Christopher H & Robin S Next Generation of Interactive Streaming Games Now Lecture Series

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okay welcome back to games now lecture series  i'm annakaisa kultima and this is straight from   aalto university not during the coffee time though  in the sense of a physical location but still it's   out of university lecture series about game  development about trends in the industry about   emerging and dominant things that happens right  now as the games now title gives you the queue   together with solip uh park we are  here to host you an amazing one more   lecture for the spring solip how are you today  all right yeah yeah that's good good how are you   i'm great the weather is perfect in  helsinki and during the weekend there   has been almost like a summer time feel  walking down the city so that's absolutely   amazing and it gives you a lot of energy  i guess but we are happy streaming   too well you can't see the weather in this blue  screen but so yeah yeah i'm going to assure you   that the weather is amazing here in finland we  could lie here but anyway so it's it's a perfect   day uh also perfect day for streaming uh and  perfect day of talking about streaming so there   is a new kind of uh trend the way which is like  is it dominant or is it emergent i'm not sure it's   pretty dominant in certain ways but also a trend  that not too many uh game developers always follow   so this is a great opportunity for us to discuss a  bit more how then the future of streaming and kind   of uh viewing games and and uh being passive  or active player and how all all sorts of all   these things happen in the future i guess um so  today we have two nice speakers chris and robin   talking about their experiences with this trend  uh so yeah let's introduce our speakers i guess   okay so just like anna kaiser said we have two  speakers and as you can see in the banner up there   one we have christopher hamilton the director of  developer relations at genvid technologies chris   is being an expert in game production localization  business development and partner relations and he   has been working in the video game industry for  more than 14 years and our second speaker also up   in the banner is robin squire who is a co-founder  of blackblock and has been working there as ceo   since 2018 is a marketing expert actually and  a strategist and a lifelong mmo player who is   now aiming to bring large-scale connected open  worlds to mobile so we have amazing speakers very   interesting topic to discuss pretty impressive and  like the regular way of the lecture we have the   presentations and then we also have the questions  and answer at the end and today i have a we have a   special treat also an after party at our discord  channel a bit more of that later on the lecture   but let's say hello to our speakers hi chris  and robin hello hello hey how you doing   do we have you guys on the screen i guess we have  you guys on screen um yeah so how are you doing   how is the day for you yeah heartbreak focused  on giving this presentation when the weather is   nice here but it's still nice that the weather  is finally that the sun has finally come out   and the weather is finally nice we hope  it lasts yeah it will last it will last   so yeah are you excited to share your insights to  the topics definitely very good so let's get into   the business and let's give the stage to chris uh  you're ready i guess to show your presentation and   will be silent unless there's something  to ask and people you can chat about your   questions on the chat box yep go ahead chris  okay is the the screen's all there almost set great hi everybody welcome to this presentation  on the next generation of interactive streaming um i'll just cover a little bit about myself  and judgment technologies i will talk about   massive interactive live events for miles  um i'll talk about spectator-centric design   and three levels of interactivity  and then i'll jump into rival geek   a multi-million dollar collaboration that we had  with facebook and do a postmortem on that project   and i guess then i'll hand it over to robin  and we'll take questions after his presentation   before i get started i do want to talk about  what genvit is not because there do seem to be   some misconceptions regarding what we do so  i'll say that genvid is not a streamer tool   we are not cloud computing we're native cloud  streaming and the difference is that we scale more   cheaply than multiplayer servers and then we are  not a platform we are not competing with twitch   rather we're a preferred twitch partner  um but we're platform agnostic we have   games on twitch youtube facebook all of  these platforms have different audiences   and we feel it's important for developers to  choose the platform that best fits their game   um so my name is christopher hamilton and i'm  the director of developer relations in europe for   gender technologies um i've been in the industry  since 2007 and here are some of the better known   companies that i've worked for on the left um i'm  an american i used to live in saint petersburg   russia uh i speak russian uh and i have been based  in helsinki since 2014 and i'm still working on   my finish uh it's quite a ways to go um i've  been mainly in production and partner relation   roles with a lot of liveops experience of rovio i  also feel very strongly about giving back to the   community by working with various organizations  which you can see on the right i'm on the boards   of the igda and the finnish game jam i'm still  very involved in igda finland my undergraduate   degree was on the environment and media and  raising awareness through science reporting   and i'm looking at games as a more modern media  for this and i've been working with a number of   companies and initiatives like playing for the  planet with unep um and just initiatives work   with charities to