It has been fantastic to meet such inspirational and business minded individuals who make the Games Industry tick, and look forward to the exciting future developments that will come out of the conference.

The GameHorizon Conference 2010 is currently having the last drinks to say goodbye, and also say hello to lots of new and friendly faces to work with in the future.

Hope you have enjoyed reading this live blog by the Innovation North Webmaster, Sally Paddock. This is over-and-out from The Sage, Gateshead for GamesHorizon Conference 2010.

Digital media has cut out the middleman to get to the top which means that TV companies are struggling to make money because the audience is moving elsewhere.

PepsiCo are wanting to become a catalyst in the culture, rather than act like a big brand just announcing something.

Social media is acting as a direct line to gamers, which makes these networks a view to the future of marketing. Talking directly to the consumer is key! Everyone’s talking about it, people are doing it, and those doing it are not doing it very well. Is there a secret sauce to social media? Not at the minute, everyone is feeling their way through it, and no-one knows the strategy yet.

McCann is in the 4th age of advertising that consists of interruption, entertainment, engagement, and dialogue. At McCann, they aim to get two things right; the contact strategy, and insightful creativity.

Top Ten Tips:

1. An idea tells a thousand pictures.
Do you have the money? What happens for the people you are targetting that are outside of the gaming sector? When I entered the industry, it was just lots of guns. Remember to look at the outward perspective. A story is even better than the idea. An example used was Halo 3: Master Chief The Hero campaign.

2. You need to incentivise viral – Celebrity, Illegal, Astonishing
What’s the interactive mechanic? Don’t try to make a TV ad! Make an interactive piece of film. Include personalisation and people will appreciate it which means it gets sent down the chain…

3. Be Bold.
Leveraging publicity as a high value asset is one of the 8 traits of successful challenger brands. A stunt that gets on TV is seriously useful. The example would be Tour de France twitter chalkbot.

4. Few can do, if many see/hear.
2 track marketing – Content, news, backstory, we like these kinds of stories, so you can drive news/PR/real stories online. Movies have twigged to do this. Why so serious? campaign 10 million people played the DArk Knight ARG. Iron Man 2. AC/DC Co-marketing for ACDC & Iron Man 2.

5. Social Media can be fun, cheap and disposable.
Get stuck in, do lots, it’s cheap. There are also throwaway games with people which bump up web traffic. Existing entertainment cosystems. MadMenYourself on Facebook is another example. Give to the community and return you get 600,000 avatars created.

6. Website can no longer engagement.
Make sure you act on the question, what is the consumer’s incentive to visit? Stephen King’s hidden book was a brilliant idea. It was all over the web before it released. Holmes film did a browser games that was an advergame.

7. Transmedia fuels communities.
Build stories around your game. Slusho! is the drink in Cloverfield. Tru Blood example for TV show.

8. Think about the wider culture!
Take advantage of things that have nothing to do with you! Are there existing conversations you can link with? Keep an eye on discussion & be quick!

9. Give up some control.
Don’t be afraid to ‘beta’ games. Involve consumers who want access to the title in return for their help. Get consumers to make your ads.

10. Partnerships & Licensing.
Trade your incredible levels of consumer engagement. Co-marketing complementary products leads to value growth. e.g. PUMA, and Forza. Nissan & Gran Turismo.

Do something for FREE: Eutechnyx is excited about digital distribution. By 2015, there will be 7 billion users in free gaming.

The market is currently, ‘me to!’. Our attitude should be what is the future doing? But make sure it is a measured approach so not to take the baby out of the bath water.

Get to know your customers: Have an idea of what customers are doing but work out the reality of it. Forums, website, Twitter, Facebook, but talk to your community directly – they have a passion for your product.

It’s okay to start with nothing. Brand identities will be the difference in the free market. People attach themselves to brands. The BBC has recently announced that children are spending more time online on a PC than the TV! Now, there are opportunities to do deals with these corporations which maybe there weren’t before.

Invest in your future! How do you attract Venture Capital companies? Be clever about it! Have your Carrot Jam at the ready. A huge number came to Eutechnyx when they published who their Venture Capital companies currently were on the website. Competition was then fierce!

Recruit untrainable people! Always recruit people with natural talent. Get your best people to do it, a 9 out of 10 person. Remember to look for Talent. Energy. Drive (no matter what). Attitude (negative people change your company, but you can’t change them. Massive impact on teams – how do they perspective their previous employee). Integrity (once that is in question once, you can’t get it back). Concentrate on Strengths – good to great). Spend time with your best results. Work with your top performers. Weak people drain energy, passion, strength – cruel to be kind.

Give feedback to staff – a short distance from when the event was, never do it by email. Behaviour that is rewarded gets repeated.

One last drink? Thanks is given to everyone for another great conference.

The under-laying point is that the attitude that you carry is your cornerstone in business!

Attitude is what shapes whether you’re successful or not, it shapes your perspective, translates the way you see things, the opportunities you take and be careful… use it wisely! Attitude is powerful.

Leave people and things better than when you found them. Be the energy!

Follow that Darren..!

So what is the current climate today? There has been a social games gold rush, a drive to attach licenses, engaging the new audiences, new hardware, a push to extend the life of the console, and then of course there is the mobile platforms.

