Overview

The late 1970s and 1980s marked the gaming industry in its infancy. Today, it has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry and a serious business for just about everyone, from the young kids playing handheld games during a long car ride to adults playing games on their mobile phones on the train after a long day's work. This article shall identify and discuss some of the trends of the gaming industry presently.

The Trends

MMOG Phenomenon

Massively Multiplayer Online Games, or MMOGs, are becoming increasingly popular. They contribute a significant percentage of revenue to the gaming industry, and there are now more and more MMOGs being launched. In Singapore, Korean MMOG Grenado Espada launched an extensive marketing campaign recently, with frequent advertisements on the television during prime-time as well as a live event at Zouk - testimony to the MMOG market's increasing popularity and growth. MMOGs found its roots in text-based MUD and adventure games, and while those entities predate the commercial animal that the gaming industry of today has become, they contained elements that continue to be seen in today's most popular MMOGs such as persistent worlds and a distinct measure of replayability, as well as the ability to interact and bond with other players in a common game world, that would keep players interested for long periods of time.

Western MMOGs

One of the most commonly recognised and acknowledged MMOG would be World of Warcraft, or WOW for short. Based on the Warcraft series of games by Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft has since crossed the 9 million active subscribers mark (see Blizzard Press Release). In addition, the recently released figures by Nielson Media Research showed that PC gamers played World of Warcraft four times as much as any other PC games. A recent interview with Richard Bartle, the well known co-founder of MUDs, shared his perspective that

  ...[today's] virtual worlds are not as sophisticated. Yes, 
they have the 3D graphics, but what you can do in them as a player isn't as 
sophisticated as what you can do in a textual world. This means players don't 
have as many tools and abilities available to them within the world to enhance 
the experience of others.

And of World of Warcraft, he expressed that he feels the game should be shut down, as that would give the millions of people playing World of Warcraft a chance to try other games, as by having all MMO players congregate in a single game, potential new and innovative game development ideas and concepts are missed out.

  ...I'd close it. I just want better virtual worlds. Sacrificing one 
of the best so its players have to seek out alternatives would be a sure-fire way 
to ensure that unknown gems got the chance they deserved, and that new games were 
developed to push back the boundaries.

Asian MMOGs

Besides World of Warcraft, several Asian MMOGs have had notable success too, although they come predominantly from Korea. Games such as Ragnarok Online and MapleStory are just as well known with the young here in Singapore as World of Warcraft. In fact, MapleStory, which utilises a two-dimensional, side scrolling environment, coupled with free gameplay, has caused it to be extremely accessible and consequently has attracted a huge fanbase consisting of young players as well as female gamers. In fact, Maple Story boasts having had over a total of 21 million subscribers worldwide since December 2004.

MMOGs going onto consoles

MMOGs were mostly the realm of the PC gaming market, but lately several games on consoles have marked the entry of consoles into the online multiplayer realm. Notable standouts from the console camp includes Phantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast, the multi-console Final Fantasy XI, as well as EverQuest Online Adventures for the Playstation 2.

Real Money Trade in MMOG

The MMOG phenomenon has spawned another phenomena, the real money trade industry. RMT is a black market means for gamers to buy and sell an MMOG's properties, such as gold and gear, entire gaming accounts, "neopoints" for the extremely popular kids game Neopets, powerlevelling services, and so on.) It's a controversial practice, to say the least - such trading is often times in direct violation of the games Terms and Conditions to which the players have agreed to.

Opponents to the RMT industry feel that players with RMT-acquired items are "cheating" as these players have not put in the effort to deserve the items. Counter-arguments by player proponents of RMT however argue that they have subscribed to the game to enjoy the experience of having a max-levelled character or fantastic gear for example in the limited time they are playing, and not to spend it undertaking the often arduous grind otherwise required to obtain the items normally.

In anycase, RMT has become an enormous sub-market in e-gaming. in China alone, it is estimated that the half a million people make a living from it.

