© 2004 IBM Corporation
Andrew Reynolds
IBM Hursley
The market
Subscriptions
Subscriptions
Pay per play
Pay per play
Advertising
Advertising
Casual gamers
Hardcore
The state of play
Games Industry business models evolving…
•
from unit sales to online revenue streams
•
from packaged product to episodic content
•
from PC to non-PC platforms
•
mobile phones, consoles, …
•
Global
online
revenue estimated $30B in 2008
Source: CITL, 2002
Rev
$B 39 40 37 34 39 56 61
Source: Datamonitor, 2001
New revenue streams
Units on
shelves
Monthly
subscription
In game tax
(revenue
splitting)
In-game
advertising
All images copyright of their respective owners
Atlantic Gardener's Association Plant Mall
The AGA Plant Mall consists of about 14 vendors … that are maintained and stocked by Atlantic Gardener's
Association members. As a group, AGA members have all the different kinds of plant types and colors. We conform to AGA pricing guidelines, so you'll always get the best price. Drop on by and take a look around!
All images copyright of their respective owners
ebay.com
All images copyright of their respective owners
Some statistics
EverQuest
(Sony)
stats from 2001•
Norranth, population 430,000
•
Annual online trading = $5M
•
$139M GNP
≈ Bulgaria
•
79
thrichest nation on earth
•
eBay trading
now banned
…for EQ. Trades from other
games still going strong
juliandibbell.com
All images copyright of their respective ownersName
Julian Dibbell
Age
41
Goal
To make the
sale of
imaginary
good his
primary source
of income
Profit (March -
April, 2004)
$3,917
Business Integration for Games
Business logic
and
game logic
require different expertise and have
a different lifecycle
Maintaining a clear separation of
concerns gives flexibility for both
Game logic needs to exploit
business logic in a seamless,
efficient way
Architecture
= Process Broker with extensible business logic
POP = Point of Presence on the network for the device
Embedded API layer of
Embedded API layer of
simplicity for secure;
simplicity for secure;
Payment Payment Shopping Shopping Trading Trading Messaging Messaging POP POP POP POP POP UDDI
UDDI DigitalDigital
Rights Rights Manager Manager Services Processes Service
(could be mobile network owner) Payment
Payment
Service
Service
(could be mobile
(could be mobile
Infrastructure brings new possibilities…
Pay-per-play models
charge users for content, time, or access to function within the game
In-Game Trading
players can buy/sell/auction items within the game environment
financial and asset transactions really bound to game function
e-Commerce
integration of purchase and e-distribution of content from online store within game
Digital Rights Management function controlled from game, but provided by third-parties
Revenue Sharing
Allow metered usage and dynamic splitting of revenue between partners and investors
…possibilities limited only by imagination!
Identity/Player Reputation
Acquire externally managed reputation information to assist in tournaments, player matching, cheat monitoring
Message/Event Distribution
Propagate game events to outside world • push tournament game stats out to
websites for aggregation
• use “presence service" to push game event messages to players current contact point
Propagate real-world events to game environment
• sports event telemetry data/statistics pulled into game e.g. F1 racing data live into game
• Real environmental data to affect game
References
IBM’s Business Integration for Games
http://alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/big
http://ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-intgame
Articles
“Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier” http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=294828
“The Unreal Estate Boom”
http://wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/gaming.html “Interreality Buiness Machine”
http://wired.com/news/games/0,2101,62351,00.html
Other interesting sites
http://games.slashdot.org http://gamespy.com
http://gamingopenmarket.com http://havok.com
