I'm Serious.net

New vendor opportunities

We have a number of new RFP announcements in the Opportunities section today. Ol' Uncle Sam is getting game fever!

I'm serious,
Anne

Sometimes Business Comes First!

  As I have begun to write this blog, I have found it somewhat difficult to address serious games subjects that are important without also talking about and citing examples of casual or entertainment games.  It is fun to watch an industry grow and mature, and we can see this happening in the entertainment games arena. Part of that maturation process must be focused on responsible and business-like strategies that will foster success in the casual games sector, which can only benefit the entire computer games industry.

The eLearning Guild's annual “360º Report” has a really great essay by Kevin Corti, CEO and Chief Learning Architect of PIXELearning in Coventry, England, entitled “Demystifying Immersive Learning Simulations – Moving From the Potential to the Practical”.  Kevin articulates some really smart strategy and advice on the “business” of serious games.  He gives excellent examples of several corporate and government applications of serious games, and he has some solid advice on how the “vendors”, must frame their products for the “commissioners” who are the end users and buyers of serious 3D immersive learning technology.  Kevin's business leadership at PIXELearning is helping his company compete by successfully framing and selling their technology and their creativity to build important learning simulations for major clients.  Every company that will compete and survive in our industry will need to heed Kevin's advice!

In a similar vein, Philip Rosedale, creator of Second Life , announced this week that a new CEO, Mark Kingdon, has been appointed to take the helm.  Citing the need for “tremendous business skills and a deep understanding and passion for Second Life and where it is going,” Rosedale noted that “Linden Lab's new chief needed to know how to run a business, not just come up with cool ideas.” Linden Lab is displaying exceptional responsibility to its members and its employees by recognizing that proper and effective management is essential to success.  Obviously, Linden Lab has an eye on going public at some point, and this decision to hire talented business leadership is also an important step toward that goal.

What we must glean from the bits and pieces of written word and firm action, as demonstrated by Corti and Rosedale, is that we must have a sharp eye on the business of serious games.  Success is based, yes, in the “coolness” of this exciting technology, but it is equally rooted in the important foundation of any viable business.  We must frame our industry and its products in a way that helps the commissioners to be comfortable with the technology while also understanding the incredible benefits that come with it.  We must show the buyers of learning technology that they gain efficiency, save money, energize their audience, and enhance their profit margins while embracing innovation for a competitive advantage.  As Corti says, all parties have to be “on the same page”.

The title on that page is “Business Comes First”!

I'm Serious!

Michael

Rant: Companions in Learning???

Pat LaFontaine sure seems like a great guy. He's a Hockey Hall of Famer and All-Star who was forced into retirement in 1998 due to head trauma and concussions. During a period of convalescence, Pat drew solace and inspiration from the many critically ill children and teens who were hospitalized at the same time. Through his experience, he redoubled his efforts and devotion to his foundation, Companions in Courage, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting children and families who are overcoming life-threatening obstacles. CiC has created "Lion's Dens" in a number of children's hospitals around the U.S. - essentially a playroom filled with kiosks and game stations (including an array of adaptive technologies) and conversation areas. CiC says, to quote their website, that "[t]hrough innovative communications tools, these playrooms replace the isolation of a hospital with a connection to family, friends and celebrities during each hospital stay." Yes, emphasis mine.

I guess Robbie Bach must be a great guy, too. He's Microsoft President of Entertainment and Devices Division. He and Pat announced today that their respective organizations are partnering to put "hundreds" of Xbox 360 game kiosks in CiC Lion's Dens. In addition to select games, movies and television content, the Xboxes will be linked to a private network version of Xbox LIVE. The kiosks are preloaded with a variety of E-rated games, Y-rated TV shows, and G-rated movies. Well, Robbie is head of Entertainment and Devices.

I'm an optimist by nature. (What? Fretters can be optimists, too.) I expect all children who go to hospitals come home to live long and healthy lives. But, this of course, does bring up the problem of how much school they are missing when they are working so hard at getting well. And why are these charitably-minded people (aha!) so concerned about entertainment and celebrities and not about school? (You see the fretter-optimist thing now, don't you?)

This seems like such an overlooked opportunity. Particularly when you consider that Robbie's uber-boss is Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft and Co-Founder of the Gates Foundation, which considers improving education in America to be one of its principal objectives.

C'mon guys. One of the great ways to help kids - or anyone - not just heal, but have a successful re-entry into the world is by keeping them engaged with the world they can't participate in right now. As every parent knows, kids want to learn, even sick ones. Let's not just think about entertaining them so that time passes more quickly. Let's also think about how we can keep their minds engaged, with the world and with learning!

I'm serious,
Anne

Oh Talent, where art thou?

  In the 1970s and 1980s, the Pentagon, other government agencies, and the relatively fledgling semiconductor industry recognized that America needed trained talent if it hoped to achieve success and even dominance in the semiconductor marketplace. It was critically important, in the mindset of American defense leadership, that America train its own “patriots” to help build the semiconductor industry into the giant it is today. The country’s secrets could not be entrusted to aliens from other nations.

