Time for Radical Change

One thing that struck me while listening to Obama’s State of the Union was that we have a huge opportunity not just for incremental change but for dramatic change. What I was inspired by was the challenge by the President to do the obvious things to try and support the economy  AND take on big challenges. Most presidents would be completely focused on the economy to the detriment of everything else. Obama is hitting all the bases and is calling for major changes to fundamental systems that will also lead to economic health in the long run.

This is a time when many people and politicians are too scared to make a move and ultimately this just contributes to our economic issues. Instead we should be considering taking on the big challenges that face us that we’ve been ignoring that could ultimately turn things around. I think Obama is taking advantage of his political capital and the willingness of the American people to push more of this kind of thing through and should continue to do so.

One example is healthcare reform. The thought that by changing healthcare we could both save corporations and individuals money AND fix a very broken system that no one has been willing to take on is transformative. This is a bold idea — make a radical change to a broken sector of the economy when the common wisdom says hunker down and ultimately help to solve the systematic challenge. The environment is another obvious area that Obama is taking on that could solve two problems at once — create new industry around what will ultimately save us from climate change.

Hey I’ve got one — legalize marijuana to keep non-criminals out of jail AND create an entirely new sector of the economy!

Where are the bargain hunters?

Is there just nobody with cash left? That’s the only explanation I can come up with as to why there’s not more M&A/Funding activity. You would think that this would be a time when smart companies and investors would be out bargain hunting. God knows there’s lots of under valued IP and companies out there. Is everyone just not sure where the bottom is?

You’d also expect to see some consolidation. With funding uncertain, isn’t it just a matter of time before startups with complementary capabilities and assets combine? Joining forces has got to be better than the deadpool which is where more and more startups are going to be headed. Present company excepted

Corporate Creativity

With all the talk about whether the bailout packages coming out of DC are going to fix things or not, I hear very little discussion of what corporations are doing to help besides sloughing off staff. Don’t corporations, those that aren’t on the verge of bankruptcy anyway, have a responsibility to be a part of the solution? Certainly there’s a responsibility to shareholders to maximize the value of the corporation but isn’t simply cutting costs, shutting down factories and waiting for the government to make it all better a cop out?

In a sense, layoffs create more layoffs. A technology company lays off people who stop shopping for new clothes from a company that no longer needs as many retail workers who get layed off so they don’t drink as many lattes from a company that doesn’t need as many baristas and so on and so on. Full disclosure — my first reaction to the economic turmoil was to trim my staff of anyone that wasn’t absolutely a critical contributor. However, coupled with that immediate reduction in expenses was a reexamination of our strategy. Our plan WAS to build a business the old fashion way — buy traffic on a cheap CPA and maximize the LTV of those customers for maximum profitability. Would it have worked? No doubt, had the funding been available to buy that traffic. But as it stands we had to find another way. Now we’ve built a massive distribution channel through partnerships that will ultimately build us a bigger business faster than we could have done it “the old fashioned way.”

Maybe everyone is doing this to some extent, but for the most part all I hear about are the cost reductions. I don’t hear about the creative ways people are reinventing their businesses to adapt and thrive. If a startup like FlowPlay that’s barely started making revenue can figure out a way, big companies should be able to try new things to grow their business instead of just downsizing. If we all just give in to the gloom it becomes a self-fulling prophecy.

Do Nothing Day

My family decided to have a “do nothing day” today. We put on our pajamas and didn’t leave the house all day. We mostly played Wii together — Paper Mario and Boogie. Boogie was an especially big hit with the whole family. Even my wife who NEVER plays games grabbed the controller and spent almost an hour with it. Watching this was a reinforcement of my belief that the masses are the place to be when it comes to creating digital entertainment. I like the idea of creating things that anyone can pick up and play.

Boogie has a little something for everybody — you can compete either in Karaoke or DDR style competitions. There are virtual items to win and unlock and the characters are flexible enough that you can build an alien, a hip hop guy, or a hot babe as an avatar. The only problem I found was that all of us were able to finish it today. We all got good enough that we could play the hardest songs and still achieve gold status — this includes my non-gamer wife and my 7 year old daughter. It could really use more achievement and more challenge. Even though I really had fun playing it, I’m not sure I NEED to ever play it again.

The learning here for FlowPlay is that we’ll need to come up with enough end game quests to keep it interesting for the mature players. We’ll also have to pay a lot of attention to the life span of the characters — when do we award habitat, transportation and other milestones at just the right moment in the player’s lifecycle.

I’m going to give this another shot!

OK, so my first attempt at this petered out after 4 posts. I’m going to try again and keep it simpler — it became too intimidating to pontificate on virtual worlds and sound smart. I think I’ll open it up to a wider discussion to give me more to talk about.

VL better than RL?

I was interviewed by the Seattle Times for a story they ran on my company recently. The journalist was very interested in exploring how virtual worlds were in danger of being more exciting than the real world. My response was “What would you rather your kid be doing, eating chips in front of a television by himself or having a heart pounding battle with his friends online?” I worry about my kids spending too much time in front of a screen but I’d rather it be an interactive one than a passive one.

