Bonoboblogs

You know what time it is? It's statistics time! Oh yes, it's business time! Look what I've prepared for you:



Because of the console wars, the various manufacturers started to publish data about the units sold on a regular basis. Somewhat weird. There is competition in other industries as well but finding actual data on units shipped for cellphones or cars is much more difficult then in the games industry.

Anyway, I took a few minutes to grab some of the numbers and visualize them to better understand what's going on. The idea is to try to answer the question "How many people can I hope to reach if I choose a specific platform". So here are some of the findings:

First of all, it's really funny how the 3 console manufacturers are bragging and competing against each other by comparing how many units they have sold. If you compare their numbers to the amount of Internet-enabled personal computers, the audience for consoles is tiny and the differences between them turn out to be quite insignificant. That's why one guy can code some simple Flash game in a week or two and reach millions of people without any budget while doing the same on a console takes a fortune, years of work and a huge, talented team.

But obviously, it's never that simple. See, although there are much less consoles out there, 100% of the people who own a console want to play games on it. If you own a PC, it you CAN play a game on it but you might not be interested in games at all. So somewhere in the huge 900 Million bar for PCs there is a significantly smaller bar of the actual people who you can hope to reach at all when you publish a game. Here is where the problems begin because it is very difficult to define the border between a "potential gamer" and "will never play games at all".

And there are other considerations still. For example, the huge 900 Million bar will shrink significantly if you filter out the computers that don't have the specs to run.. say Crisis. All those factors together might shrink the 900 Million bar to a dimension somewhat comparable to the consoles. That's what some people refer to when they say the PC Platform was dead.

My point is that the strategy to develop games on different platforms needs to be different. Think of reaching users as of fishing. By selecting a platform you choose a pond and the various ponds have different characteristics so the fishing strategy is different. If you go for consoles, your pond is quite small when compared to the personal computers but all the fish in this pond are quite homogeneous when compared to the PC. So by using a bait tailor-made for that specific species of fish, you can hope to reach a high percentage of that small population. In fact, you MUST reach a high percentage because there are not too many fish in that little pond. That's why it is rather smart to go for a conservative product. After all, this is why people bought the Console in the first place and this is the kind of experience they are looking for. The only exceptions may be the Wii and the DS because they were actually bought by many people with a slightly different kind of experience in mind.

If you go for the PC, going conservative and spec-heavy (read: Crysis or Bioshock) is actually a bad idea because you automatically LIMIT your huge pond to just a small sub-species of fish, which is comparable to the amount fish in the console ponds. It might turn out to go fine but with that kind of bait, you will reach comparable results in the console pond where you don't have problems with DRM or Compatibility issues. The successful strategy in the personal computer pond is to use the pond's size to your advantage. You need to understand what kind of fish there are in that huge 900 Million bar and to develop baits for as many of them as possible. This is actually what casual games and flash games are doing right now and they reach a HUGE audience. No wonder the fishermen of the console pond are starting to turn their heads.

The problem with the personal computer strategy is that we don't quite know what kind of people there are in that huge pond. We don't who they are, what they would like to play (they don't know either) and how to reach them. For me, this is where the cutting-edge game design happens. Not where we do yet another Peggle but where we try to develop diffrent kinds of game-like experiences for all those crazy mutant fish in that huge 900 Million Pond. I believe this is healthy for the whole industry because by discovering different kinds of fish as a potential audience for games will result in a more adult, diversified game climate. My upcoming game Illucinated will try just that: it is a very different bait I would like to test in the 900 Million pond to see what kind of fish bites. I posted some of the pictures from Illucinated on Flickr and it seems to work because here is one of the comments I got:

Great location.
I don't play games but I'd love to see this one.

I love when a plan works.

But going back to the Statistics, there are still some nice details. Look how much more popular the portable consoles are when compared to the stationary ones. Isn't it strange how the stationary are nevertheless considered more significant? Of course, it might be different at the end of the life-cycle. The PS2 is much more successful then the GBA.

Also funny how the iPhone is considered such an exciting platform. While the end-of-life-cycle estimates put him somewhere where the X-Box 360 and PSP are right now, the only number of the actual units shipped I found are laughably small. It is even worse if you consider that the iPhone pond is much less game-oriented then the console ponds. So you can't even hope to reach ALL of the 6 Million that already have one. It might get interesting in the future but right now, it's severely overrated.

