Guest Blog - Why My Mum Likes VR Better Than You Do

“How do I put this thing on,” she said, looking warily at the VIVE headset and controllers. Mum’s not a gamer; she’s never so much as dropped a quarter in an arcade machine, let alone picked up a console control. Hell, she struggles with her smartphone. “This is heavy,” she sighs, as I fit her with the headset, and guide her hands through the controller straps. “Ok,” I said, “I'm going to turn on a game called ‘Space Pirate Trainer’. It’s really easy, you have two guns, you pull the trigger on your controller (I showed her where they were), and you shoot the floating orbs that are trying to shoot you.  Don’t let them hit you.” As I started the game she gasped. “OH MY GOD, I'M IN SPACE! CAN YOU GUYS SEE THIS??” The last thing I said as I popped the headphones over her ears: “Use the gun in your right hand to shoot the box that says ‘Play’. Have fun.” And then I got the hell out of dodge.

My mother is 61 years old, somewhat arthritic, but still relatively spry. I watched, grinning, as she transformed from a prim and proper real estate agent into her own personal incarnation of Lara Croft. She ducked and weaved; she hurled strings of four-letter-words at the robots. I do believe she accidentally kicked the cat at one point (he hasn't forgiven her yet, poor kitty). And when she “died”, she wailed “NOOOOOOO”, immediately followed by, “I want a do-over.” Before I could say anything, she’d hit the Play button and was back in. Her only break was when we had to tear her away for Mother’s Day brunch, but all in all, she played SPT, Fantastic Contraption, and messed with the IKEA demo (“I wanted to rearrange the cabinets! This is a let-down…”) for roughly 3 hours. On the other hand, my twenty-something brother-in-law, who plays a lot of WoW and Call of Duty, etc, tried it out, and got bored after about 15 minutes. “That’s nice, I guess,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s worth the money, and I'm just in a room here by myself.”

This kind of engagement - for lifelong non-gamers to suddenly become avid enthusiasts – is practically unheard of in previous iterations of game evolution. Yet change is generally difficult for the established culture/mindset to adopt (hence the addage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”). So why is VR, this cutting edge technology, more attractive to older people?

My theory is twofold: First, that because the controls are still very crude, the games must be designed simply. The quality of a game becomes more reliant on storytelling, visuals, audio, and ease of navigation. My folks still go on dates to the movies 2-3 times per month. They watch whatever movie or show BBC America is running. They want to the entertained, but in a way that’s low effort/thinking on their part. Gaming, for them, is “too hard”. But VR is easy.

The second is that the GenX/Boomers came of age in a time where real life experiences were tantamount to electronics/media. VR is the first tech where games truly emulate real life. Finally, here is a technology tailor-made for the vast majority of older people who grew up wishing they’d done something different with their lives (because no one gets to maturity without some kind of regrets). Not because they don’t like what they have or what they have done, (read: anyone who can afford VR is probably doing well for themselves), but because they wonder what it would have been like to be a musician instead of a sales agent, or an artist as opposed to an engineer. Well, turns out it’s not too late; now you can live those imagined lives vicariously through… you. Wanted to try Alpine downhill skiing but didn't because it was “too dangerous”? Not any more. Decided against that summer of slumming it in Paris to save up for a “practical” home downpayment? You can still waste a few hours at an outdoor café (with a view of the Eiffel Tower!) catching tidbits of murmurs in French. VR lets you be someone else for a little while, gives you a mental escape. So why aren’t younger generations just as excited about all the opportunities VR offers?

Millenials, unlike previous generations, are exceptionally self-actualized. VR is a nice distraction, sure, but it’s still a game, albeit really cool. However, Millenials want more. They don’t want to just watch a 360º movie, they’d rather actually go to these places or do these things. Being “in the game”? That’s nice, but Millenials want to control the story and change the outcome. This is now the challenge for VR developers: How do you create an authentic, fulfilling experience? What will it take to make VR indistinguishable from the real thing? That’s a question we’ll be able to answer hopefully in the next few years.

The good news? A healthy market for which to create content already exists. Right now, folks like Mum (Boomers and Gen X) are quite satisfied with today’s tech. When she finally put the headset down, smiling, she wiped the sweat off her brow and quoted a phrase I'm very fond of using: “We really are living in the future.”