raise awareness i'm an advisor  for four good games which is a small company here   in helsinki and i have been slowly building a  special interest group for this under the igd   umbrella so if anybody's interested in any of this  um do feel free to reach out to me after the talk   um genvid technologies was founded in 2016 by some  square enix veterans it is a u.s headquartered   startup with offices in new york la montreal tokyo  and berlin i'm in helsinki technically i'm out of   the berlin office the company is backed by some  leading uh games pcs like galaxy interactive and   maker's fund and we have people from both of  those funds in our board and to my delight we   have amazing advisors like x square enix ceo  uchiwada digital media executive matt ball   anna suite who is instrumental in building  valve and steam into what they are today and jt   gleason uh who was at twitch for more than eight  years and key roles in leading both partner and   developer relations have a stalwart team of highly  talented folks that are a lot of fun to work with   many have worked at blizzard riot square enix  ubisoft and wargaming and have rich experience in   game development esports and live ops and you can  see the variety in terms of ethnicity and gender   there's also diversity and background  experience and age we feel it's very   important to have a diverse team help us tackle  a lot of these streaming experiences that we're   helping companies to create our mission is to  power the future of interactive media we believe   that people love shared experiences um  more so when their participation matters   be it gaming sports reality tv these are the  events that become water cooler moments in the   office or these days perhaps just what people are  chatting about the random channel on slack um and   we are already working with top tier platforms  leagues and events to create those experiences   games and traditional media  are at a point of convergence   uh perhaps an ongoing evolution of convergence  is media is trying to become more engaging   like games are and some games are addressing  louder a larger audience of spectators by   creating non-gaming experiences and interactions  for them so when talking about interactive   streaming it could be something like the netflix  choose your own adventure style vandersnatch   um it could be the zoom revolution  that we're in now with people talking   to one another and asking questions but long  story short both sides are trying to become   more interactive and increase their mass  market appeal this is happening now and   game developers should be thinking about this  ongoing shift in paradigm and the new forms of   gameplay that players and viewers can have  together and i'll touch on that a bit later um interactivity is the future of mass uh media  content and massive interactive live events what   we call miles are the next step in this evolution  turning passive viewers into active participants   we seek to disrupt the traditional  broadcast experience by offering   increased interactivity and a better viewing  experience for the widest possible audience   so miles are cloud-powered highly engaging  and interactive live broadcast events that   allow anyone to be part of a large audience while  directly participating in a meaningful way miles   combine the best of lean forward gaming lean  back tv and the thrill of live entertainment   here the audience will matter and the  individuals inside can decide their own   level of involvement or influence miles can  be designed in a number of different formats   or combine multiple styles that  best fit these specific events and so now i'm going to apologize to people who  aren't interested in sports but i find that this   is a good analogy to explain what we're talking  about because sports are games with rules and   objectives and while miles are not exclusive  to sports again concert events reality tv   make great events that bring people together but  the examples in sports are just simply closer to   gaming and in order for games to be disruptive  in the space we need to think about some of the   success that we've seen in traditional media and  traditional media has a service design that games   really don't have and that is a focus that is  beyond just the player we have a larger view of   what it is to be a sports fan and that's because  there's an entire service design around that   there are people that are playing in a physical  stadium somewhere in the world and then there   are people that pay to go to the stadium and watch  and these people are paying the highest per capita   and then there's the largest demographic and  that is the people watching at home on tv   but there is a service design behind this that  goes from player to participant in the stadium   to viewer at home where the player  is just a concentrator for the funnel   and so if we juxtapose this to the digital  world games in this case you have people   that are playing um the participant doesn't  really exist and then we jump to viewers   and that participant experience ends up being the  core of what the viewer experience is built upon   so if you are at the stadium and you have you  have the people that are closest to the field   they have the best access to the live players and  the people at home are watching facsimiles of this   participant experience you have different camera  angles you are zooming in on different players to   see different plays um you have scoreboards that  let you know how much time is left on the clock   or what the score is but there is a service  design around this that allows the viewer   to enjoy that participant experience and for the  most part in the digital world we have jumped from   the player experience to the viewer experience and  we're just watching the player view for everything   and that is not really the best way to build  experiences for viewers so right now we have a   growing