Raph Koster is the author of the book ‘A Theory of Fun’ and presents some groundbreaking ideas in a GDC Podcast titled ‘Where Game Meets the Web’. Raph’s blog can be found here.

The linear media industries have been hearing about all the implications of Web 2.0 for the past two years and it’s taking hold. The Australian prime minister has even taken to launching major political statements on YouTube. But if YouTube is eclipsing television as the medium of choice to reach the younger demographic what does Web 2.0 mean for games?  This is exactly the topic of Raph Koster’s talk which was originally delivered at GDC. Oddly the audience reaction is incredibly subdued either because they are in complete shock or highly skeptical of what is being said. I’ve got to say that this presentation is one of the clearest and most controversial I have heard on the far reaching implications of Web 2.0 for ‘Big Media’ whether console games, broadcast television or cinema.

In terms of gameplay, Koster has some interesting hypotheses, particularly on the transition from asymetrical to symmetrical games. He says that symmetrical games are actually more established in the history of game playing – cards, chess, etc. Asymmetrical games are what the first generation of computer games have developed – pitting individual players against the machine. But with online games people play against each other and this is becoming the dominant form of gameplay which is ‘symmetrical’ according to Koster.

On production methods there are some grenades thrown into the audience of hard core games developers. He talks about protracted production on AAA games as being obsolete and future production methods being about rapid turnaround. With iterative development done in partnership with online audiences he points to a world of radically lower budgets and major brand partnerships.  He points to a recent Gamasutra article ‘How to Prototype a Game in Under Seven Days’ which features Carnegie Mellon students’ Tower of Goo game which was rapidly developed in their ETC program. There are many new opportunties for online entertainment and we’re only at the beginning. Koster points to branded entertainment as the future direction of the games industry in a world where “bits in a box is obsolete”.

Was just looking at popular vlogs on You Tube and came across Charles Trippy. He’s kind of a bad ZeFrank immitation only younger, better looking and much less acidic. Anyway, Charles has just been selected as a contestant on ‘The Next Internet Millionaire’ which is a reality TV concept on the web. Might be worth a look as the series unfolds though the promo video is pretty cheap and tacky. But when did production values ever hold back a successful internet property? People like Joseph Jaffe see reality TV as the last dying gasp of the broadcast medium so what’s this about? Sounds like a fun way to run a business development workshop but there is a slight air of desperation about it. Maybe there’s a business model there, we’ll all be watching.

Saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the weekend and was transported by the design, performances, visual effects and the sound. But what’s with Voldemort’s nose? There were quite a few shots where the digital prosthetics work looked decidedly smudgy. I don’t usually watch for these things but this one really took me out of the experience along with the usual Hollywood heavy handed music cues. Overall though it was a fun experience that was tailored carefully to the sensibilities of young audiences. My kids responded immediately to the hideous Delores Umbridge (much as they do to some of their own teachers) and there were enough laughs in there to compensate for Harry’s angst.

Harry Potter is a mature property and, luckily, is peppered with enough great British character performances so that the world it portrays really comes alive for viewers. It just wouldn’t work with a nipped-and-tucked-Hollywood-cast, because gnarled, eccentric characters are central to Harry Potter’s world. It’s gratifying to come back to the monumental characters like Hagrid, Dumbledore, Snape and McGonagall as much as it is to see Harry and his friends grow up.

As a cross media property Harry Potter is a major phenomena of our times and the centrality of the books is key. It’s an amazing storyworld with its own logic and characters and we can be sure that it will be mined in every media form imaginable for years to come. The filmmakers have done well to maintain the integrity of the world of the books and they are highly immersive experiences that truely transport you to another world. Characters, design and effects are a huge part but so is the investment we as audiences already bring into the cinema with this property. It’s almost as if blockbusters need all the exposition done before you walk into the cinema through dispersal of the story through the physical and media world. It’s surely a case of asking where does marketing leave off and story take over? And the movie is really the crescendo of the marketing campaign.

So while I enjoyed the movie there was still something ultimately unsatisfying about the experience and I think my kids felt that too. Whether this was a deliberate marketing ploy to get me to go out and buy the game I’m not sure. But my ten year old, Liam, who is reading the book, (much more vociferously after the movie) was disappointed because so much of the story was missed out in the film.

And this is the crux of what I see as some of the long term problems of the feature film form. While you get a big and immersive experience the fact remains that you just can’t pack enough in to a feature film(or you can’t keep the sequels coming fast enough).