Sophie Wright is the Product and Brand Evangelist for Human Interact, currently working on an unannounced VR project. 15 years of experience in an engineering leadership role led to a passion for exploring and sharing the possibilities of VR. In this reality, she enjoys gin, tinkering with her Mini Cooper, meteor showers, and having meaningful experiences with people.

Guest Blog - Demoing VR Guide

We’ve been working with the Oculus VR headset since receiving our Kickstarter backer edition of the first dev kit, the DK1, through DK2 and the commercial version CV1, the fully labelled Oculus Rift. As such, over the past few years we’ve done more public demos of VR than we can remember but each and every time, we have seen someone do something new or unexpected. So here’s a handy guide to demoing VR to the general public, or [potential] clients to ensure they have the best first time VR experience and aren’t put off for life!

Prepare for queues - there will be queues of people waiting to play. We find that 9/10 people at events haven’t tried VR and so, it will be a big draw for crowds. Queues are good though as you have a steady stream of people eager to play and willing to listen to you whilst they wait, so prepare some queue chat subjects. So where possible, have as many demo stations as people / space / budget allows, remembering to allocate one person per booth with floaters for queue management and breaks.

People are less likely to want to try a headset sat there unused - we haven’t worked out why but if it’s just there as a weird looking bit of tech, people will be more hesitant to be the first to have a go. So if quiet (which is unlikely) have someone on the team play and have fun doing it. 

Seating for safety - unless you are demoing HTC Vive and using room-scale to full effect, ensure you have a seat available for people to park on so that they are less likely to feel nauseous, fall over or stumble about. First timers tend to over-react to the motion sensation and will throw themselves around!

Regular wiping - be prepared to clean the headset and lenses regularly; headset foam with natural baby wipes and lenses with a good cloth. Try to avoid alcohol-based anti-bacterial wipes unless you can make sure it’s dry without any residue before the next user, otherwise it might react with contact lens fluids and give people a nasty reaction (have seen this happen!) After doing events for many years, this is why we have a set of headsets that are only used by us for development, without x,000 human skin cells embedded in the foam.

Set defaults - most VR headsets and software offer options to tailor specific dimensions of the user for the optimum visual experience. However this is time-consuming and requires an understanding of how VR works and the technology, which when dealing with high volumes of people (see point 1.) you aren’t going to have time to tweak settings for each and every person. If you set to default average settings, you can still give a great experience and any comments about blurriness can be overcome with a request to “find the sweet spot”.

So that’s the basics for demoing VR to the public. The obvious point is to make sure everything works every time without any stutter or jitter at a stable framerate. If demoing to clients (to try and win work) you have to setup and ensure your introduction to VR is as smooth and simple as possible to ensure they are not distracted or put off by the amount of cables or technology involved. Good luck!

Sam Watts has been involved in interactive, immersive content production for 15 years, from learning development and simulation to AAA and casual games. Currently employed as Operations Lead for Make REAL and Game Producer for Tammeka, he keeps busy by evangelising the possibilities and real world benefits of immersive technologies like VR and AR to anyone who will listen. Tammeka’s first VR game Radial-G : Racing Revolved launched alongside the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive earlier in 2016.

Guest Blog - Growing a business without growing a business

On a crisp December day in 2014, I sat in a tiny cafe on Golden Square, eager to sample the pastries declared by my friend Tracey* as “the best cinnamon buns in London”. But while the aforementioned buns were one of the reasons I was looking forward to the meeting, it was another goal that was making me excited and trepidatious in equal measure.

My fledgling business was less than 18 months old but already I’d met a host of inspiring, friendly, supportive and thoroughly decent new friends and allies. Tracey was pretty near the top of that list, and I had an important question to ask her.

Working for myself after 20+ years in bustling offices had proved liberating and isolating in equal measure. I loved the freedom to follow my passions, but missed the perspective and sanity-checks that only come from trusted colleagues. But I’d decided on the perfect solution – I needed a mentor.

Luckily for me, Tracey immediately agreed to take on the role, but with one caveat – I had to do the same for her in return. And so it began.

Fast forward another six months and I’m sitting nervously in another eatery, just around the corner from the aforementioned pastries. This time I’m waiting for another fellow games PR who’s also vying for a chart position on the list above.

