the character, forcing the character to do certain predefined actions. Because of this we the game designers lose the chance to define our characters through their actions.

(more…)

Given that I only had an Expo pass, and only that through volunteering to staff the IGDA booth, instead of writing a detailed review of something I attended or experienced (which leaves me, frankly, not much to choose from given my limited access and availability), I’m going to provide a list of things I wish I had known prior to attending GDC. This is going to be a personal account, so not all of this will apply to everyone who might go, but for me, they would have been useful (and some I even learned in time to address appropriately).

(more…)

Speaker:      Sara Thacher
Time:            Wednesday, April 10, 6-8pm
Location:     USC’s Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 122

Sara Thacher is a transmedia producer and experience designer.  She makes adventures that often meander between the physical and the digital. Some of her projects land squarely in the commercial realms of entertainment or marketing, while others are closer to stand-alone artworks. Most sit somewhere in-between. She also does consulting on transmedia projects and  experience design problems and has worked with a variety of clients including:  No Mimes Media, Meet Gatsby, Noise, Xenophile Media, The Go Game, Ken Eklund, Thomas Dolby, ZER01.

Sara also served as the Senior Producer and Experience Designer at Nonchalance, a hybrid arts consultancy in San Francisco with an expertise in Situational Design. There she produced experiences that challenge their audiences to become participants and engage with their environment in new ways. She co-ordinates work across every medium, from audio environments and sensor activated installations to faux BBS websites and augmented reality video, to create immersive experiences that interact and merge with their surroundings.

Before arriving on the Nonchalance team, Sara literally walked a mile in the shoes of sixteen different strangers (she gave them back afterwards) and took surrogate vacations for other people who wanted to travel, but were not able to do so. Along the way, she became a proficient glassblower and earned an MFA in Social Practice (although not at the same place). In the course of the last decade she has created and managed numerous socially engaged projects in the public sphere throughout the United States and Canada.

Speakers:     IMD Second Year MFAs
Time:             Wednesday, April 3, 6-8pm
Location:     USC’s Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC), Room 122

Please join us for a special event this Wednesday April 3 at 6:00-8:00PM in the ZML when the second year MFA students will be presenting their experiments, prototypes and previews of next year’s IMD Thesis projects. This will be a dynamic, hands-on opportunity to experience and critique a variety of interactive experiences at a crucial moment in their development. Don’t miss this preview of things to come!