underserved market which is the viewer  historically game developers have been great   at creating great gaming experiences focused  on the players they know how to monetize them   developers are just starting to get comfortable  with thinking of viewers as part of the ecosystem   which is why it's kind of exciting to be  in this space and be talking about it now   twitch continues to post record quarters both  with regards to hours watched and viewer counts   on the platform um there's a bit of seasonality  in the statistics and clearly the ongoing global   pandemic caused a spike in viewership but there  was significant growth before covet 19 and it   seems coveted simply accelerated these trends now  again apologies to the people in the audience who   don't know anything about baseball but in many  ways this highlights my point of why viewers   are underserved um because most streaming  experiences look something like this um so streamers can only broadcast from the player's  perspective and in this particular slide i can't   tell maybe who the player is um if this is an  important moment in the game if there is anybody   on base what the score is what the tactics  or strategy are um so it's really difficult   to follow what's happening in this game um and  strategy tactics and team coordination are all   lost without giving an audience that understanding  of the bigger picture and so i as a viewer when   i'm watching a game on twitch if i don't play  that game i usually have no idea what's going on   and therefore it's not engaging for me um and so  it's important to note that game developers and   not streamers but game developers are in the best  position to address viewership of their games game   developers have the ability to put in new camera  angles they can create interactive experiences   that address viewers they can provide data that  help explain what is going on in the game um   and it's important to note the professional sports  are spectator driven businesses so game developers   are only now starting to build spectator-centric  value into their games and tap into this audience   um so we at genvette are focused  on that participant experience   we feel by creating a value-driven participant  experience that has multiple layers of   engagement where viewers can affect what they are  watching we can create a really cool funnel that   benefits everyone in the ecosystem players  participants and viewers alike um so again   think of the physical world players aren't paying  for the most part uh they are being paid um   participants are in the stadium are paying  the most but they're there at the stadium and   likely having the most fun and it's because of  that participant experience that they are able   to create that viewer experience and drive  the most revenue through broadcast rights so players of the core demographic that developers  are thinking about today they are basically   uh they're the only monetized segment today  um interactive viewers again another way of   saying participants are an opportunity um game  developers make interactive experiences geared   towards players um but there is an opportunity  in making interactive experiences for viewers   and spectators benefit from  an enhanced more enjoyable   and more importantly more understandable  experience that will help drive fandom and value   so what does this mean um people go to stadiums  to enjoy that rich experience they they get that   through understanding the game or the music  if it's a concert uh and they want to go to   an event knowing that they are competent about  what they are watching um so here are ways that   we can add value um and create enjoyment  competency in fandom so here on the left   um are some some uh slot we have a slot of uh  bird's eye view camera angles and maps that can be   toggled off that can provide users with again that  that big picture that was sort of missing in that   baseball slide um i can select a new camera angle  i can pull up live stats that help me follow my   favorite player i can compare my favorite player  against other players or other fan favorites   i can see tactics as they come around on the map  and this just helps create a competent audience   that understands what's going on in the game and  understanding um increases engagement uh jumping   to the middle unlike sports video games are  constantly evolving we live in a world of live ops   and the rules and the gameplay change over time um  so it's important to tell viewers what's going on   so they can understand what they are watching  this is super important to help novices get   into the experience and in fact most people  that are watching streamers today they are   watching to sort of learn tips and tricks  from players that are really good at the game   and that is sort of an on-boarding process um  and this is also a way of re-engaging potential   players that you may have lost so let's say  that there's an rpg event that's happening um   i have a an ogre that was powerful from before  there's a weekend event ogres have a two times   buff for the weekend maybe i i see this by going  to um the interactive live stream on twitch and i   go oh hey i have that powerful olga from before  let's dust him off and see what he can do um   and then jumping to the last slide um you have  viewer interactions where the viewer can reach out   and touch the game and actually impact and affect  what is happening by perhaps providing the player   with a lifeline by sending some extra health  or or trolling them by by setting some traps   so when thinking about the different types of  interactivity we like to structure our thinking   a little bit so uh we tend to break this down  into three different tiers the first of which   is informational and again this is just giving  viewers information and the goal here is to have   a confident viewer um so like being able to adjust  the volume on a traditional broadcast