My first couple of years in business had gone better than I could have hoped and I’d quickly got to the point of having to turn people away. While it’s always a nice problem to have, I’d never enjoyed what felt like the counter-intuitive process of turning work down. Luckily I’d run into Sam** from Decibel-PR a little while after I’d started up, and had been able to send work his way when I couldn’t take it on myself.

Plenty of people had told me to expand or hire someone else, but I wasn’t in any rush to take on the overheads and risks of staff and premises. Talking to the ever-wise Tracey at our regular mentor meetups, and after a year of hearing nothing but glowing praise about Sam, I slowly began to realise that maybe there was another way.

So as I sat in a Japanese restaurant in mid-May 2015, I asked Sam to become my ‘partner agency’. We both had established businesses and established clients, but we also both had finite time on our hands. By teaming up to share some clients, and pooling our collective skills, contacts and experience, we could both expand our empires, without expanding our overheads.

We were growing our businesses without growing our businesses.

Within a week, Sam and I had signed our first 12 month contract, pitching our shared abilities to a developer that needed more than either of us could have given on our own. We’re still working on that project today, and our collaborations and opportunities have continued to expand. But it didn’t stop there. Nine months later, the whole thing grew again when Tracey joined our merry band too. We still mentor each other but now we work together too.

The future of this industry is in working together and not against each other, but unless you get out from behind your monitor and push yourself to ask those scary questions in the first place, that collaboration won’t ever be possible. We can build our futures while maintaining our independence, all through the power of collaborating, not competing. If you’re open, honest, generous with your time and your support, and prepared to seek out what you need to hear and not just want you want to hear, then joining forces with others can be a powerful driver to success for you all.

Natalie Griffith, Press Space 

* Tracey McGarrigan, Ansible PR & Communications & ** Sam Brace, Decibel-PR - official partner agencies to Press Space Limited

Guest Blog - Going it alone without going it alone

As I sit with a thick pink milkshake whilst contemplating the choice of chips on the menu, there is something about the noise of the sports bar and grill just near Marylebone station that reminds me of the underlying chatter broken with occasional exclamations of joy or dismay that filled the huge open plan office I used to work in; an environment quite different to the calm and comfort of my home office. It’s not something I miss, but something I know I shouldn't forget.

 

Natalie* is the familiar face in the crowd and as she orders her milkshake, talk quickly turns to work. We share discreet updates on what we’re working on, we chat over industry news and events, then we pick over the similarities and differences of being in-house and freelance PR professionals whilst considering how we approach different situations and projects. Early on in our monthly mentoring meetings, it became clear that corroboration, and pooling our knowledge, our contacts, and our vision together made us more confident, and helped increase our ability to deliver great work.

This is more than two friends casually chatting about work; this is two industry practitioners mutually mentoring each other and sharing best practice so we can be better in our roles.

It was here in the grill that after months of deliberation and weighing up all the pros and cons, and of hearing what it was like from the other side, that I decided the time was right to go it alone. We all have people (and to some extent games and studios) who inspire us, but it was thanks to the power of mentoring that I finally reached a very personal point of knowing the exact nature of work I wanted to do in this industry, and more importantly felt empowered to go after it. I learnt in detail about the risks and challenges I would be taking on, knowing I had a support net of expertise, advice, and friendship beneath me.

This is going it alone without going it alone.

It’s evident in some of the more successful studios founded with people who are familiar with each other’s work, many of whom at one time or other have been part of AAA studios, and who have broken away to follow their own paths and hearts’ desires whilst committing themselves to helping each other through whatever lies ahead.

Knowing what you can do alone is just the beginning – actively finding the right people who can help you when and if you need it should become an important part of your work. Knowing those people WILL help you is the key to your success. This isn't just advice for start-ups. Bill Campbell, a sounding board to many of Silicon Valley’s chief execs sadly passed away this month yet his reputation and legacy as a mentor has, and will continue to have a resounding impact on the tech and games industry globally.

When I started my new company I knew I had mentors I could actively call on to help me get over any hurdles and I continue to call on them. Being elastic in what I can offer clients has already given my business a boost. Natalie is an expert at understanding and driving communications for community-led development, my skills lie more in delivering corporate and social communications for start-ups. Having the option of combining our skills has allowed us to offer a deeper level and range of expertise and support to meet our clients’ needs so we all benefit from this collaboration. I consider my mentors to be some of the most valuable assets to my business.

