The 2009 Christmas party has come and gone, though sadly our hangovers haven’t!
This year the Mind Candies jetted off to London Bridge for a party with an 80s retro theme to indulge in plenty of responsible drinking, tasteful dancing and subdued singing.
Here are a few snaps from the evening for your enjoyment.
Playing games on your own is fun, playing against a friend in two player mode is even better, but the most fun of all is had when you can connect with hundreds, thousands or even millions of other players from around the world. Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs) have grown into a major sector of the $40B games industry over the last decade and produced a number of hits, most notably World of Warcraft.
The first wave of MMOs were focused on fantasy themes but there’s a new category of online game that has been quietly gaining momentum over the past couple of years. Social games are a relatively new phenomenon that don’t usually don’t require any annoying download, detailed instructions, or even money to play (at least for their non-premium elements). They focus on content that’s more appealing to mainstream consumers than Sword and Sorcery themes: sports, racing, fashion, dancing, virtual pets and so on. The social aspects of the games are as important to the users as the actual gameplay.
Many of these games are played within Facebook (Mafia Wars, Farmville, Pet Society) but many live outside where the developers have created their own social networks and vibrant communities from scratch (Moshi Monsters, Kart Rider, Stardoll, Dark Orbit, Puzzle Pirates)
These games are not only racking up new players at extraordinary rates, they are also monetising their audiences incredibly effectively. Many of the games are highly profitable and are one of the few sectors that seem to be prospering in the current recession.
As Vic Keegan in the Guardian put it last week, Facebook and Twitter are making all the noise, online games and virtual worlds are making all the money.
At dinner parties I’ve been to recently, people still laugh at the notion of consumers spending real cash on digital items such as food for their virtual pet, or birthday cakes for their friends (this might be a sign that I’m going to the wrong sort of dinner parties). The truth, as anyone in the online gaming business knows, is that people are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on these items and will continue to do so in greatly increasing numbers over the next few years.
What’s frustrating to me is the lack of attention this booming sector seems to be getting from mainstream media. Europe is home to several of the pioneers of the Social Gaming space (Playfish, Bigpoint, Gameforge, Jolt, Mind Candy etc) yet despite tremendous growth, revenues and profits, the sector seems to have been all but ignored. The impact of the internet on Music, Film and TV has been picked apart by the mainstream press in micro detail, yet Games seem to get scant attention.
I want to do something about this. Fortunately Andy Moseby, and the forward thinking team at Kemp Little, were thinking along the same lines so we’ve decided to put an event on. We’re inviting several of the leading lights from the Online Gaming world to speak about their games to an audience of journalists, investors, execs from big media, gaming entrepreneurs, and other folks interested in learning more about this exciting space. There will also be plenty of time for questioning the panel, networking, and drinks
We’re calling the event GAMES GONE WILD! and it’ll be taking place in London on the evening of Wednesday September 9th.
We’d love to invite everyone, but due to venue constraints we’ve had to make the event invite only. If you’re keen to come along then you can apply on the Kemp Little site
Hopefully see you there
Some Mind Candies went along to the Game Based Learning Conference 2009 unfortunately we were only able to get tickets for the Friday so missed the Pecha Kucha and socialising, but we were there for the whole of Friday for all the great speeches.
Almost every speaker mentioned the travesty of the recent Department of Heath’s Change4Life campaign depicting a listless looking child holding a Playstation controller with the provocative slogan ‘Risk an Early Death’. It was up to Tom Watson to convince the industry that the government wasn’t completely against us. Luckily he made it clear he realises the importance of the games industry to the success of the country in terms of economy as well as education but, like any good politician, successfully dodged a question about tax breaks.
Of most interest to us here at Mind Candy was Derek Robertson who focused on a teacher using Moshi Monsters in the classroom. It’s useful for us to see how teachers are making use of Moshi and it would be great to start a proper conversation with educators about what we can do to make Moshi more friendly for teachers to use as a resource.
For me the overarching message from the conference was that gaming in all forms is hugely educational; it beats traditional education methods because kids actually enjoy learning when they are playing games, but there is still a long way to go before it is seen as legitimate by the mainstream.
I’m really interested to see where this conversation goes and looking forward to installing my children into Nolan Bushnell’s ‘Podules’. Check out all the videos here
Yesterday evening several Mind Candies attended the 2008 BAFTA Children’s Awards, representing Moshi Monsters for its nomination in the Interactive category.
Hosted by Keith Chegwin and held at the Hilton Park Lane, the ceremony was a huge success, with celebrities including Dannii Minogue, Geri Halliwell, Gemma Arteton and The Chuckle Brothers all making an appearance.
Although sadly we were beaten to the BAFTA by Channel 4’s excellent Bow Street Runner, the judges described Moshi Monsters as “energetic, charming and polished”, which we’re thrilled about and we hope to be back next year for another chance.