Ah, video games. I remember seeing a Far Side cartoon of the classified section of a newspaper - the Nindendo Player, $40,000/year. That was in the early 1990's, when $40,000 was a generous wage. Now it feels like you have to be union to get that much, and the unions are fast disappearing. Or making their members' companies disappear.
But back to gaming: you can imagine the irony, in light of the cartoon, when I discovered that there are real jobs - for MBAs, no less - at places like Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, THQ, and Activision. Real jobs, with boring responsibilities like finance, operations, strategy and marketing. And then I met the heads of two of those four companies, and they were real people - not even hardcore gamers actually, just real, normal people. Well, normal for CEOs. And it seemed like their jobs were more exciting than, say, the job of the guy who owns Big Dogs (who I also had the pleasure of meeting - a multi, multi millionaire ex Bear Stearns banker). Not that his job was boring; he just doesn't get tickets to E3 as part of it.
So now I'm interviewing with Ubisoft, for a truly interesting biz dev job. I'm optimistic (one has to be) but I will say that this is a job I could really enjoy. Do deals internally and externally to grow Ubisoft's next-to-nonexistent business in online casual gaming into what it can and should be. They asked me what I needed to be paid in Round 1; thankfully the phone was on mute when I blurted out, "You're going to pay me to do this?!" Just kidding.
Wii and Red Steel have nothing to do with casual gaming, so why are they the title of this blog? Simply because the interview prompted me to check out an article, about how Nintendo shocked the world with Wii being ready for a Christmas release (on Topix, here). And then, of course, I had to check out Red Steel, Ubisoft's killer game for the new platform. Yes, you really do get to swing the sword and point the gun. Not bad, Ubisoft. Not bad, Nintendo. Hey, Sony SCEA (a.k.a. US Playstation department) - for $900, can I swing the sword myself? No? Hmm... but you say you have a physics processor... I guess that's cool. So, does that mean I can swing the sword?
While I am excited at the prospect of wheeling and dealing in the fledgling casual gaming space (it is, in terms of distribution, the future of the industry) I am particularly excited at the prospect of working for a company with that kind of vision. It has always been my belief that playing video games doesn't have to be a sedentary activity; the medium has simply been constrained by existing technology. Viz, Nintendo's gun for Duck Hunt. (okay, who didn't sit three inches from the screen?). Now movement will be required. It's only a matter of time - years or decades - before paintballing is a less exciting and less real alternative to playing a first-person shooter. Imagine World of Warcraft players being active for 10 hours a day while playing, instead of sitting still. They'll make triatheletes look like out-of-shape almost-ran curlers. The horror! The horror!
And think of what Wii style technology would do for the casual in-office gamer. Say goodbye, astro-turf-and-plastic putting green. Say hello, GoldenTee on my laptop + wireless mouse-like-controller!
Posted by: |