In America, a large proportion of game players are women. Lionhead has been driving to capture more women who can present a new and much needed fresh perspective. There are currently lots of gold rushes but the consumers are always looking for innovation.

With two successful games businesses, Bullfrog and Lionhead, Peter talks about the importance of Kinect – a new approach to gaming, seeing your body, tracking your movements, hearing your voice without a microphone. It is very much a way of playing that engages everyone but for designers it is a completely new country!

Lionhead have been thinking about Kinect – a new way to engage. Milo will be a real person to engage the user in a new way! It is ultimately a new approach to story telling.

With new ventures like this, you have to convince people that it works – and then you can produce something that changes the world.

Peter has also been working on Fable 3. You must have innovation, touch, customisation, it has to be bigger and better! It will be driving to sell 5million units. Aiming to make a profit of 150million to make the franchise work. Also, for Fable 3 it will be sold in chapters. The first episode will be free and acts like a demo, and then monetise the later episodes.

High praise was given to Kinect, because it is new innovation that people haven’t seen before. It pushes the boundaries and finds new markets.

Throughout the 18th century, society changes brought about a rise to the number of middle classes who wanted to buy their own art. The first book that broke through the linear of book sales was by a Reverend in Yorkshire who entitled the book “Life and Opinion of Tristan Shady”. Piracy was rampant, and relationships between salesman and creators were rebellious.

Like William Hogarth’s paintings, Video Games also tell a moral story as well as breaking rules and pushing boundaries. William understood that with all his books and paintings, he would sell his work from building a good, honest, reputation.

The example of William’s life works, shone light on areas in the games industry that can also build relationships with it’s audience.

To advance the research and development further, we have just opened a technology studio in Newcastle that current has 550 open positions.

Software sales in the UK alone have fallen by 14% in the last year, and currently CCP believe the current console model is broken (although some disagree).

Year upon year the expectation to produce games that are bigger and better, has put significant pressure on budgets that are proving too expensive. A direct influence has been the sequels for games that have to out do the former each time. Some have taken six years to create!

The model for creating computer games is moving more and more towards use for iPads, iPhones and browsers which are increasing mobility. In addition, opening IP’s has proved successful for developing apps further.

Having said that, Dust 514 is produced on the console, and online. The UK online market has seen a 44% increase and future games look set to be based around models that include emergent, social, and open development; games that are more than leader boards, instead creating a meaningful experience using MMO, FPS and online channels. It will be great to see more and more games downloadable online too!

The idea for Moshi Monster came from the use of children’s virtual animal toys. Many children have become educated through playing the game and have enjoyed customising aspects of the game characters and their surroundings.

Whatever the game, don’t blindly follow the market leader! It doesn’t always work… It can be hard for gamers to know where to split the line between free and paid. Whatever it is, make sure it is visible. This might be through showing off the people that have a money status!

The simplest engagement ideas often have the biggest impact. The early days is about the tweaking of the product and then afterwards comes the marketing for the product. The marketing channels included Google, Facebook, UKTV, Puzzle Game, Ask, Yahoo, Organic, Microsoft and TV. Online advertising is great, but make sure you get lots of expertise with it!

We also used TV advertising that had 10,000 viewers on a weekend campaign, and brought in £60,000 in revenue that weekend alone!

Attention to detail is also important. Pixa craft their animations to raise the bar higher and higher. Always think BIG! Always exploit the IP. Applying the IP in different locations and bringing your universe together in different worlds outside of the games space, will put you in a better position.

The online games space is growing rapidly, and is currently worth around £10billion in business today. Bigpoint is doing browser based games in collaboration with Facebook, PHP and Flash. The advantage to browser based games is their mobility whether it is via the wireless, mobiles or apps.

To reach as many people as possible, free games are often successful and can be monetised later on in the process. Bigpoint invites the consumer to play and if they are successful, Bigpoint then continued to develop the game. Currently, Bigpoint is generating about 30% more a month from developments like this. It is important within making games that community online is also important to the game play and engagement.

Casual Gamers currently have the room for the most potential growth as well as the Core Gamer. Paying users are currently spending around 25euros a month. Remember not to have a fixed price point! You will lose straight away… Micro-transactions can make up for this and are being successful in doing so.

Bigpoint has over 1000 distribution partners with Yahoo, Hotmail, Facebook, MSN, GMX, TMF, and BigFM etc. Long term partnerships like these are looking for gamer content all the time!

The ways of working using social networking sites like Facebook is changing the relationship with the consumer. And is the consumer getting used to it? How can we create new user experiences and engagement?

One of the ways is through using micro-transactions, like the example of the app store when consumers pay a small amount either as part of a game or to begin playing the game.

Console creators are becoming increasing worried about getting left behind with the increase of game play online.

Jesse begins to talk about his ideas behind where the growth is going to happen and the elements that make game play accessible. Advergaming has often been seen as a joke, but trends are increasingly drawing games partners to develop alongside retail.

Engagement, effortless and beautiful products is the direction of the 21st Century. Just look at The Sage building, Apple products, and mobile trends! Long term solutions are also important. Although there are things like FourSquare and people are shouting about it, but is it long term usage? Developers predict that the cloud gaming is the future technology to change the industry substantially.

Is it a good thing to reach Gamepocalypse? Definitely food for thought in a rapidly changing industry and room for discussion…