A new generation of games is emerging: games that start at a set time, that have episodes, even seasons. Games that will be played by tens if not hundreds of thousands simultaneously. Games that are becoming like a service and less like a product. This presentation by Jeroen Elfferich shows that games, especially online ones, should perhaps focus more on TV that the traditional obsession that videogame developers have had with cinema. And given the incredible amount of pioneering that has always taken place in Holland, this provides tremendous opportunties to companies based or partnering there.

1. What The Game Industry Can Learn From TV
(and vice versa)
Jeroen Elfferich
Festival of Games
June 4, 2010

2.  Social Gaming Services & Technology
 HQ in Amsterdam (NL)
 Office in San Francisco (USA), Airplay acquisition

3.  Multiplayer: realtime social gaming
◦ Flexible and robust client & server technology
 Crossplatform: web, mobile, TV, console
◦ Play anytime, anywhere, on any device
 Broadcast integration: PlayToTV
◦ Watch a show, play with friends, beat the nation
 Social gaming: play with your friends
◦ Deep integration with Facebook, Netlog, Hyves, ...

5. ~4 hours a day
~few times a
year

6. Snack‟n‟zap
Feature length

7. Some money
every day
Maybe a little,
maybe a lot. Once.

8.  Write  Design
 Fund, license  Fund, license
 Produce  Develop
 Market (a lot!)  Market (quite a lot!)
 Pray (for a hit!)  Pray (for a hit!)
Cinema Console

9.  Rely on an internet connection to run
 Other players matter
 More serverside than clientside code
 Tendency towards open standards; away from
downloads and plug-ins
 Mobile, Tablet, PC, Set-top-box – I don‟t
care. They‟ll all be connected

10.  Write  Design
 Produce Pilot  Develop v0.9
 Market  Seed and/or market
 Broadcast
 Upload and launch
 If success then
◦ Write, produce Season 1,
 Regardless of success
market a bit, broadcast ◦ Tweak, upload v0.91
◦ Wash, rinse, repeat ◦ Analyse, rinse, iterate
TV Online

11.  Go to theatre  Go to retail store
◦ Pay ◦ Buy box
◦ See movie ◦ Go home
 Go to store ◦ Play
◦ Buy disc  Go to app store
◦ Go home ◦ Pay
◦ See movie ◦ Download
◦ Play
Cinema Console

12.  Watch show  Play online
◦ It‟s free ◦ It‟s free
◦ Watch ads  See ad
◦ Be brainwashed (a bit) ◦ Fill out a form
 Play more
◦ „Micropay‟
 Play more still
TV Online

13. Entertainment
as a Service
Entertainment
as a Product

14.  4 Billion TV users worldwide
 US: 4 hours a day (2 months non-stop per year!)
 TV in 99% of all households, 2.24 sets on average
 TV is turned on 6h47m a day
 Total hours of TV consumed: 250 billion
 % Americans who say they watch too much TV: 49
 Youth – hours in school: 900 behind TV: 1,500
 TV commercials seen per year: 20,000

15.  100.000.000.000 Euro
 25.300.000.000 US$

16.  100.000.000.000+ Euro
◦ 2009 US market TV revenues, Idate
 25.300.000.000 US$
◦ 2009 US market game industry revenues, Newzoo

18. Show Debut channel Debut year Distributor
Sony Pictures
1 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? ITV (UK) 1998
Television
Nederland 2
2 Deal or No Deal 2002 Endemol
(Netherlands)
3 Wipeout ABC (US) 2008 Endemol
CBS Studios
4 Wheel of Fortune NBC (US) 1975
International
5 Family Feud ABC (US) 1976 FremantleMedia
6 Don't Forget The Lyrics Fox (US) 2007 RDF Rights
7 Hole in the Wall Fox (US) 2008 FremantleMedia
Shine
8 Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? Fox (US) 2007 International/Mark
Burnett Productions
CBS Studios
9 Jeopardy NBC (US) 1964
International
10 I Love My Country RTL4 (Netherlands) 2008 Talpa Media
Most Popular TV Gameshows in the World
TBI, 2009

19. 1988
The „Henny
Huisman Effect‟
is a situation
where the
national phone
system grinds to
a halt due to a
sudden, massive
amount of phone
calls.

20. 1996
Participation TV
Multi Billion$
industry for
Broadcasters, TV
production
companies,
aggregators &
Telco‟s
Set the standard
for premium IVR
and text
messaging

21. 1999
Big Brother
Making headlines
worlwdie
Interactive voting
via SMS and IVR
2008: broadcast
in 32 countries,
320 million
viewers

22. “... The programme is sold in a series of 52 episodes to national TV
company Sichuan TV. Never before did a European producer sell a full
season‟s worth of TV to a Chinese broadcaster. The show will be called
„Wo Ai Wo De Zhu‟, or „I love China‟”

23. Crossplatform IP & Formats
Internet-based participation
Scheduled Gaming
TV Gameification

24.  Until the 20th Century, games was the #1 pastime
 Radio, then TV turned us into passive consumers
 Late 20th Century, videogames showed that people
care about interactive entertainment
 And now, the broadcast industry is trying to figure
out how to succeed in interactive formats
www.exmachina.nl

25.  TV Lessons
◦ Scheduling & scarcity
◦ Marketing & episodes
 Web:
◦ Personalisation & social graph
◦ Gameification of Everything
◦ Massive multiplayer
 New devices (iPad, Google TV, TV out, Dual
Screen)

26.  Demo video

27. PlayToTV: 4 pillars
Real-time sync with TV
Massive scheduled interactive
entertainment
Access with mobile apps, web apps,
TV apps and web services
Live interaction thru social
networks, playing with friends

28.  Check-in
 Poll
 Voting
 Rating
 Q&A
 Prediction
 ...
Client support: Iphone/Ipad,
Android, Xbox, HTML5, J2ME, Flash

30. thanks
jeroen@exmachinagames.com
@jeroen020