Finally, the statistics are not very good. I'm especially unhappy with the numbers for personal computers. They are from Adobe and I seriously doubt their numbers. For example, they say the penetration for the Flash Player 9 is at 96,5% in Europe. I don't believe it as I had actually know a bunch of people who had problems with not having Flash Player 9 installed. From personal experiences, I would say it is at 50% at best. There is some serious fault in their methodology. On the other hand, it is also ambiguous what they mean with PCs. Does that include Macs? Because the actual number of people having access to the Internet is way higher. According to some sources as high as 1230 Million.

I would also like to develop that statistic further. Maybe even start to break down the fish populations in each pond. So if you have some interesting numbers that could be relevant, please tell me!

Note to self: must rethink my RSS feeds. Somehow I managed to miss the launch of Photosynth. So finally, the software that inspired Illucinated, my upcoming game is out. It is a software capable to create browseable 3D Collages out of collections of photos. Kinda like Autostitching but the result is not a single photo. Instead the source photos are arranged in 3D space and the user can move the camera form one photo to another. Really hard to explain, I suggest you experience it yourself if you don't know it yet.

What I like about it is that they decided to make it available for free. This is a smart move when you consider how the web works.

However, besides this the software is quite a disappointment right now. First, the stitching quality is really poor. Working on Illucinated I had already a huge database of theoretically synth-able photos. I loaded them up in Photosynth but the software fails to assemble even the simplest locations. It seems like they expect you to get A LOT of coverage of the locations. You need several photographs of every spot from different angles. My experience with Illucinated is that doing this is really difficult. When on-location you tend to loose track of what you already photographed and what you are still missing. This is already true when creating photos for stitching. Photosynth requires you to get EVEN MORE photos and I don't see it happening. You can certainly throw out the idea out of the window that you could take you vacation photos and synth them: it won't be enough coverage.

I mean, here is a Synth of the Gaming Setup I was talking about recently. It took a whooping 58 Photos and it still just 75% "Synthy" (Whatever that means). If you go to the 2D Overview you will see that most of the close-ups haven't been registered. And it is still the best one I had.



The second problem I see is that you can't manipulate the Synths to fix problems. Basically, all you can do is to cross your fingers. If something comes out fucked up, you need to redo everything. Which can take half an hour or more. That's quite frustrating. I imagine that they will add some advanced features later on. I can even imagine they will charge for those features.

Finally, you need the a browser plugin to browse through the Synths. Why? I understand how you need a plugin to create them but expecting users to install yet another plugin to merely see the content is quite the stretch, especially since Microsoft already struggles make things like Silverlight spread. It would haven been an excellent opportunity to combine the two plugins. Photosynth could have been the Silverlight killer-app. But instead I'd rather refrain from creating Synths because I know that only a fraction of my users will jump through a bunch of hoops just to see my holiday photos. In fact, even my family won't be able to see my synths because they process of installing Photosynth is just too complicated.

And then I can't link it to Flickr, users can't merge their databases, and and and. It might get better with time but right now it is not more then an interesting, troublesome, geeky toy. When you consider the last web app from Microsoft, the rather disappointing World Wide Telescope: It's deja vu all over again.

What do game designers do when they are not designing games? Well, it turns out that a surprising amount of game designers are actually into manned spaceflight. So far, I could associate three popular game designers with the space industry:

Richard Garriott - is currently at the ISS conducting some privately-funded space experiments. He will be the fist private astronaut to perform a space walk. An interesting fact is that his dad was an astronaut too. Also, this doesn't seem the first extravagant science adventure the Garriotts perform, as this video shows.

Will Wright - doesn't actually fly into space but has keen interest in space technology. He collects space junk. According to Wikipedia his collection includes "a 100-pound hatch from a space shuttle, a seat from a Soyuz… control panels from the Mir, and the control console of the Soyuz 23, as well as dolls, dice, and fossils." Will also builds robots for Battle Bots and won an illegal coast-to-coast race in a tricked-out Mazda RX-7. (Oh my god, these are EXACTLY the things I would do if I had the money, right down to the car manufacturer. Spooky.)

John Carmack - wants to go to space but he wants to do it all by himself. From the three, I would say this one is the most ambitious space-geek. He actually started a company to develop a private vehicle capable to reach space. The company is called Armadillo Aerospace. They even participated in the Ansari X-Prize but obviously lost to Space Ship One. However, since then they have been successfully building up rocket-science know-how and now provide the rocket engines for the upcoming Rocket Racing League. And they didn't give up their spaceflight plans yet. Though their planned vehicle is somewhat... unorthodox.