you should   be able to adjust things like stats or data or  and being able to toggle things off like what's   in a player's inventory maps and where they are  on those maps and this is just data that is sent   along with a stream of audio and video so it's  just a sort of a html5 uh web overlay on top of   video the next tier is customizable and this is  the idea that you have different demographics   and different interest groups that are watching  your game and giving them each a native experience   so this could be a localized version in their  own language uh or it could be allowing them   to cater information to a specific team or a  specific player that an audience is following   um it could be something like giving um  different cameras or different language options   um in esports we're already beginning to see um  segmentation between say an english or korean   specific channels uh and this helps create that  sort of home in a way feeling and shoutcasters   talking about specific teams so the easiest way  to think about this is is customized cameras   and customized data feeds with separate chat  or cheering functions and again this is just   web overlay on top of video so it's really  not hard to do um and then last and this is   where game developers usually jump to first and  that is the influential tier and this is where   viewers can can reach out and touch the game  and have that effect on the player experience   um be it something like cheering um or i just  you know tap on a icon on the overlay and i can   cheer for specific players uh and that might have  a visual representation or it might have an audio   representation where the the players can actually  hear cheering noises in their headsets um or it   could be something more impactful so it could  be something very nuanced uh like i can cheer   and the cheering might buff an npc or a boss  character and it might make those those enemies   more powerful and the viewers enjoy that because  it gives something more challenging to the players   and then maybe the players get much better  drops as a result of these puffed characters or it could be something more  impactful like buying a grenade   uh throwing it into the middle of a match and just  seeing what it does um or sending in supply drops   and then watching all the players race after the  goods we start with the informational tiers just   because it's the easiest to implement it's just  exposing data and putting it in a web overlay   um customizable tends to take more time to figure  out what optimal camera angles the developers may   want to put in um and this is can this can be  really tricky actually i was working with a   a team that was working on a racing game and we  wanted to have different kind of overhead sky   cameras in but they hadn't actually drawn that  part of the world and so we had to choose cameras   that didn't expose unmade parts of the game  which made choosing some of the camera angles   more challenging and we ended up having more  more follow uh cams that would follow some of   the the racers instead um and then obviously  um influential is the hardest it takes a lot   of time to figure out uh player balance and  enabling viewer inputs that are fun for both   the viewers and the players in a way that it  doesn't completely destroy the player experience   so why would you want to do this um basically  because if you build an audience um and fandom   you can monetize it um maybe it's a way to  attract more players um both informational and   customizable tiers can be put behind a paywall or  paid for through a sponsorship or monetize through   ads while the influential tier opens up the  possibility of micro transactions where viewers   can be buying consumables or cosmetics that impact  their experience as well as everyone around them   um and it's it's interesting to note that as of  february uh last year um 590 million bits had   been cheered on twitch i was looking for some more  updated uh information on that but couldn't find   any um this morning so so this empowers viewers to  become more active participants in the ecosystem   and it helps drive these massive interactive  live events that i was talking about earlier   and so now i'll move on to rival peak um rival  peak for anybody who didn't uh hear about it   um was basically a new um unique interactive  reality show that facebook debuted on december 2nd   it got a lot of attention from both  industry insiders and the general media   and so i'll start this off with just a very  quick overview of some of the statistics   and then i'll explain some of  the elements more in detail   the project originally ran from december 2nd to  march 3rd with more than 100 million minutes being   viewed it's currently running in a rerun mode now  that i'll actually demonstrate a little bit later   um there were 55 times the amount of minutes  watched um difference between week one and week   13. and perhaps this is the best indicator since  facebook didn't start marketing the game until   week three um but we were kind of there testing  for stability and bugs and issues like this   um there were a number of sort of core  interactions that the audience could   engage with and most of them were engaged  with the storyline by reading the dialogues   and then there were other sort of voting and  choices and mini games like match threes and   memory games that other audience participation  events and ways that viewers could participate um   as development went along we we added things  to help gamify the ins experience and to make   things more understandable to the viewers  um and in terms of basic demographics the   top five countries were the united states  mexico brazil india and the philippines   um i was very surprised i have an extensive  experience in making casual games which is   really more geared towards women and this  experience to me felt more like a very casual   sort of fishbowl type