AGC Day 3: "Digital Distribution Revolution"

I had intended to go to "Product vs. Process - Results Oriented Development", but decided last-minute to go to "Digital Distribution Revolution", after reading the summary.

From a revenue stream potential (and because I wanted to see what panelists had to say about micropayments), this is an interesting topic to me.

Long past the pioneer days of Mark Cuban and AudioNet/Broadcast.com, digital download and distribution is an even bigger deal.

I didn't even look at who the panelists were, and was surprised to see Warren Spector, one of the "game gods" (he probably hates that title) -- and I actually haven't seen him speak before. Scheduled panelist Miguel Olivera (Director of Digital Distribution, Encore Inc.) was there, as was moderator Julie Pitt (GM, Planning and Distribution, Games, RealNetworks). The Disney dude wasn't there, which was fine, because replacing him was Ricardo Sanchez (VP of Content for Turner's GameTap, who I'd met the day before), and David Edery, the guy Microsoft recently hired away from MIT to be the new worldwide director of Xbox Live Arcade (good for him).

This was a spirited discussion, with a lot of strong personalities, with an interesting, largely three-way dynamic between Edery (who by his admission is strongly drinking the sugared beverage), Sanchez (whose GameTap is arguably the most in competition with Xbox Live Arcade), and Spector (who is mature, opinionated, but amazingly open to reconsidering his statements when someone posited a well-thought counterpoint or example; I hope I can be that mature).

Good debate, and, like the "Hollywood and Video Games" panel, seemed to miss the point on recent happenings with episodic content.

Micropayments were actually a point of contention, with Sanchez saying they were "good", and Spector saying they made no sense -- until Edery gave the Oblivion example, then Spector gracefully recanted (at least with that example).

Ads in games were a point of contention, too. Spector dreads the day "someone tells me I have to put advertising in my games" (as do I; Webzen's Huxley deal with Massive, Inc. has me bothered), while Olivera and Sanchez saying they were a viable revenue stream. Unfortunately, there was not much discussion given to the difference between in-game ads, and ad-supported games -- two very different beasties. Edery was a bit mum on this, which makes sense, since Microsoft just purchased Massive, Inc., arguably the #1 in-game advertising company. Maybe his silence was unrelated.

A good panel overall, and it was neat to see 5 such intelligent people maturely debate the topic. With some minor (incorrect) barbs about "outdated consoles", etc. ...