So there are just three - big deal? Yes it is! If you consider how small the private space industry is and how little famous game designers there are.

So I'm back from being busy. I got into some trouble with my flat. I had to move, buy furniture - the usual stuff. I'm totally spent right now, I could use a vacation. But now is not the time for that - got to move on. The good news is that I'm finished moving (almost) and I'm planning to do regular posts again.

Today I would like to talk about a rather curious problem I've encountered while moving: The (Holy) Search for the Perfect Gaming Setup. Everybody, who seriously deals with Videogames sooner or later has to consider how his area of interests affects his dwelling (by the way: what's the correct translation of the German verb "Wohnen"? "Dwelling" sounds like something cavemen do. Argh!). So after you collected an impressive collection of consoles and games you will want to tuck them away so you don't trip over wires every time you grab a cookie from the kitchen. Yet, they need to be accessible anytime you feel the urge (or duty) to save the world again.



I came up with this one and I'm pretty satisfied with it, even if it is not quite perfect. Here are some of the thoughts I had, some difficulties I had to face and how I solved them:

My gaming setup was quite unsatisfactory so far. I had a small Ikea media ... bench (something like this one. But mine was on wheels). It was way too small and the consoles were piled up on top of each other. They collected a lot of dust and every time I wanted to use a different one I had to reinvent my cable connection at the back of the TV. The reason why it was so ill-suited for my equipment is that I bought it back when I had only two consoles. My collection has grown since then. Having more room now, I've decided to get it fundamentally right this time.

So my requirements were:

• More Room (!!!)


• Some solution to keep the dust away


• Everything hooked up so I can play without fumbling with cables

If you think about it. The last two requirements translate into "it needs to be low-maintenance". It actually reflects what I already said about games and usability. Games have a special status. They are recreation. So when using them requires you to "jump through a bunch of hoops", you just quit doing it. In fact, this is what happened with my previous setup. Playing the Dreamcast always required some serious fumbling with cables so I almost NEVER used the Dreamcast. The gaming setup needs to be as low maintenance as possible to be successful.

As far as furnitures goes, I was looking for something which could be closed behind a door so no dust gets in when I don't use it. It also needed to be separated into differently sized compartments. Top-loader consoles like the Dreamcast or the SNES need more headroom then the PS2 or Wii. And here is the first surprise: actually, very few furniture designers consider this! To be fair, in my research I concentrated on Ikea and the closest thing the came to was the BESTÅ BURS TV Unit. It has 3 small compartments with doors in the middle. They are suitable for newer tray or slot-in consoles. However they don't work for older top-loaders. The two compartments on the sides are drawers which don't work so well with electronic equipment because of the cables. And in the end, there are only 3 console compartments whereas I have 4 consoles. I was actually surpised how poorly the avalible solutions reflect the needs for a gaming setup. I'm puzzled what kind of media setup the designers of this furniture had in mind when they came up with this one. The small amount of compartments is easily exhausted with even the simplest Music centre - and I don't even have one.



But luckily, Ikea does offer a modular solution so I used that system to build my own TV Unit. Its bigger, better suitable for my needs and a lot cheaper! As you can see, there are 8 compartments. They are variable so I could reserve some needed room for the top-loader consoles. Also, everything can be closed behind 4 glass doors which fulfill 3 functions:

• They keep the dust away.


• They can be closed while a console is running to contain some of the noise.


• They are see-trough so I can see if I forgot to turn off a console. Also my collection is visible at all times so it is easier to get inspired to try something.

And if you think this is anal, let me tell you about my cable problems:

You see, here in Europe we are "blessed" with the Scart plug. It is an example of good intention gone wrong. The idea was to develop a universal AV connection. The Scart cable transmits ANY audio and video Signal: Compound, Composite or S-Video. It sounds cool because you just don't need to care about the technical details of what kind of signal is being transmitted. However, it is incredibly impractical. Trying to connect a Scart plug at the back of your TV without being able to see the connection is like shooting a proton torpedo in the shaft of the Death Star without the targeting computer. And the force is weak with this one. The plug is incredibly huge and inflexible so I had to drill huge holes in the back of my Ikea furniture just to get the damn plug trough. Scart also totally sucks if you want be SURE that you have the best possible quality. So my TV has 2 Scart inputs, but only one of them accepts RGB signals. And now I wanted to connect 4 devices to that with at least 2 being RGB. There are solutions that simply wire 4 plugs together to one cable but I soon had to find out that they are a complete waste of money. For example, a PS2 submits an audio signal even in standby mode so as long as a PS2 is plugged in, you won't get a sound from other consoles. Also, with that crappy thing, you will loose A LOT of signal quality. Everything appears darker and the sound has some static.