experience where all you  could do is is tapping so i was very surprised   that men had actually edged out women in terms of  the audience um and i was honestly quite surprised   that so few people engage on facebook on pc these  days but i guess that's more telling of my age   um than anything else um and now i'll explain  a little bit more about uh rival peak itself   um rival peak was powered by genvin technologies  with design and creative by pipework studios and   dj2 entertainment and while rival peak looks like  a game it is a culmination of a decade's worth of   effort to create the world's first native cloud  streaming experience so we can say that rival   peak isn't a game rather it is a a mile a massive  interactive live event um it is built on the idea   that interactive stories should not be based or  the interactive story should be based around an   entire audience not just a single viewer um  that your decision should have consequences   to you and everybody else that is involved in  the experience um and that there are no do-overs   there's no pausing there's no way to know who's  gonna win um during the 12-week run the world   of rival peak didn't stop um its characters were  constantly in motion and the story unfolded as the   audience participated and played along um so while  facebook lacks an extension program like twitch   it does have the world's leading html5 platform  so we worked with facebook gaming to use an html5   video player to put the live streams from our tech  into 13 different facebook instant games and then   link them all together to reach facebook's two  billion users around the world instantly nothing   to download install um it works on low-end android  devices that are a pain for developers to support   that is highly accessible and is really that the  fact that it works so well on low end android   devices as to why we perform so well in markets  like brazil mexico india and the philippines um   and so i find that quite interesting um as a mile  rival peak is made up of three components um there   is the facebook instant game which as i mentioned  was actually 13 instant games all linked together   and that's one for each um artificial intelligent  character stream uh and then one for the main home   stream it's a persistent world and this part  is similar to the reality show big brother   uh where there's an audience uh the audience  can follow them 24 7 and kind of know what the   contestants are doing um the contestants are  all driven by a very sophisticated ai that was   developed by pipework studios and all the voting  takes place through audience participation events   or aapes or apes as we call them which are various  user interactions that i'll touch upon later in   the demo um but the contestant with the lowest  score at the end of each week is eliminated   and the audience votes by engaging with them  through the simulation um the second part   of the mile is is a companion show called rival  speak it was a facebook watch original show   that was hosted by will wheaton um and it was  more than just a companion show he guides the   audience deeper into the world its secrets and  its characters and this part of the show was   actually more like lost with a very complex  storyline filled with conspiracy theories   and total craziness dreamed up by the team at  dj to um and the narrative here serves as sort   of the experiences metagame sort of saying um  it was really more than a wrap-up show it was   it was you know it went through what happened but  will interviewed the contestants he provided more   information of their background and set the story  up for the following week um and it was a bit   challenging because will and the producers did not  know who was getting eliminated week on week um   so it was truly a crazy production schedule that  i'll also touch on later and then there's actually   the social platform itself um with the rival peak  page on facebook there were several fan pages that   provided additional information and ways for the  audience to follow what was happening get caught   up in the story line find out more information  about the contestants and it's interesting that   people would uh before watch something like  game of thrones and sort of live tweet their   reactions to what was happening and this was  happening all right on facebook's platform   so um before i want to jump into the demo i  want to get you caught up to speed with what's   happening in the sim which is a little challenging  because it's a little bit like summarizing the   whole i don't know how many seasons of lost in  just a few minutes um so when rival peak began way   back in december it really looked like a digitally  animated tv reality show there were 12 ai   contestants each with different backgrounds sort  of struggling to survive in the pacific northwest   and then the story storyline got a little weird  jeb saw a haunted floating acts in the camp   antonio started having strange dreams then maybe  all the contestants were having the stream same   strange dreams the audience through their  participation helped the contestants traverse the   map only to have the group split by a landslide  they ran through haunted woods discovered a   secret bunker only to be forced into some sort  of post-apocalyptic wasteland by a mudslide so   fans sort of quickly pieced together that  there was too much coordination and that   maybe the mysterious tangram labs the  so-called sponsors behind the reality   uh show competition may have some more sinister  uh motives here um so in the re-run of everything   we are sort of slightly past the midpoints  which originally was somewhere late january   i want to say um all the characters that have been  eliminated in the game have returned to the game   um in this bunker uh that you can see here which  is they are sort of on a side quest of sorts   helping the audience sort of figure out  what's going on and