Telcos Serious Games Adolfo M Rosas arosas tid

Telcos & Serious Games Adolfo M. Rosas arosas@tid. es ACCELERATE TO INCREASE OUR LEADERSHIP May 2006 Telefónica I+D

Telecommunication Operators & ‘serious games’ n n ACCELERATE TO There is a strong games market and a great interest in games from several industrial sectors. One of these sectors is the communications industry : the environment of Telco operators. n The ‘Telco’ companies sell services as their basic product. Telcos own/exploit the network and are used to the financial facts of the networked businesses. n As many have pointed out Telcos may need to add value to their business : data connectivity and basic communication services are commodities nowadays so the ARPU may decrease if no added value services are exploited. n There are some ‘serious’ games that are interesting for Telcos INCREASE OUR LEADERSHIP n Networked games, communities , new technologies in media representation , media communication , distance learning. . . n All of these technologies and businesses benefit from a learning process made possible through communication technologies Telefónica I+D

‘Serious Games’ that may involve Telcos n ACCELERATE TO INCREASE OUR E-learning for the corporate market : Telco companies offer learning and communication services for the corporate market. Learning in the corporate environment is increasingly important and new learning paradigms are emerging. Mobile e-learning is gaining momentum. n E-Learning in the residential market: Networked games : play for fun. . . But play also for knowledge. The player gains knowledge about other players , about the environment , about the service. Players obtain abilities than can be demonstrated in the community. Play for prestige. n ‘Community generators’. Games are known to create ‘fan clubs’ or more generally speaking ‘groups of interest’. Even when a game is not networked, delivery of such a title to many users creates an increasing group of interested people, and groups need to communicate so services as forum lists, chats or ‘gaming experts advice’ are possible. Communities are good for Telcos. n Inside communities many communication activities may happen. Some activities involve new abilities. There is a learning process behind. There is a feedback process between player and community. LEADERSHIP Telefónica I+D

Telco’s influence over ‘serious’ games industry n n Every service needs a backend open to the service provider. n ACCELERATE TO Turning the game into a service. A backend facilitates the operator the following operations: n Classify the game experience in several billing concepts : time, matches, traffic, etc. . . n Monitor and account the usage of these concepts : matches, time, network traffic, purchase of game items, hostage of private matches, etc. . . n Spy the behaviour of the players ‘in public’ environments and possibly have censorship activities n Interact with gamers : through the use of avatars , automatic and not automatic bots, ‘gods’ and regular users with the purpose of helping them understand the game and have a better experience n Have marketing statistics n Enable side-services or ‘derived experiences’ based on the success of a community or a game INCREASE OUR LEADERSHIP Telefónica I+D

Telco’s influence over serious games industry (II) n ACCELERATE TO INCREASE OUR LEADERSHIP Community games : a networked game may gather a small group of players in a single session, but RPGS and specially MMORPGS enforce the creation of communities. Communities and tools for building, maintaining exploiting them are a real ‘serious’ challenge inside a game or service. n Technologies that have an impact in ‘serious’ games : n 3 D and broadband networking are state of the art technologies but. . . what about other network and media based technologies? : n n Bidirectional audio, multiconferencing with SW mixed audio. . . n n Videoconferencing : a new possibility even for home gaming platforms: PS 2/PS 3, Xbox/Xbox 360. . . Used in action and community games SMS, email, messaging, positioning, . . . Telcos always ask for openness, reliability and scalability n Standards based: n n Videoconferencing standards: H. 263/H. 264, SIP, IMS n n Audiovisual standards (MPEG 1, 2, 4), H. 263, H. 264 Elearning standards : SCORM, AICC Reliability: n Again: use standards for communications between components n Have redundancy in the server side : nowadays this redundancy is commonly deployed as fault tolerant clusters of servers Scalability: Telefónica I+D n Server must be distributable over a cluster and seamlessly multi threaded n