Additional Resources on RMT

• New York Times report on RMT phenomenon
• Youtube Video of a RMT documentary
• RMT Photo Gallery on Flickr
• New York Times Magazine article on RMT (Very much more recent and with greater depth and insights, as well as video, on RMT)

Change in Mindset towards Copy Protection

Computer piracy has been an issue of concern for the industry for a long period of time. It had trivial to pirate games, and even today it is still relatively trivial to obtain pirated copies of games such as by downloading them from the Internet. The introduction of copy protection mechanisms as a SafeDisc and SecureRom has done little to stop piracy as hackers inadvertently would find a way to circumvent the protection mechanisms. In particular, copy protection techniques would evolve to the point that it imposed restrictions and questionable copy protection systems onto the user's PC.

The Starforce Controvesy

Copy-protection company, Starforce, in particular is a classic case. In any forum topic about StarForce, embittered players across the spectrum speak in one voice about crippled operating systems and ruined CD drives. Many players report they bought honest, legal copies of StarForce-protected games, could not make them run and finally, in desperation, visited pirate sites to download no-CD cracks or warez versions.

Starforce has since issued a "Prove It" challenge, promising $10,000 to any individual who is able to prove that Starforce does damage CD drives. According to the company, no one has proved it to date.

Nonetheless, the controversies that have been stirred up surrounding Starforce has caused several major game companies, including Ubisoft (see Ubisoft officially dumps Starforce) and CDV [1], to drop Starforce.

The New Mindset

In March 2006, space strategy game Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords by Stardock Systems drew much attention when Stardock CEO and designer Brad Wardell publicly disavowed all disc-based copy protection for the game. The game ended up selling extremely well through prominent US retail channels such as Walmart, Best Buy, EB and Gamestop. Compared to the rest of the industry, Stardock went about things the opposite way, insisting on word of mouth marketing, no copy protection, and a cheap price tag.

The stance they have took, according to one of their company spokesman,

   "Piracy is a way is a fact of life. The question isn't about eliminating it; it's about reducing it and trying to 
   make sure that people who would buy your product buy it instead of steal it. Our primary weapon to fight 
   piracy is through rewarding customers through convenient, frequent, free updates. If you make it easy for 
   users to buy and make full use of your product or service legitimately then we believe that you'll gain more 
   users from the convenience than you'll lose from piracy."

Additional Resources

• The Escapist: Starforce must die

Rise of the Consoles

Once hailed as the future of gaming, the ubiquitous PC has seen a decline of sorts through recent years, with the PC market experiencing a steady decline in value as compared to the console market which has been undergoing tremendous growth thanks to the likes of Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft pushing to the limits of their console product lines with every new product iterations, as well as with the numerous developers deciding to focus more on console games rather than PC games.

Why are consoles gaining in popularity at the expense of the PC as a gaming platform? This could be attributed to several factors.

Game consoles just work

Once a game console is bought, all the games that are bought for the console will work with the console. No patches or hardware upgrades are necessary, and games that are bought today and games that are only bought a year down the road will still work, as developers aren't in the habit of working outside of the framework that console developer kits provide. There isn't a need for owners of gaming consoles to upgrade their graphics processor, central processing unit (CPU) or memory to ensure that their games run smoothly. In addition, there is no need for any high amounts of technical knowhow to ensure that the console will work like its supposed to (playing games in console simply involves inserting the game disk and pressing a few buttons to launch the game). With a PC, one is never 100% sure a game will work on one's machine until it has been installed. Will the various device drivers for all the hardware play nice with the game software? Will the hardware of the PC be able to play the game the way one would like it to? These are some of the issues that PC gamers gambles with when they buy new games for the PC.

Differences between PC and game consoles narrowing

Consoles nowadays have increasing hardware capability rivaling that of a PC. In fact, most of the 7th generation consoles do a much better job of running games than PCs do. Not only do they have graphic processors oftentimes exceeding that of the PC, the entire hardware (as well as the operating systems of the consoles) is built pretty much specifically to support gaming. PCs on the other hand are required to serve many other purposes. Games on the PC would inadvertently be launched with a host of other applications running in the background (such as Anti-virus software, Instant Messaging programs, or the memory intensive Windows Desktop Manager) that would impact the games' performance.