unravel the mystery   um behind the game behind the narrative behind  rival peak and tangram labs um and while they're   eliminated and can't win they're still back uh  and with that i will actually jump into the game and so uh it will load right now into facebook and so this is basically the landing page this is  a stream that will cycle through all the different   characters and the ai um driven people just some  basic elements some information as to what's going   on in the game there's sort of a facebook login  multiplier here on the left um this tells me sort   of what day that we're in uh this will refresh  the screen this is sort of me as you can see my   wonderful little face here um and this just  tells me kind of which characters i've been   following the most who's been getting most of my  votes um achievements and leaderboards that we've   put in to make uh really gamify the experience  a little bit more um it's available in efig's   basic tutorial that we can run through um i have  the sound effects off simply because all of these   different characters have different music um and i  quite like the electronic music of winter and so i   just usually have her going on in the background  and um it's sort of fun background music we added   uh just a quick link to watch all of the sort of  cut scenes that happen um sort of throughout the   various stages of the game uh and then uh linked  directly to all the the issues of uh rival speak   um which they get truly insane by the end  um then you can see winter here is kind   of doing jumping jacks um we'll jump to winter  screen by just tapping our icon down here below   again this is videos what you see that's not  loaded in the video these are all sort of ui   elements everything else is part of a live  stream that's streaming sort of right out of   the clouds um into facebook um and so we can see  that she has this activity she's getting exercise   i can tap here and help speed up her getting  exercise so this is what i was talking about   before one of these audience participation  uh events um and again this is really what   facebook wanted they wanted something that  was sort of a very light touch casual fishbowl   what i like to call an ant farm type experience um  that again you can lean back and just kind of take   it all in or you can kind of jump in and and get  more involved um there's also sort of a daily vote   um where we can give the contestants a clue  or if by disguised as a clue i'll be kind and   just say let's just give them a clue submit  that so that's the daily votes um there's um   also this uh map that kind of shows where all  the characters are and you can see we've got six   characters in the underground subway system in the  bunker and then six that are in this research area   and then let's see what judd's doing jump to  jet stream he might have something going on   um he is i guess he's getting warm by the fire  we'll see if i can find somebody that's got uh   a more interesting task that we can do um  okay so here um sabun is um figuring out what   he should do next in this case um look around  get warm or socialize he's been fairly social   eats i think he needs to get warm so we'll say  get warm vote and play um and then here i just   get thrown into sort of a match three minigame  type thing to get involved with um i'm not going   to really bother with this but eventually this  will count down if i made the same vote as a   number of other people have made then i'll get  some bonus points for this and someone will get   some bonus points for my sort of involvement um  with him but that's that is basically the crux of   of rival peak we can come back to this uh later uh  if we want um put this back into full screen mode right um so in terms of the narrative um  steven fugaj who's the creative director   of dj2 entertainment who's known for his narrative  work on um several telltale games such as the   tales of the borderlands um walking dead season  two the wolf of mungus he said that what we're   doing in rival peak represents an evolution in  terms of narrative creation this goes way beyond   selecting um dialogue trees um where players  vote on different dialogue choices here   players are interacting with the more physical  evolution of what these characters are doing   and in turn that influences the dialogue so you're  not voting directly on who's going to say what   you're sort of influencing the characters  that they as they pass through this world   and that ultimately influences the story and  so it was an interesting challenge making the   video on demand show because the deadlines were  tight and it was complex and they didn't know   who was getting eliminated so they had to  come up with a very creative framework to   um take into account how characters would be  eliminated and how that was kind of out of   their hands and so they came up with some clever  tricks in order to preserve um dialogues that were   written and that's sort of why we have a bunch  of these characters appearing in the bunker   at the midway point because that way they  could re use a bunch of dialogues between   any two characters that were in the bunker  or adapt them to fit the current storyline and then uh imagine sort of  watching a sporting event and   yelling at a team or a player and actually  having that having an effect on the game and   and here both collectively and individually  the audience members are influencing a   number of aspects in rival peak in in big  ways and small from affecting the weather   um to accelerating tasks choosing goals um  viewers are driving the plot in the subplot   in real time as they are experiencing the show  um and these instances of audience influence   influence are called apes and there are project  apes that are really involved with removing   environmental hazards or puzzles or obstacles  typically it advances the storyline once per day   and can arrange from something