New services and technologies that Telcos would like to add to existing platforms, applications and terminals n Single Sign On : ability to authenticate the user only once and give access to many network resources (or resources that can be found online) n Presence: ability to communicate in real time our presence (our status) to others in the network using the same application or not. n Videoconference/Multiconference : ability to have conferences with other people transmitting and receiving video and audio even from multiple simultaneous sources n Messaging (unified) : create a channel that gathers all suitable forms of messaging (even legacy messaging systems like POTS voice mailboxes) n Online Communities : the goal of all ‘serious’ games and apps for Telcos. Group of interconnected users. A ‘sense’ of community is needed. Group Identity. n Online Learning : final application or side effect of any community. As a final service may be oriented to corporate or residential users. As a single user applicati n Streaming Media /VOD : another tool to help connecting users. ACCELERATE TO INCREASE OUR LEADERSHIP Telefónica I+D

Handling Communities in Telco services n n ACCELERATE TO INCREASE OUR Any ‘set of people’ that is tied to a service could be make into a community. . . but some actions are required, and some way of thinking about the service and the business model. Communication tools may change any regular game into a ‘serious’ game as far as there starts a community building activity. (For example it is possible to add communication through Vo. IP to some games, or chat lines. . . ) LEADERSHIP Telefónica I+D

Examples of communication services that implement ‘serious’ games n Mundo 3 D : 2002. n Developer : Silicon Artists. Owner : Telefonica n 3 D world. Interactive. Backend designed by joint team : developer & Telco. ACCELERATE TO INCREASE OUR LEADERSHIP n Imagenio for PS 2 : 2002 n n n Prototype. Developer : Telefónica I+D Video on Demand Services on a gaming console. (Developed on linux). E-Videoteca : 2000 n n n Developer : Telefónica I+D. Owner : Telefonica Web Platform for video content creation Interoperable DRM Platform : 2006 n Prototype. Developer : Telefónica I+D n B 2 B Backend that allows marketplaces for communities based on DRM Telefónica I+D

Mundo 3 D n 3 D Virtual Community built for Telefónica ADSL platform n Fully integrated with other services: n n n n ACCELERATE TO INCREASE OUR LEADERSHIP Videoconferencing Audioconferencing Multi-videoconferencing Presence Instant Messaging SMS E-mail Payment System n Requires software installation n Pricing n n n Part of 2€ / month package on top of standard ADSL subscription Originally planned to charge for game elements, virtual objects Quickly moved to same flat fee package as other services Telefónica I+D Information reproduced here with permission of the rights holders. Mundo 3 D is a product of Telefónica developed by Silicon Artists.

Mundo 3 D Interactive Content and Social activities n Virtual Objects n n n ACCELERATE TO INCREASE OUR LEADERSHIP n Avatar Personalization n n n Sex Body shape Clothes Colours Textures Reservation of party rooms n n n For navigating (keys) For using Mundo 3 D features (party reservations, real estate deeds) Games (packets of cards) Content (MP 3) Marketing objects (leaflets, billboards) Bartering and virtual commerce built in Reserve room with built in multivideoconferencing Send out personalized fliers House and Home n n n Buy real estate with virtual money Buy virtual furniture and decorate Marketing opportunities Telefónica I+D Information reproduced here with permission of the rights holders. Mundo 3 D is a product of Telefónica developed by Silicon Artists.

E-Videoteca technology: Intended uses Live event Coding Auditorium Intranet / Virtual Private network ACCELERATE TO INCREASE OUR Very High Quality Meeting Room LEADERSHIP Deferred event Stored lesson Phone Network ADSL Very High Quality RDSI High Quality Modem Medium/Low Quality Medium/ Remote user Internet Medium/Low Quality Medium/ Home user Telefónica I+D

Evideoteca : residential elearning service in a community Slide ACCELERATE TO INCREASE OUR LEADERSHIP Vídeo Audio Telefónica I+D

Imagenio (IPTV) on PS 2 n n n ACCELERATE TO INCREASE OUR LEADERSHIP n General purpose CPU not very powerful. Need to program the dedicated processors No well known operating system available The goal is to use PS 2 to visualise Vo. D applications decoding video through the deicated processors, use PS 2 for videoconferencing (implement SIP /IMS). Community applications may be developed based on presence and interaction supported on Vo. IP Telefónica I+D

Imagenio (IPTV) on PS 2 (II) There is a Linux kernel tuned for PS 2 (de Sony) n Suitable to ease porting of existing applications n Helps developing apps that take advantage of native capabilities of the PS 2 architecture n ACCELERATE TO INCREASE OUR LEADERSHIP n MICA architecture: Browser Qt Frame Buffer Player LINUX Hardware Telefónica I+D