Mine the Creative Riches in Boom Landscape

Stephen Bevis wrote an interesting article today discussing Perth’s investment in the Arts during this mining boom.  Premier Alan Carpenter allocated $73M last year to government-supported cultural activities and compares himself to Adelaide’s Don Dunstan.  As a city and a state we definitely need to work out how to build a cultural base here; after each of the last mining booms were over St Georges Tce turned into a wasteland (it just needed tumbleweeds to complete the picture).  It’s possible to develop our non-mining industries but we need to focus on them.

As one of the “Tsars” nominated as someone that might be play some part in developing a sustainable artistic and cultural ecosystem in Perth, I would call on everyone that has any thought to helping on this front to focus on infrastructure. Fast internet access, support services and decent workspaces are difficult in Perth at the moment.  This is a temporary effect caused by the boom–soon fantastic office space with amazing views will be given away again–but it is having a terribly deletorious effect on Cultural activities.

Incidentally, to all those that say that this boom will be different to the last boom, I point you to the first Internet bubble.  Pundits were claiming that due to the friction-reducing effects of the ‘net the business fundamentals were different.  The Internet has changed business dramatically but every boom still has its bust.

It’s just a matter of time, so lets be prepared.

I Just Want To Make One Thing Perfectly Clear…

I received a phonecall from Tracy Cook on Monday and talked to her about a number of issues for the computer games industry in Western Australia. It was a pretty up-beat discussion with a few obvious issues discussed. Unfortunately, the tone of the article that was published does not match the tone of the interview. I don’t really understand where the negativity came from, so I wanted to make sure that the context around the discussion and my views is available.

First up, I see bringing Interzone to Perth as a tremendous success on all counts. There is no question about that; IZ has attracted an incredibly talented team that is working hard on a very cool game. It has helped put some momentum behind the game industry in Perth and we now have a growing game development community.

Challenges do exist in the path for us to nurture this fledgeling industry in Perth and one of those challenges is the dollar but WA has never competed purely on price in this market.  We don’t compete with China on that basis but we do compete on the quality of our people, the compatibility of our culture with the US & Europe and our unique geopolitical location. The main challenge that I see is to build up the infrastructure here so that we are able to compete with the world on the basis of the quality of our developers and their ability to regularly ship successful games; once that is the case, any fluctuations on the dollar simply don’t matter.

However, we’re not quite there yet and one of the most obvious questions I answered was indeed the issue of the US dollar; has the falling dollar had an impact on the cost of a US company such as Interzone that is developing games in Perth? Of course it has, the cost for every foreign company doing anything in Australia has increased. Is this a problem? Absolutely, it makes it much harder for all Australian industries to compete on price and the game industry is not outside the laws of economics.

Will I be asking for additional government assistance to deal with this issue? No.

Are there skills shortages in Perth in your area? Yes, as was expected when the studio was set up, there are not a lot of highly experienced game developers in Perth. Of course there aren’t, Interzone is the first triple-A MMO studio to set up here. We’re working to build our talent base here and have internal training in place. We are training up graduates as fast as we can but we obviously can’t hire too many of them because we only have a certain number of people that are skilled that can then do the training.

Is Interzone looking to move the studio overseas? No.

What other countries would be competing with Perth for game development opportunities? Canada is always an option, a very equivalent country in a lot of ways and you get the benefit of being a bit closer to the US. The US itself, with the way the currency is working, is becoming more and more attractive to new developers. Then there is Korea, China and all the developing nations are skilling up in this sector, there is a lot of different options from that perspective.

As a result of the declining US dollar, will new projects come to Perth? Before commencing any project of the size that Interzone is undertaking, there is a level of due dilligence that has to be done. Clearly, an important part of that is where the main development is going to be based. An international organisation like Interzone has a number of options on that front and the mix will be appropriate for the title that is greenlit.

What are the greatest challenges that the game industry faces in Perth at the moment? It is still a fledgling industry; Interzone came to town a little more than 12 months ago now and there remains a great deal of work to be done to build up the industry. As Chairman of the IGDA Perth Chapter, I’m working pretty hard to help develop the infrastructure that is needed to build upon the success we are having with Interzone, to help develop a sustainable and resilient industry here in Perth. These things take time but we appear to be making progress on a number of fronts so I’m very optimistic.

I’ll try to post more when I have a moment.

Cyber World Leader

Australian Anthill Magazine interviewed me at the BigWorld offices in Canberra during their tour of the country scouting out some of the highest tech companies in Australia and in the subsequent article they crowned me Cyber World Leader.