To that end, the semiconductor industry, with a big helping hand from the US Government and the Pentagon, launched a research and education arm that was designed to foster the development of University grant programs that would lead semiconductor research and train graduate students in the field. This was a very successful initiative that has led our country to a leadership position in cutting-edge technology development in chip design and manufacturing.

In the serious computer games arena, we are at a similar crossroads. We have a fair amount of garage- and basement-based designers who are working to build a brand new game or design the next, most awesome raceway scenario. How do we interest this burgeoning talent in serious games? Is it important that we help to convert this talent pool to the serious side of the equation? How is formal education and training built into their experience so that we have properly trained and effective designers ready for the employment ranks of serious games companies?

The good news is that several universities are already building curricula and laboratories that train our next generational talent pool. At the University of Central Florida, the University of Maryland, the Universities of Birmingham City and Coventry in the U.K., and Full Sail for example, programs are in place already, and both undergraduate and graduate students are in the learning phase while they are doing hands-on development of important projects using 3D immersive learning simulations at their core.

Quite a few other universities are designing programs and have a bit more work to do before they start turning out fresh, talented, and capable designers for the serious games arena. There is money to be made by this talent pool, and they are the future of our industry. Equally important, more talent means more opportunity to accelerate the serious games industry, fueling an important economic engine that needs all the resources we can pour into it! We run the risk that demand for serious games cannot be met without a larger pool of talent, and we need to be thinking about strategies that will foster the development of these educational programs at universities large and small!

I’d like to hear from folks at colleges and universities who are engaged in all levels of this important curriculum and learning development.

I’m Serious!

Michael

Wording is Everything!

Those of us who are immersed in the serious games arena find it fairly easy to articulate our goals, strategy, and dreams about serious games. To the uninitiated, however, getting your head around such innovative technology can be a real challenge. One of the important aspects of development of the serious games industry, including penetration into the marketplace, is how we articulate to potential buyers and future disciples the features and benefits of serious games. The “elevator message” is critical to capturing their attention in short order.

As our industry seeks funding from all kinds of sources and as we market 3D Immersive Learning Simulations to corporate America and beyond, it will be necessary to define serious games in laymen’s terms. If we expect to “sell” a project or an educational or marketing opportunity, we must define it sensibly to the buyer; be they a grantor, venture capitalist, or corporate executive. This constituency is broad and diverse, and making it simple and logical will greatly enhance our success in growing our business.

Forterra Systems, Inc, provider of a virtual world platform called OLIVE, has just unveiled its new website, crafting excellent language that can be beneficial to all of us who try to educate the marketplace, never mind our friends and families, about the significant opportunities that come with the implementation of 3D Immersive Learning Simulations. I encourage you to check out Forterra’s new website and take a moment to admire their articulation of the rationale for serious games in the 21st century!

I’m Serious!
Michael

Serious Money for Serious Games

On January 7, 2002, The Washington Post reported that the number of Internet companies that sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, or went out of business, in 2001 was 537, up from 225 in 2000. There are many reasons the dot-com collapse occurred and I will not generalize this blog with too many of them. I do want to highlight one pitfall that befell the dot-com industry that could very likely be repeated in the computer games industry; access to appropriate sums of money to fuel the industry at critical junctures of organizational growth and maturation.

In late February 2001, the online retailer eToys announced that it would file for bankruptcy and close down its website in early March. Company management said that a shortage of cash for operations, and little likelihood of raising more, was the primary reason eToys collapsed. Two things are sad to me about this – I owned 24,000 shares of the stock in my retirement plan in the midst of this bankruptcy (I was not an employee or insider), and I thought eToys was one of the smartest, most exciting, and viable new internet-based retailers in the entire dot-com arena!

Critical analysis of eToys demise includes several aspects of their operations which drained cash from their coffers. As their financial picture eroded, it became much more difficult for them to raise critical funding from banks or the venture capital community. I still believe that eToys was an idea that merited more funding and could be alongside such internet giants as Amazon and Yahoo today.

In the height of the dot-com mania, anyone with money to burn was willing to throw it at any dot-com idea that wanted it. Venture capitalists, large and small, were not alone in their zeal to cash in on this fantastic opportunity as many individual investors (like me) pressed their own investment dollars into the stock of these companies. As a financial services professional, I saw that nearly everyone abandoned smart investment strategy to ride the dot-com bull, so much so that they often refused to sell when their own investment return exceeded 300-500% in a year or less.

I see a very similar, emerging situation in our own computer games industry. Money is beginning to flow freely in certain areas, and I don’t think our industry is sophisticated enough, just yet, to handle the onslaught of investment cash available. As long as we do not understand the monetization and revenue strategies that will lead to financial health of our products and services, we are not fully equipped to present such strategies to the funding community, nor are we ready to determine how much of our business ownership should be “given up” in any financing scenario. Very few successful games companies are grown up enough to be viable financially and fewer are ready to negotiate either secondary capital infusions from venture capitalists or the important details of an initial public offering.