I’ve seen my kids devour movies on DVD and watch them over time and again and I know they would consume more if they were available (particularly from Pixar). And while the cinema experience is special they also love the much more low fidelity of multiplayer online games which engage them for hours and bring them back for new experiences time and again. Purely on an economic level it’s going to be harder to justify the huge Hollywood budgets of blockbuster effects films like Harry Potter in the future because there is just too much media action out there. And $40 is a lot of money to spend to take an adult and two kids out for a couple of hours. Either the entry price has to drop or the hours of entertainment value have to increase. And this might mean that we’re going to see a lot more Voldemort’s noses in future or innovation to lower the costs of feature filmmaking.

Just finished reading Richard Harris’s essay in the Platform Papers series – ‘Film in the Age of Digital Distribution: The Challenge for Australian Content’. You can find out more about this paper by clicking here. That was the advertisement, now for the critique.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s timely for a paper like this to be released to kick off a debate about the future of the Australian media industries in a time of rapid change. And my response is a little late as the paper was released in April, apologies. But for better or worse I’m taking the bait and responding to what Richard has raised in the spirit of public debate. And I thank him for acknowledging the work we have been doing at LAMP in the last chapter of the paper. But having said that I really don’t think the full extent of the ideas pursued by LAMP have been addressed here. Richard’s paper promised to lift the veil on all kinds of new media ‘hype’ so at the risk of being perceived as a snake oil salesman it’s down to business.

My first major issue is with basic terminology. Richard explains his choice of the term ‘filmmaking’ to refer to the creation of all kinds of digital content: film, TV and interactive media. Well I don’t think so. The term is weighted towards the familiar comforting forms we all know and love – cinema and TV. Interactive media is the elephant in the room and there are many things about it that are fundamentally different from linear media. Interactive media is the native form in the new digital environment and it’s no coincidence that leading filmmakers like Peter Jackson, James Cameron and even our own George Miller are gravitating towards games and interactivity in upcoming projects. My main point here is that when media becomes digital it’s a fairly seamless transition for it to become ‘software’. And while ‘film’, Richard points out, is a term which has an existing meaning in copyright law, I’d suggest there is a raft of intellectual property law that sits around software creation of all kinds. Just because ‘filmmakers’ don’t operate in this arena isn’t going to stop it from eating them for dinner. My contention is that entertainment media is tending towards software creation and the sooner we start to move the Australian creative media industries down this path the better. Linear film is just one part of a much bigger picture. We are in a major era of change and we can’t keep doing things the same way and expect anyone to notice. As Joseph Jaffe says this is a time where we need to “experiment experiment experiment and be prepared to make mistakes”. While Jaffe’s work is primarily aimed at advertisers creating 30 second spots the principle is exactly the same for all content creators who want to reach audiences. And I’d contend that all ‘filmmakers’ need to think about the form in which they express their ideas – whether it’s feature film, a television hour documentary or a 13 part 11 minute animation series. The medium is the message and the medium has changed.

My primary issue with the whole approach of Richard’s paper is about the ‘what’. In Chris Anderson’s economy of media abundance where media consumers are beset with an incredible array of choice, what sort of content will they chose to spend their valuable time with? There is a raft of reliable statistics to suggest that phenomena such as social networking sites like Myspace and YouTube, massively multiplayer games, blogging, mobile media devices and virtual worlds are taking audiences away from the telly and the cinema. Don’t get me wrong, film and TV are going to be around for a long time, but there are new kids on the block who are offering consumers a range of other choices. My contention is simply that only a small portion of what we now think of as ‘film’ will form the average daily intake of media consumers in a system of true digital distribution. And this era is upon us now – or at least it is in the rest of the world. While it is important to support creation of Australian media content, now more than ever we need to try a few new things. I fear that the latest raft of tax rebates (which don’t apply to the games and interactive industries) will artificially stimulate Australian ‘heritage’ media at the expense of innovation. A digital distribution platform is an interactive platform. Content which can take advantage of this will instantly differentiate itself from the oceans of new and back catalogue linear content already available online. Surely the changes wrought by digital distribution are as much about media form as they are about replacing film distributors. And this is the real challenge of digital distribution to ‘filmmakers’. How can your content take best advantage of the new landscape to capture global audiences? I’d contend you can only do this by embracing interactivity.

Doesn’t this clip say volumes about the future of games? Mice, keyboards and console controllers may soon be obsolete in a world where there is much more bodily interaction with computers. The transparency of the wii interface is never more obvious than in a clip like this. Imagine a world where kids have grown up with this sort of relationship to computers and games. Certainly entertainment, education and maybe even physical activity will be transformed. In a world where we are tied to office computers I say bring it on.