Additionally, where once online multiplayer challenges in the games were a PC exclusive capability, this is no longer the case. Microsoft Xbox 360 allows gamers to stay in contact with their friends on the Messenger Live service for example as they play their games, and Microsoft has recently announced the Games for Windows - LIVE service that extents the Xbox LIVE games and entertainment network to the Windows platform, bringing together "the most popular online console game service with the most popular games platform in the world".

　

Increasing appeal of gaming consoles

Gaming consoles are now branding themselves to be more than just pure gaming consoles, but as a kind of all-in-one entertainment package. The consoles allow owners to play music CDs or watch movies on DVDs on them, and the 7th generation consoles in particular have high-definition TV support.

The Nintendo Wii is also designed in such a way to appeal to non-gamers with its revolutionary, involving but accessible style of gameplay. Take for example the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3's controller: in addition to the four-way pad, it has added two additional option buttons, four shoulder-mounted buttons, and two omni-directional (and push sensitive) thumb controllers. Start doing the math and you realize the permutations and combinations are staggering. On one hand, this complexity has made the gaming experience a much richer experience and would appeal to the hardcore gamer crowd. But on the other hand, it is an experience for far fewer people. The new Wii controller throws all of that away. It is a motion sensor, and "complex" actions such as aiming a bow and arrow would involve pointing the controller at the screen. This extends to other actions such as swordplay (swipe the controller from side to side), bowling (swing back your arm), etc. In short, the Wii controller is intuitive, and opens the gaming market up to a huge population who wants to play, but will no longer tolerate games that ask you to remember and perform a dizzying array of thumb button combinations.

The Console Online Experience

One area where PC gaming has long had a comfortable advantage over the console is the multiplayer factor. Most console games initially provide at most a two-player experience. However, this is no longer the case with the 7th generation consoles.

Sony recently announced their new Home initiative. PlayStation Home, set to launch later in 2007, will offer PS3 users an interactive living space in which they can place furniture and decorations purchased or downloaded freely through the PlayStation Network via a virtual PlayStation Portable (PSP) device within the environment. Another interesting add-on is the ability to share videos and music directly from the user's media library.

Nintendo has Wii Online, incorporating elements such as WiiConnect 24, Wii Channels and Wii Points which allows one to hook their Wiik onto the internet for news, weather reports, and game downloads as well as the ability to interact with other Wii owners.

However, both the Playstation 3 and Wii's online offerings pale in comparison to Microsoft's Xbox Live service (launched about two years earlier than its competitors together with the 6th generation [Xbox] gaming console). Xbox Live is tightly integrated with the console's operating system, and includes plenty of features that integrates with individual games and other online services by MSN. One example is the Gamerscore, which is a measure that corresponds to the number of "Achievement" points accumulated by an Xbox Live user. These Achievement points are awarded for the completion of game-specific challenges, such as beating a level or amassing a specified number of wins against other players in Xbox Live matches. The Gamerscore would then be integrated into a Gamercard that the user would then be able to display elsewhere. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the Achievement points system proved to be immensely popular with gamers and contributed to Xbox 360 sales.

While these online initiatives appear to be focusing more on the community and social aspect of multiplayer gaming, developers are showing more interest in taking advantage of the medium to bring more network and multiplayer-capable games to market. Either way, if those developments are anything to go by, it's at least clear that the internet has become an integral part of the process to bringing gamers together, irrespective of the machines the play on.

Increasing focus on "Middleware" in Game Development

Games are becoming increasingly expensive and time-consuming to develop. With schedules and budgets of top-tier games already approaching those of Hollywood films, the advent of new game consoles from Microsoft and Sony has caused added pressure on game developer as they are pressurised to create games that live up to the graphics potential of the new machines.

It is as such not surprising that there is now increased focus paid to utilisation of middleware in game development - development tools that apply prescripted code to govern game elements such as physics and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as game engines used by games to render game images. Middleware developers attempt to "pre-invent the wheel" by developing robust software suites which include many elements a game developer may need to build a game.

