Computer games for fun and profit Andrew Reynolds

Computer games for fun and profit Andrew Reynolds IBM Hursley © 2004 IBM Corporation All images copyright of their respective owners

Fun © 2004 IBM Corporation

The market Subscriptions Hardcore Pay per play Casual gamers Advertising Mass market © 2004 IBM Corporation

The state of play World Wide Games Market Rev $B 39 40 37 34 39 56 61 Games Industry business models evolving… • from unit sales to online revenue streams • from packaged product to episodic content • from PC to non-PC platforms • • mobile phones, consoles, … Global online revenue estimated $30 B in 2008 Source: CITL, 2002 Source: Datamonitor, 2001 © 2004 IBM Corporation

New revenue streams In-game advertising In game tax (revenue splitting) Pay per play Units on shelves Monthly subscription © 2004 IBM Corporation

Ultima Online (Electronic Arts) All images copyright of their respective owners © 2004 IBM Corporation

Atlantic Gardener's Association Plant Mall The AGA Plant Mall consists of about 14 vendors … that are maintained and stocked by Atlantic Gardener's Association members. As a group, AGA members have all the different kinds of plant types and colors. We conform to AGA pricing guidelines, so you'll always get the best price. Drop on by and take a look around! http: //uo. com All images copyright of their respective owners © 2004 IBM Corporation

Online trading Some statistics Ever. Quest (Sony) stats from 2001 • Norranth, population 430, 000 • Annual online trading = $5 M • $139 M GNP ≈ Bulgaria • 79 th richest nation on earth • e. Bay trading now banned …for EQ. Trades from other games still going strong ebay. com All images copyright of their respective owners © 2004 IBM Corporation

gamingopenmarket. com © 2004 IBM Corporation

Name Julian Dibbell Age 41 Goal To make the sale of imaginary good his primary source of income Profit (March April, 2004) $3, 917 = $47, 000 p/a juliandibbell. com All images copyright of their respective owners © 2004 IBM Corporation

Business Integration for Games § Business logic and game logic require different expertise and have a different lifecycle § Maintaining a clear separation of concerns gives flexibility for both § Game logic needs to exploit business logic in a seamless, efficient way § Lightweight client © 2004 IBM Corporation

Architecture Clients Embedded API layer of simplicity for secure; Payment Shopping Trading Messaging Processes POP Location Service POP Store Shop Catalogue Catalogue Services UDDI POP Notification Service Payment Service Digital Rights Manager (could be mobile network owner) POP = Process Broker with extensible business logic POP = Point of Presence on the network for the device © 2004 IBM Corporation

Quake Shop © 2004 IBM Corporation

Infrastructure brings new possibilities… § Pay-per-play models charge users for content, time, or access to function within the game § In-Game Trading players can buy/sell/auction items within the game environment financial and asset transactions really bound to game function § e-Commerce integration of purchase and e-distribution of content from online store within game Digital Rights Management function controlled from game, but provided by third-parties § Revenue Sharing Allow metered usage and dynamic splitting of revenue between partners and investors All images copyright of their respective owners © 2004 IBM Corporation

…possibilities limited only by imagination! § Identity/Player Reputation Acquire externally managed reputation information to assist in tournaments, player matching, cheat monitoring § Message/Event Distribution Propagate game events to outside world • push tournament game stats out to websites for aggregation • use “presence service" to push game event messages to players current contact point Propagate real-world events to game environment • sports event telemetry data/statistics pulled into game e. g. F 1 racing data live into game • Real environmental data to affect game All images copyright of their respective owners © 2004 IBM Corporation

References § IBM’s Business Integration for Games http: //alphaworks. ibm. com/tech/big http: //ibm. com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-intgame § Articles “Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier” http: //papers. ssrn. com/sol 3/papers. cfm? abstract_id=294828 “The Unreal Estate Boom” http: //wired. com/wired/archive/11. 01/gaming. html “Interreality Buiness Machine” http: //wired. com/news/games/0, 2101, 62351, 00. html § Other interesting sites http: //games. slashdot. org http: //gamespy. com http: //gamingopenmarket. com http: //havok. com http: //juliandibell. com/playmoney http: //opende. sourceforge. net © 2004 IBM Corporation