like cleaning  debris or setting up tents or more advanced   things like building a bonfire or making a  bridge um but again viewers help push that   along and uh decide kind of the direction of  where things evolve by how they engage with   characters um action apes are similar to project  apes but on a smaller more personalized scale um   and they just these are the things that i was  tapping on they're just the quick tap mini game and um again they're they're specific to a  specific character because not everybody is   watching all these 13 street uh streams um or  all these characters usually you may only have   a number of people watching each one um and  then uh goal apes are uh ones where um you   select uh what a particular ai character will do  next um and each of the 12 characters in rival   peak have their their own live stream channel  so the audience members can follow them and   jump from one to another every so often a  character will just sort of stand still and   sort of assume this this thoughtful pose um  and that's when this widget will come up and   uh you can follow them and kind of tell them what  they're gonna do next and usually something like   hydrate get warm nourishment and then usually  something additional some sort of random goal   and then viewers can select one of those and  play a mini game and sort of push the thing   forward so um with rival speak we knew um some  of the segments in advance but we didn't know who   was going to get eliminated each week um so as a  result um we had to rapidly change dialogue scenes   and animations to release the the rival speak  episode each week a typical week had a lot of   changes based on those interactions and user  scores were counted from saturday to friday   with the cutoff being friday evenings that gave us  the weekend to sort of readjust everything and the   story line um will was shot on monday production  and editing took place on tuesdays and then on   wednesdays the instant game would go down um we  would upload the next week's worth of contents   and then an episode of rival speak would air 6 pm  pacific time with new streams coming back up at 6   30 pacific time we had qa teams and marketing  teams working 24 7 to respond to each user's   issues post new content on the character  pages and other facebook pages and just   ensure that that streams were up and running  and running normally the live operation team   was every so often having to push new code or  reset things we um had one um player stream   for whatever reason the ai in the game got stuck  on a wolf and was running around following this   wolf for 20 minutes and so it took some time to  reset that um in terms of uh rival peak itself   miles are new um the tech stack is unique and it  was a bit of a challenge doing all of this amidst   the global pandemic um and kind of amazing that we  did the whole thing in roughly seven months um and   so since we were very unsure how this was gonna  work out we held off on on marketing for the first   couple weeks just so that we could do bug testing  learn uh adjust get feedback from players and we   we realized that we needed to more clearly  explain what new users um should do um the   original landing page was meant to be something  that was clean with no ui and a lot of this was   just really confusing for a lot of people so we  added this little tiny description on the left   um and we thought this little description  would kind of do it and explain kind of   to the viewers what to do but but clearly it  didn't so a couple weeks later um we created   um the version on the right that has this sort of  cnbc like banner with an explanation explanation   of how to get to the video the instant game um  and updates on the week's events and and more   um we also thought that there was enough  interactivity uh for the audience and for   for most of the fans it really was but um a lot  of people still wanted to interact with people   um and so we started experimenting with  co-streamers that would actually guide the   audience through the the latest updates and read  and perform some of those character dialogues   um and make their own impact on the game if you  will and we don't think of them as streamers   because they're not actively playing the game  we think of them as influencers because they're   they're coming into the game they are bringing  their audiences in they are sort of guiding them   as to maybe who their favorite players are and  getting those masses of players in involved in in   helping uh the storyline sort of unfold um  and this ended up being sort of a big success   um for the project because it just brought  lots of people into the game and and   even though they were rotating in and out lots of  people were staying in the experience in general   um so quickly we had sort of an audience  co-streamer and ai characters all collaborating in   real time in this shared simulation deciding the  fate of what was happening in this this game that   became a nightly thing at least for audiences in  the western hemisphere i missed all this being in   europe and just not the right time zone um and  then like all good developers we listened to   our users um we had such a flood of requests  for iphone or ios support that that facebook   finally decided to put the resources behind it  and make it happen um so power to the people um   and then there were other tweaks like we added  the map um and uh just to kind of show where   contestants were um integrating links uh really  adding various types of mini games uh and other   elements just to make it feel more more gamified  really um but you know we like to say keep the   feedback coming because your participation matters  and that's that's what's important really um the   key takeaways um audiences watching live streams  uh it's growing faster than the games markets um   rival peak had a potential audience of of two  billion users um native cloud