Let’s shed our thick skins here; the value of your reputation and skills is important, but combining your abilities with other talented people who are aligned with and can contribute to your business can have a dramatic impact – there’s a reason the Avengers assembled!

Mentoring and collaboration encourages future entrepreneurs and studios to create work within our industries and leads to an unrivalled matrix of expertise where everyone can enjoy success. Having a mentor should be one of the most important tools in your box. Plus, making your office a place where they serve milkshakes and chips is no bad thing…

Tracey McGarrigan is founder and CEO of Ansible PR & communications 

*Natalie Griffith, CEO Press Space Ltd

Guest Blog: Don’t Pitch Me Your Problems

The impending doom of your cash running out is something most indie developers have experienced at one time or another. Each game always takes more time and resources than anticipated. Always. What’s a developer to do when the cash is running out and the game simply needs more time to bake?

Ah, funding to the rescue! Those mythical people, companies, or organizations that give you money when you need it. Yeah funding! And said developers go on the hunt for funding.

As one of those mythical beasts that actually funds game studios, Execution Labs listens to countless pitches. Some we chase after, some came via referral of one of our existing portfolio studios, and many many more come to us “cold”.

Regardless of source, most developers frame the discussion in the context of their cashflow problem. They've got a great team, and a cool game, but dang, if only they had more cash… their monthly burn rate is x, and they only have y left in the bank, which is not enough to  cover the anticipated z many more months of development. What about marketing? Oh no, nothing budgeted for marketing. Nothing.

Then comes the question, like a shy boy asking a cute girl on a first date: “Are you interested?”

Am I interested? Interested in what, exactly? Your cashflow problem? Fuck no! I am not interested in your cash shortages and lack of budgeting skills.

It sounds ridiculous, and yet it happens all the time. Developers are heads down making awesome games, they look up, and crap, money is almost up, and this is a serious problem that needs fixing, so they go out and try to find someone to help them solve this problem. Generally speaking, developers are good at solving problems.

The challenge is, no one invests in problems. No one.

Is this just a matter of perspective? Or spin? Sure, in some ways it is. So spin it! If you are pitching investors, you need to pitch an opportunity. An opportunity to back a high potential studio, a ground breaking game, a shot at a massive hit, etc. Of course, that can’t be smoke and mirrors; it really does have to be an amazing opportunity. If it is not, then don’t bother chasing investors!

Investors are happy to pile their money into great opportunities.

What opportunity are you pitching today?

Jason Della Rocca – Co-Founder, Execution Labs

Jason will be one of the speakers at the brand new Pitching & Funding Workshop taking place at Develop:Brighton on Tuesday 12 July. 

Guest Blog - It’s Risky, That Game Development

No-one likes risk in business. Consumer surveys, consumer testing for products, pre-screening for films and other ways of delving into the customers mind are big business because no-one wants to invest flipping great wodges of cash into Batman V Superman and then find out it’s a turkey – whoops.

Risk as a greater concept however, is actually a rather wonderful thing. The experiences that really matter in life are the new ones – starting school, travelling abroad, falling in love – and they’re all full of potential danger and therefore risk. But, once completed, regardless of the result, you may feel vindicated, courageous, alive. You may have bruises (to both your body and your ego), but it was worth it for the stories you can tell afterwards. Risk is what makes life worth living, right?

I worked as a games designer for 15 years in total, on titles including LittleBigPlanet PSP, Need for Speed: Most Wanted plus lots more that never saw the light of day, because the title was seen as a risk. And that’s the bit that really sticks in my mind: ‘what if?’ What if the title had been saved/fixed/put into full production? What if it had been a hit? How can you know a game’s playability value when no-one outside the building has actually played it? I believe that there’s an ‘A’ class bug (not a feature) in the process used my large developers aiming to create epic triple A console games: risk aversion. This is understandable because of the stakes: large budgets and hard-won reputations. But surely, getting the game in front of consumers while still at the early stages of designed sheds light and clarity upon a player’s experience, right? If the only people who play the game are those who see it every day for several hours then there’s no fresh perspective. Is becoming more and more familiar with your own work really an advantage? Or does it mean your view becomes narrower and narrower?