For example, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) this year, id Software (developer of Doom series of games as well as the Doom Engine) focused on showcasing and licensing their Tech 5 Engine instead of announcing any new games. One major capability of id Software's Tech 5 engine's that staff focused upon was not just the visual fidelity of the game engine, but rather specifically the cross-platform support that would allow the technology to run just as well on the Mac, the PC, the 360, and the PS3 at a high frame rate.

Additional Resources

• CNet - Game publishers sweat console change
• Gamepost - E3 Q&A: id's Nix on Tech 5 Engine licensing

Mobile Games

Another demographic of the market that developers and publishers alike are rushing to corral these days is the casual gamer. There is no real age group which define them in particular, and they can be the office worker with 20 minutes to spare during the lunch hour or students hitching a ride home on the train. The basic appeal of such games is that they don't necessarily demand constant attention and can be played not just for long stretches of time, but also for short bursts.

Mobile games are usually played on anything but a PC or console. While portable derivatives of consoles gaming hardware such as the Nintendo Gameboy have been around for quite some time, there have been many strides made in portable gaming technology in recent years. Innovations include Nintendo's dual-display and stylus-toting DS and DS Lite platforms. From Sony, there is the PlayStation Portable. The mobile phone is getting in on the casual gaming action. Nokia, for example, has the Symbian operating system, which is also already gaining wide acceptance in the developer community as a platform worth developing for.

Additionally, there is the handheld market in the form of PDAsand PDA phones. These newer devices run the Windows Mobile platform practically as the de-facto operating system of choice, and Windows Mobile boasts a veritable feast of games that can be played, ranging from casual games such as Tetris to RPG clasics such as Pocket Heroes (based off the popular PC series Heroes of Might and Magic) and even first person shooters like Doom.

There is still plenty of room for the mobile gaming industry to grow, the reality being that the commuter, student or even stay at home parents are a relatively untapped market all by themselves. In Singapore, the MDA has announced plans to fund ten local gaming studios with $35,000 each to develop prototypes for the casual gaming market. Before that, MDA gave nine selected gaming developers S$25,000 each to create games for mobile phones.

Professional Gaming

One of the things to come out of the gaming scene was the concept of professional gaming. When big-time gaming leagues and competitions started to take off in places like the United States, some youths found it a financially rewarding path when their skills continuously earned them top ranking and equally substantial amounts of prize money.

One very famous example of gamers who went "professional" would be Dennis "Thresh" Fong, dubbed Michael Jordon of Gaming by Salon Magazine and The King of Gamers by Washington Post. Dennis dominated the gaming scene for years, winning every tournament he entered in a variety of games including Doom I and II, Quake I, II and III, and Starcraft. His crowning achievement was winning a Ferrarri at the Red Anhiliation tournament in 1997. With the prize money and endorsements (purported to be over US $250,000), he started several business ventures which proved to be extremely successful (such as the Xfire service which was acquired by MTV Networks for US$102 million in April 2006).

Today, high-level international tournaments such as the World Cyber Games (WCG) and the Cyberathlete Professional League are still going on strong. Singapore has in fact been organising its own WCG in recent years, although the prize money thus far hasn't been comparable to that of its international counterpart.

Competitions aside, there are also jobs in e-gaming such as professional full time game testers and game reviewers that are hired on contract by huge multinational companies like Squaresoft and Asiasoft, in the sense that these people also full time professionals in games that are paid to play games.

Regardless, there is increasing attention globally paid towards professional gaming. A very good example of this would be Electronic Art's latest gaming hit - Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars. Its multiplayer component (as well as its general gameplay design) was hailed by GameSpot that "no strategy game in recent memory has been more tailored to competitive play, thanks to fully featured leaderboards and clan support, as well as an original feature called BattleCast. You may broadcast your game in real time to anyone who downloads the free BattleCast client, and a commentator can provide real-time commentary while using the built-in telestrator.". Besides Command and Conquer 3, upcoming games such as Blizzard Entertainment's recently announced Starcraft 2 (the successor to the real time strategy phenomenon Starcraft) has been described by its creators to be designed to be the "ultimate competitive real-time strategy game" [2]. The attention on professional gaming will surely have a strong influence on current and future game design.