Castronova brings up some of the same concerns in his book Synthetic Worlds. I definitely recommend the book to people interested in the subject of virtual worlds but I don’t share the concern. I’m quite happy that there are virtual places for me to visit and explore even if it’s not quite as tactile as the real thing. I guess the main thing is that I know the difference and enjoy both RL and VL for different reasons. Both are a great break from the other.

WarCraft Addiction?

I just read a stat that 40% of people who play WarCraft are clinically addicted. This is according to a psychologist who polled users behavior to determine if they showed addictive traits. Most of these people didn’t think of themselves as addicted but they responded YES to questions like, “have you ever stayed home from work to play WarCraft,” “have you ever had a fight with your significant other over too much time spent playing WarCraft,” etc. The tone of the article was very stern.

I would have answered yes to some of the questions they had asked and I’m a confirmed WOW addict (I removed it from my laptop for my 2007 New Years Resolution). But when you think about it, what is all the fuss about? Playing computer games is a lot like any other time consuming hobby. I have plenty of friends that don’t play computer games but they do play golf. Many of the golf nuts I know will regularly take a day off to play golf with the guys. And my wife is actually very happy that I suck so bad at golf that I’ve never seriously taken it up. She’s got friends who are “golf widows” and rarely see their husbands during the day on a Saturday. I don’t see anyone writing articles about the terrible golf addiction that’s sweeping through the ranks of over 45-year-old men!

Casual RPG?

Sounds like an oxymoron but I’m impressed with the new Puzzle Quest game that recently came out for DS and PSP. I’ve played it on both and actually like it on PSP better. It’s a pain to have to look at the stats on the upper DS screen to keep up with how you’re doing against your opponent.

What’s most impressive about the game is that it does a great job of taking casual gameplay into the RPG realm. Basically the entire game is a match 3/Bejeweled mechanic but you play against mobs just as you would in a traditional RPG. All the other elements of an RPG are there as well — quests, spells, leveling, professions, etc.

Mainstream casual gamers (ladies over 35) will probably find it too thematically true to the typical RPG genre — dungeons, ogres, etc. Handheld gamers who like RPGs and are looking for a game that actually works on a handheld device versus a console game that was squeezed into one will probably enjoy it.

I’m particularly interested in it since at flowplay we’re working on straddling this same line — creating a casual RPG experience.

Life is an RPG

For me, RPGs are the ultimate virtual worlds. The rules are clearly defined. Your goals are usually communicated in extreme detail. You know your weaknesses and strengths from the getgo. Usually the intro movie gives you the history of how the world you’re in got to where it is today. When you start a good RPG you really feel like there’s a base to build on. You know who your friends are. Ultimately I think that virtual world and avatar products that don’t take some cues from from RPGs are making a big mistake.

If an avatar is purely about personalization and expression, the users likely to settle into a look they like and be done. The revenue opportunity, if you’re in the microtransaction business, however, is in getting consumers to continually aspire for more. RPGs do this through attributes that clothing can have such as defense and durability ratings. The higher the defense the better protection.

Any virtual environment should be able to figure out a way to incorporate attributes even if the object isn’t to keep from getting killed. There are lots of things a player may wish their character could do better and having a system of progressively more powerful clothing is a great way to keep people upgrading.

This is one reason why I’ve never understood the avatar pureplay products. What’s the point? Look at me I made a cool character? Nobody cares if you were able to throw down $10 to buy a neat outfit. Show up in something that a community of people know took you dozens of hours of playtime to acquire and people will take notice. Otherwise it’s just shopping for things that have no meaning.

First Post — avatars without a soul

Everyone one is talking about virtual worlds. I uncover a new one every week or so myself. What strikes me is that most of the places that are presented as virtual worlds have a distinct lack of what really makes up a world. It’s like what an alien would assume life on Earth was like from a single visit with no concept of the complexity of being human.

Sure they have human-like animated characters — usually in low poly, flat textured 3D. But what they usually don’t have is what makes us human — our goals.

Imagine you are suddenly plopped down somewhere with no “moment before.” The moment before is what actors draw on to guide them through a scene. It’s what they use to give them a starting point that’s not in the script. That’s what beginning life in most virtual worlds is like. You’re 25 years old and this is the first day of your life and you’re in a place that didn’t exist until just now.

You are spawned into a world among dozens of other newcomers with nothing but an empty chat form. Typically the first words out of an avatars mouth are like that of a first computer program — “Hello.” I’m usually at a loss to figure out what to do next so I usually end up running around checking out the environment without much interaction with my fellow citizens.

OK, I’ll admit this is not easy stuff. It’s no small feat to provide the technology to immerse someone in a representation of life. For many products that’s as far as they seem to get — providing the technology. Maybe it’s me. I need something to accomplish beyond getting into a vapid chat with the first person I see.

Anyway, that’s the way this will start. A conversation with myself and whoever stops by about how what makes a compelling virtual world. That should take a while…