GDC Findings, Day 2 (Thursday)

GDC Day  2 (Thursday)

The first talk I attended was the Children Games P2, Mobile

This panel was specifically geared towards mobile development and marketing for children’s games. The first topic was about the future of AR/VR for children’s games. There’s a game aliable in semi prototype stage called SpaceHawk (or Space Hog?), which links technology with physical playtime. The child puts a phone in the plastic toy ship. The parent or sibling puts a paper target somewhere in the house. The child uses the ship to “sail” around the house until he or she finds the target and plays a mini game with it. The ship interacts through the phone to open separate compartments for interactive playtime when an objective is complete.  Another example is toys with room/space awareness that are up coming. Also, AI voice interacting/conversational toys are being developed. Currently AR/VR is still too new for full integration for kid games, but the technology is moving towards that. In my personal opinion the last two examples kind of freak me out. I would rather my future child in their developing stages to interact with people as much as possible instead of getting invested in human-esque interaction with an android. It doesn’t and shouldn’t replace bonding time with family. That said I can see this technology being use in therapy for special needs and trauma coping children. This would help develop their social skills and identify emotions/pattern behaviors on top of human interaction being received.

Educational games with conversational AIs are a direction that is being pursued. For instance, Google translate could be applied through Alexa, to bring basic foreign language conversational practice. Other mobile language games are being produced. Sega and Wiz World produced English learning titles for Asian countries. These games are enabling the children to be more globally aware. The epicenter of those games seems to be in the Boston area in the US.

As for mobile games in general tablet to phone and phone to tablet integration were discussed. The room was a split between which platforms to be produced first, but it really depended on the game itself. Optimization is extremely important for this market.  Simple is easier. Getting a simple idea to a simple platform is way easier than converting a monster IP into a smaller platform. Consumers tablet usage is 75% landscape mode orientation. Phone usage is 75% portrait mode. Keeping that in mind will dictate the overall layout of the app. Something else to be aware of is how much do you want the child to be exposed to at a time vs how much can they actually handle?  Giving simple and little information as necessary at a time is ideal. Let the visual and sound cues do the majority of the work.

The panel also discusses in game analytics.  These are the tools and metrics to success. It’s recommended to have a hired specialist instead of using an online client. Some are sketchy and will save your data for their own keeping!

Monetization for these apps is crucial. We all want to get paid for our work, right? Some options thrown around are in app purchases such as special items/characters/skins/playtime. Another is advertising. And lastly an initial charge for the app itself. The room seemed to have a combination of both ads and in app purchases if there wasn’t an initial charge.  An ad engagement technique is to reward the player for watching the ad with in game items that enables the player to be engaged or not in the ads.  The most popular ad kid services are Super Awesome and Project Wonderful,… It was also noted that this is a great market to get into since there isn’t much competition. The best technique for companies with more than one IP in my opinion is to make several demo or free titles to bring in the parents. Then, also have paid games that are more robust titles. The parent will be more likely to purchase the games after the child is involved with the free/demo titles. This also builds branding.  After the parent purchases the game, in app purchases can be brought into the mix as well.

Great game design in general should be easy to pick up, and hard to master. Generally, scaling the play difficulty should be scaled to the older audience so not only the child will enjoy it, but the parent/older sibling as well. This has been echoed from the first panel the day before. Don’t treat tweens as children; they’ll drop the game like a hot potato. That said, it’s nearly impossible to make a children specific game that’s broad enough to capture the attention and hearts of a 2-14yr old.

The second panel was an impromptu talk given by the Facebook booth. It’s Facebook Ads in Messenger Games.

The games are made in Unity and can be downloaded at developers.facebook.com. for dissecting. The ads are integrated from user specific profiles off of facebook and echoed into the game several times. They’re trying to incorporate the ads seamlessly in the background of the ad so that when the Game Over screen appears, the player is more likely to click on the ad. Personally I feel that the way they go about it is extremely jarring and distracting. I wouldn’t want to play a game that had the same ad on every billboard, and item in the game. It’s right in your face. At that point I’m playing a marketing tool instead of a game. But, I got a free beanie out of it.

After the talks I got my portfolio reviewed twice. I got some really nice advice. Both reviewers said that my drawing skills are much stronger than my 3D. 

·      Biome is good! Nice casing and overall mood. Can nit pick about small technical issues, but overall is nice.

·      Boss: More medium details in the skin folds, attention to the seams in the shorts.  Anatomy off in the biceps. Tell more story

·      Boots need more attention to PBR. Redo the smaller material layers for base material. Grunge/scratch filter maps apply afterwards. Watch more substance tutorials.

·      LP back room put title of exercise on top left for indication.