The further any developer goes through the production process, the larger the collection of work becomes, so the more painful it is to let go of it, and the further they are along the road of committing to a particular style and set of resources. Consequently certain parts of it – and this is true for all sorts of projects from graphic design to West End productions – remain purely because so much time, money (and love) were invested in them, and NOT because they merit inclusion by contributing meaningfully to the final product. Then it comes out, gets a 7/10 on metacritic and the process starts all over again, with a determined ‘THIS time we’ll get it right’ muttered by those in charge. Repeat.

However, the lumbering giant of large developers can eaily be out-manoeuvred by the champion of Game Creation Agility*: indie devs.

Indie devs are nimble creatures. Being able to quickly test prototypes on consumers means useful feedback at a point when changes can be made easily – like at the pencil sketch stage before the painter commits to oils – because it’s only bare bones, and the work of a handful of people, not a team of 100. Plus, your test case player doesn’t expect a polished product at this early stage because, well, you’re an indie developer. No offence, but there isn’t a well-known reputation and anticipated budget associated with it.

*’GCA’ should be an industry term. It isn’t, but it should be.

The indie dev answers to no-one (until they receive investment, which is a different kettle of ball games) so is able to get vital feedback early on from potential players (the people who matter), instead of receiving feedback at the end of the production process, when tons of hours of work has been resigned to the bin, hearts broken and dreams shattered on the opinion of one or two people who probably won’t play – and certainly won’t pay for – the game as a consumer.

This is the beauty of experiencing games from the indie dev scene at events like Develop – you can play something in production that is still evolving, and created with utter love and devotion, not as the result of a several meetings about the company’s target player demographics and what the marketing strategy is for the company approaching Q3 2018.

I can’t wait to play the indie games at Develop, to talk to the people who are actually creating them, and to continue to be utterly inspired by not only their hard work, but their dedication to embracing that scariest creature of all: risk.

Jon Torrens is a communications coach and will be talking about pitching skills at the Pitching & Funding Workshop on Tuesday 12 July.

Guest Blog: Stop tempting me

I hate the whole “there’s never been a more exciting time” rhetoric. Hate it. Because generally it’s a tool used by spokespeople and media-trained executives to discuss things that, in the grand scheme of things, aren’t actually that exciting and/or have probably been more exciting in the past.

However, it is hard to think of a better time to be even vaguely associated with games development.

The one thing I find myself marvelling at everyday is this: Anyone can make a game. Anyone. No exceptions. A roofer with no experience can develop a title that attracts hundreds of thousands of gamers. Teams of three or four people can create experiences of triple-A quality (or close to it) from their bedroom or garage. An established developer who feels constrained by the studio they work for can branch out and single-handedly rake in millions with a game about rectangles.

 

The barriers to entry have been torn down, largely thanks to the leading engine creators who have released their high-end tech – source code and all – for free. Developers have taken to the internet to share their knowledge, to help new and aspiring games makers learn everything they need to bring their vision to life. So not only can anyone make a game, they’re actively encouraged to.

Which makes my job rather difficult. Not only do I have more ambitious studios and innovative projects than ever to cover, but it’s a massive distraction as the games I see all seem to be saying the same thing: you could do this too, y’know?

 

Every event I attend, every expo floor I browse is a veritable minefield of inspiration, triggering ideas to explode in my mind. Every new tool that makes crucial aspects of games development that little bit more accessible chips away at my internal Wall of Excuses. Every conference talk provides me with hints, tips and strategies that I almost feel obliged to try out for myself, simply because they sound so achievable.

And then there are the developers themselves – wonderful, friendly, approachable people all enjoying the same journey, taking that single, golden idea and trying to make it playable. I genuinely struggle to decide what I enjoy more: catching up with devs who I have met before and hearing the latest on their project, or meeting brand new games makers for the first time and discovering what fresh concepts they’re bringing to this ever-changing industry.

A decade ago, before I even worked in the industry, these people seemed almost out of reach, as if in another world. These were the teams that made the games taking up almost every hour of my spare time – they were gods of creation. And even now I’m learning how brilliantly ordinary these people are. Talented, of course, but ordinary. They’re just like me, I’m just like them. I could be like them. No, wait, feeling tempted again…

So you’ll forgive me if you see me with my fingers in my ears this July!

James Batchelor is Editor at Develop magazine.