I have a buddy who has worked for many years in a senior development post at a major technology company everyone knows. At the height of the NASDAQ market in 1999, before Alan Greenspan’s “irrational exuberance” testimony before Congress, my friend’s personal holdings in company stock was worth $5 million dollars. Today, it hovers around $300,000. In part, the dot-com bust, along with an economic downturn that began in late August 1999, plus such debacles as Enron, drove valuations into the basement and many Americans were severely harmed in the process. I know dot-comers who are waiting tables today, running small temp employment agencies, etc. Life has changed for all of us because of those difficult times that followed on the heels of dot-com mania and other related investment valuation issues.

Here at I’m Serious.net, we are committed to accelerating the conversation around money in every aspect of our serious games industry, because what we all do makes the world a better place and changes the lives of individuals and families all over the globe!

Let me hear from you about serious money ideas and issues!

I’m Serious!
Michael

Hope to see you...

Next week, I will be attending the eLearning Guild's Annual Gathering in Orlando. If you, too, are planning to attend, I hope you will make both the ILS Symposium (I'm one of the presenters) on Monday and my featured session, "Quick and Easy Ways to Get Started with Serious Games," on Wednesday afternoon.

I look forward to seeing you and hearing about your projects. And if you can't join us, I'll say "hi" to Mickey for you.

I'm Serious,
Anne

Baseball is a Serious Game!

Baseball really is a serious game! Why else would conservative columnist, George F. Will, depart from all things political to pontificate on baseball from time to time? Or why would Billy Crystal make the movie “61*” about Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and the 1961 Yankees team? Crystal and Will would both assert that they are serious about baseball, because they love the game!

As everyone knows, America’s pastime is a serious game because it is about serious money! Multi-million dollar player contracts abound. A ticket to the opening game of the San Francisco Giants at the Los Angeles Dodgers ranged in price from $9 to $650 per seat! Liberty Media purchased the Atlanta Braves last year for an assigned value of $461 million dollars, and the Washington Nationals just inaugurated a brand new stadium, overlooking the U.S. Capitol Building, at a cost to taxpayers of $611 million dollars!

At February’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, I listened to a presentation about “The Paradox of Play: The Challenge of Measuring What Game Players Learn”. Three presenters were in agreement that you can learn using games and that learning can be measured. The fourth expressed reservations and forcefully challenged the room about the nature of learning in a game setting. He believes games are fun, but that learning from computer games may be somewhat of a myth and that measuring that learning is an even more dubious exercise.

This discussion caused me to reflect back to my Little League baseball days, and how much pure joy I derived from playing the game. More importantly, I reflect now upon what I learned playing a “fun” game: leadership, teamwork, fair play, and personal sacrifice. As we debate whether real learning occurs with games, I find that these four attributes from my baseball days are every bit as valid descriptors, among many, of what we learn playing computer games and using immersive learning simulations in the serious games arena.

This inaugural post is meant to hint at the subjects on which I will blog; namely ”money” in serious games, including monetization strategies, capital formation, procurement, revenue streams, market analysis, marketing strategy, and the relationship that must be built between the teams of learning designers and the folks who write the big checks that create viability for the industry of serious games.

I was quite surprised at GDC just how limited the discussion was when it comes to money. In some sessions, where I would have expected some mention of it, there was none. And even in the sessions specifically tailored to money, including ad revenue structures and other pricing strategies, many participants were there to listen and learn, mostly, it seemed, because they were not conversant on the relevant subjects.

I will blog a bit more in my next post on this subject specifically as I relate it to one of the main reasons, in my view, that the dot-com industry collapsed a few years ago.

For now…. Serious Games ARE about Serious Money!

I’m Serious!
Michael

Big News!!

Today is a big day at I'm Serious. Today, I am delighted to introduce you to my business partner, Michael Armentrout.

Michael is a businessman, a money guy. He wears a suit (although he's starting to learn to leave his tie at home). Among other things, he used to manage money for the semi-conductor industry; he leveraged that into a relationship between the industry and higher education that fostered many initiatives and partnerships that continue to fuel the semi-conductor business.

And now Michael has been bitten by the serious games bug. Once again, he's bringing his passion for learning, his interest in technology, and his business acumen together - this time for the benefit of our industry.

Michael will be a regular contributor to this blog. He brings a perspective few of us have, and has much to teach us about how to think about the business of our work. You'll get the idea when you read his inaugural post, "Baseball is a Serious Game."

Welcome, Michael.

I'm serious,
Anne

Could it be?

Is someone at SOE reading this blog? Today, and in the wake of my post about the enormous gap between the number of male game developers and the number of their female counterparts, Sony Online Entertainment has announced a new competitive scholarship aimed at female developers. The competition is part of their new "Gamers in Real Life (G.I.R.L.)" program. The winner will be awarded a $10,000 scholarship to The Art Institutes. Way to go, SOE!

I'm serious,
Anne