News Feature: Northern Exposure Games Conference

By Mark Johnson

Ask most gamers where the UK games industry can be found, and they'll more than likely tell you “London!". They will certainly blink in disbelief if you mention the North. If last week's Northern Exposure showed SPOnG anything, however, it's that the North of England has a strong development community and a forward-thinking attitude.

The event, which was organised by Northern gaming professional bodies GameHorizon and Game Republic, had two main focuses. One was looking forward to new ways for developers to exploit their skills and emerging opportunities such as Xbox Live and in-game advertising. The flipside of that was looking at the challenges facing the UK games industry and the problems that need to be redressed.

Martyn Brown, studio director of Team17 and creator of Worms, talked the assembled developers through the process of getting a game directly onto Xbox Live Arcade and the benefits to be had from digital distribution. He pointed to the significantly higher share of revenues to be had through Live Arcade and PlayStation Network (PSN) compared to traditional retail, with Microsoft currently offering deals of around 70% to developers that go to them directly as opposed to the 7% offered by bricks and mortar retail.

Approaching what some consider a sour note, VP of publishing for in-game advertising specialist IGA Worldwide, Ed Bartlett, spoke about the growing financial opportunities offered by advertising in games. In particular he highlighted how easy it can be for studios to incorporate advertising into development if it's considered at an early stage.

That said, he did point to the danger that advertising in games may become too segmented. Bartlett pointed to the acquisition of Massive Incorporated by Microsoft, stating that if game advertising specialists become platform-specific advertisers may be forced to go to several companies to advertise in all versions of the same game. The result may be the same fragmentation that plagues TV advertising. Don't let that get you down, however, as Bartlett told SPOnG, the in-game advertising should be worth in excess of $1.2billion in three years.

Another highlight was Introversion's Mark Morris, who detailed “the last of the bedroom programmers'” successful, albeit sometimes rocky, foray into self-publishing.

Casual games also bathed in the spotlight. The international brand manager of MumboJumbo, which specialises in titles like Bejewelled and the recently released Luxor 2, George Bray outlined the company's business model, highlighting massive potential untapped markets. He was supported by the head of Eidos' new casual games division, Lou Fawcett, who challenged the gathered developers to look beyond their pre-conceptions about games.

Speaking to SPOnG, Bray summed up the potential of casual games for the assembled developers, stating, “Original videogame design can finally be recognised and implemented once again. Here we have the chance for developers to play with new & exciting game mechanics, on a sensible budget mixed with plenty of new routes to market including ESD and XBLA.”

Driving game specialist developerEutechnyx's director of business development, Darren Jobling, pointed to the potential revenue that could be generated by micro-transactions in casual games. The model, basically, involves giving games away or selling them at very low costs and then generating profit by charging players to customise their in-game avatar. With an installed base to the tune of millions, as can be seen in Asia, only a relatively small percentage of users need make transactions to produce sizeable profits.

It wasn't all sweetness and light, however. Fred Hasson, the CEO of professional gaming body Tiga spoke about the problems stacked against the UK development community. He discussed the lack of government support for the industry (in spite of glowing praise from Tony Blair) compared to countries such as Canada, where significant tax breaks are attracting big investment from the likes of Ubisoft.

Hasson also pointed to concerns about training in the UK, noting that Tiga has found many of the UK's 80 or so University courses in game development are producing graduates that don't have the necessary skills to enter the industry.

Blast Entertainment's CEO Sean Brennan was particularly scathing of some of the industry's business practices. He suggested that many publishers are misdirecting their efforts on big-budget games. "What a joke. What embarrassment,” he said. “There's no way on a $20 million development project that you can break even on a game – not now in the [console] cycle... it's like a big ego trip for publishers," he added.

The overall outlook, however, was positive. The feeling at the conference was that the UK games industry may have some growing up to do, but it's up to the task of adapting to new business models and making the most of emerging opportunities.

Talking to SPOnG about the event, MumboJumbo's George Bray said:



Expect more from SPOnG on the outcomes of Northern Exposure in the next few weeks.