Yu-Chung recommended the Joytech AV Center which was also described in this article by Eurogamer. It is a box with 4 AV inputs, a 5th AV ouput plug and a remote control. With it, you can manually choose which Signal gets wired trough. It was amazingly difficult to get hold of but I've managed to get one on eBay. I was quite surprised how big the thing is if you consider how little it actually does. Luckily, i had enough room in my TV Solution to put it beneath the Dreamcast. And yes, the quality is awesome.

So is it over? Not quite. There are still some problems with that solution. First, the AV Center seems to have problems with the Dreamcast Scart cable. Until now I was playing the Dreamcast on compound. I was so keen to get it right this time that I bought a RGB Scart cable. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it not only doesn't work with the AV Center, it totally screws up EVERY channel in the AV Center as soon as the Dreamcast is turned on. It works when I plug the Dreamcast directly into the TV. Again, I blame some exotic Scart problem. Damn you, Scart! It seems like I wasted some money and I'm back to Dreamcast on compound again.

Also, the AV Center has a small peculiarity which is described in the Eurogamer article and I didn't quite get. You see, at the back of the AV Center, each channel has 3 AV plugs: Composite, Scart and S-Video. The output also has the 3 plugs. The thing is that the 3 plugs are wired independently of each other to the output plugs. So when I put in a SNES on Composite, it will not show up on the output scart but only on the output composite. The signal doesn't get "translated" into a different output plug. This can be good because this way, you can theoretically access 12 different devices. The bad thing is that you have to deal with adapters. So now I had to use composite-to-Scart adapters to get every signal to Scart. It is also a bit unsatisfactory because my PS2 chip is a bit messed up and the PS2 doesn't deliver a RGB signal when a DVD is playing. I hoped I could connect the TV to the AV center via Scart and S-Video so I could switch to S-Video when watching DVD and have RGB otherwise. But the AV Center doesn't work this way. Instead, there is a composite plug at the RGB cable of my PS2 I use now. Well, at least I don't have to fumble with cables anymore.

So as you can see, this is the kind of problems I spent the past with. I wonder do people countries where Scart is unknown have the same problems? Do things get any better with HDMI? What kind of gaming setup do you have?

P.S.: HA! Nobody will notice that the Title of the post is a tribute to the excellent Book "Searching for the Perfect Beat". We grabbed that one when we were visiting Razorfish in New York back then when they were popular. Good Times.

I am working on the guts of the system..

Gute Nachrichten für alle Portal-Fans: Das inoffizielle Addon “Portal: Prelude” ist einen Tag vor dem eigentlichen Release auf der Website portalprelude.com schon zum Download freigegeben worden. Besitzer eines Fileplanet-Accounts können sich in die Warteschlange einreihen und die 775 MB von den lahmarschigen öffentlichen Servern herunterladen — oder einfach doch noch bis morgen warten, wenn das Spiel von diversen Quellen zu haben sein wird.

Einem ersten Review auf Planet Half-Life zufolge besteht “Portal: Prelude” aus 19 (!) mehrräumigen Testkammern, die es in sich haben:

The test chambers themselves will keep you very well entertained and extremely frustrated both at the same time. This isn’t a game for the faint of heart, you’ll definitely need some portal-slinging skills to make it through the nineteen large and increasingly complex test chambers. That’s right, I said nineteen, that’s the same amount that’s in the original Portal itself.

“Portal: Prelude” ist storytechnisch als Prequel angelegt und spielt vor der GlaDOS-Ära, was im Wesentlichen bedeutet, dass man von Aperture Science-Mitarbeitern von Testkammer zu Testkammer geschickt wird, und nicht wie im Original von einer kuchenversprechenden, weiblichen Roboterstimme.

Update: Schon jetzt über vierzig Mirror auf der Download-Seite.