• Australian Anthill May 2006
  • PDF.
  • JPEG.

IGDA Online Games Quarterly

An interview I did for the Online Games SIG publication:

The Tools of the Trade: An Interview with Robert Spencer

Robert Spencer is Strategic Business Manager for BigWorld. Formerly a Producer at Café Nova and before that Publisher of PC Games Plus, Robert has been actively involved in the MMO space for five years and the games industry in general since 1989. BigWorld the company has been developing BigWorld the Technology Suite for more than six years and currently has 45 licenses for titles that are under development on every continent except Antarctica. For more info, see http://www.bigworldtech.com.

The in-house development of a robust, scalable MMOG engine is likely to be the most costly line item of any MMOG development budget - both in terms of time and money. Big World is one company offering an alternative to in-house development. The company provides a suite of integrated Client, Server and Art Tools designed specifically for the creation of MMOG. We spoke with Robert Spencer, Strategic Business Manager for the company to find out more.

1. Tell us a little about what your company is doing to facilitate the development of MMOG.
   

   Robert Spencer: The BigWorld Technology Suite provides a solid, dependable platform upon which studios can produce MMOGs. ‘BigWorld’ has been licensed for use in over forty five games at the time of writing. Our success in the market place is based on a real dedication to the ongoing development of excellent technology that solves real-world game problems. MMOG producers now have a real alternative to the option of attempting the time-consuming, expensive and technologically risky development of their own server technology, tools & client engine.

   BigWorld licensees find they reduce risk, costs and time to market. They also gain access to world-leading MMO technology. Our server technology, client engine and complete content production pipeline allows the production team to start working on their game from day one, which beyond the obvious implications in terms of cost and time to market also enables the game to be played so much earlier in the development cycle. This fast prototyping enables design decisions to be evaluated quickly and enables numerous iterations to refine game play. An iterative production methodology is encouraged within our content pipeline, with our world building tools allowing fast prototyping of spaces prior to the addition of detailed objects that flesh out the world to the standards required in current-generation and next-generation MMOGs.

   This rapid prototyping and iterative design reduces waste, as risky ideas can be tried and developed or discarded, mistakes corrected and game play refined without throwing away development effort.

2. What are the major pitfalls a developer has to watch out for in the development of MMOG from a technology stand point?
   

   RS: Testing! Clearly, an MMOG server is a very complex piece of technology, but as the market matures, reliability and robustness are going to be requisite properties of ‘Triple-A’ MMOG. Server crashes and even planned outages will cost real money and market share, as players move to games that they can play more reliably. It is very difficult for even large MMOG studios to perform the enormous battery of tests to ensure that their underlying technology will work flawlessly, never mind testing the game code that runs on top of the server and client. By licensing a proven technology platform, developers have a huge head start with developing a successful game.Too many MMOGs are still developed without sufficient planning and infrastructure for technology and game play upgrades. Given the planned life of an MMOG, transparent upgrades must be expected during game play. BigWorld assists developers with this problem in several ways; we have a very sophisticated transparent update system on the client and server (a GM can even change the AI of a monster while a player is actually fighting it!); we are constantly updating, upgrading and extending the BigWorld Technology Suite (we released version 1.6 just before E3 this year) and Licensees can often get exciting new features to add to their games at no additional cost, reducing their ongoing development costs while remaining on the leading edge.

3. Don’t you think that using middleware limits the creativity of the development team?
   

   RS: Quite the opposite! The BigWorld Technology architecture has been developed to provide game producers with the flexibility to develop whatever massively multiplayer game they can imagine. We tend to liken the BigWorld server platform to an operating system; it reduces the complexity but still allows the developer to create startlingly innovative games. BigWorld also allows the game development team to concentrate on their game, freeing their mind and budget to solve game design problems instead of issues with technology and tools. Licensees of BigWorld are currently using the Technology Suite to develop MMOAS (action shooters), MMOFPS (first person shooters) and MMORTS (real time strategy), along with classic fantasy, contemporary and science fiction MMORPGs, proving that it is a very flexible and adaptable system.

4. What do you think the ideal hardware infrastructure is for MMO?
   

   RS: In general, the more scalable and manageable, the better. Obviously, there are cost trade-offs that are possible for smaller games and we have Licensees that are using everything from stacks of 1U pizza boxes to sophisticated blade systems. As our server software takes care of fault tolerance and load balancing, there is no need for exotic hardware or “highly available” systems but it is obviously preferable for games to be on reliable equipment. Partnering with a reliable hosting provider that maintains connectivity and fast hardware repairs is also an important consideration.

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