streaming reduces   friction there's absolutely nothing for the user  to download or install just jump right into the   game and because it's highly accessible because  everything is getting rendered in the cloud   it works very well on low-end devices  that are otherwise difficult to support   um and with that i'll say thank you i guess  i will prepare to pass it over to robin um   there is a link here um that i think solo or  or maybe i will post in in discord later um   so robin's about to talk about retreat  uh we're gonna do some play testing on   the latest version of retracts uh hopefully  the first week in may and we're also working   working on on a pilot uh game jam event so if  you're interested in in participating in either of   those two events please use the link let us know  what you're interested in doing give us your email   address and and we'll get back to you and thanks  thank you robin go for it i'm handing the baton i guess we can go directly to robin we we um  we could also chat a bit in the in the between   but we can go directly if you think that that's  the seamless the best way to do but that's   absolutely amazing and interesting uh talk and  i'm just excited to have all the questions flowing   later in the session so do you have anything to  remind at this point or should we just move on   well so chris just mentioned the link for the  survey so that link is currently on discord   and if needed we will also try to share that  on our youtube video in case some of the people   are joining us later not just on this live  twitch but on youtube okay great finally chris   uh disabled his screen sharing so our twitch  technician was a bit confused in between those   okay so when robin is ready i think we can start  following yeah i'm gonna say just in between that   i'm mind blown and i'm just really excited to ask  more questions but robin there you go here we go   hey everyone hope you can hear me well um hope  you can see my screen okay great presentation   chris mine's a little bit shorter so hopefully  we'll have some good time for discussion after   after i've gone through my slides as well so um  my name is robin squire a little bit about me i'm   a big mmo fan actually i've been playing everquest  was sort of the first mmo game that really kind of   ignited something within me and i was playing that  around the age of 14 with a bunch of adults that   didn't know they're playing with a 14 year old  and that was really sort of where you know i'd   always loved games as a kid but that's where kind  of my passion for games really kind of unlocked   seeing these sort of online worlds that  are always changing when you're asleep   and that are filled with people and things  happening and adventure and all of that stuff that   it sort of changed my way of looking at games ever  since playing that um sort of fast forwarding a   bit i went and started a business management with  marketing degree so i graduated from that that   was at brighton university and i mainly chose to  study this because i didn't know what else to do   i had no idea what i wanted to do as part of a  career i kind of thought it would be nice to work   in games but i don't know how i'll get there so  i picked the most generic um thing to study and   thought well we'll figure that out down the line  so i went and did that but during my time studying   uh this degree i actually started to apply some  of the knowledge i was i was learning on business   management and marketing to the games industry i'd  always been following the industry as a consumer   but for the first time i was actually looking  at it critically and analytically thinking about   sort of the industry and the companies within  it and their business decisions and um and so on   and that really made me kind of really really want  to work in games so i started then pivoting my   dissertation or thesis um into games industry  cases and things like that and i came out of   university and was like i'm going to work in games  i'm going to either work in games pr or i'm going   to work in journalism because those are kind of  aligned with what i what i already had studied   and kind of what i already knew knew how to do so  i went and handed my cv out to many companies some   of them unfortunately didn't let me through the  door but you know i don't hold it against them   i worked a bunch of freelance jobs where i  wasn't getting paid any money so definitely   put the free and freelance writing reviews and  stuff like that i interned for companies working   on blogs of games companies eventually i just  gave up i was like this isn't going anywhere   i'm still you know still don't have a career  i need to go and take a job so i ended up   going into the pr marketing field working  at an agency marketing agency in soho london   and while i was working there i don't know how it  happened but i ended up meeting the right people   working on the right projects and landed a job  working with ravio in finland so i moved here   and i was working as community manager ahead of  the community management team at ravio and then   that later progressed into the consumer engagement  director role and then the marketing director role   and then i've been 10 years working in games  and living in finland ever since and i since   ravio i gone over to work at a company called  play raven where i was director of marketing   business development they were later acquired  by rovio and had some pretty interesting   projects and i met some like-minded  individuals and co-founded blackblock   and was ceo of that company so ultimately  i tried to find a career in games but   games found me i think that's also a running theme  as well for a lot of games industry professionals   actually they kind of it doesn't work  out and in the end they just somehow   through chants land in games and and make it  work so you have to be able to embrace the uh   the unknown and the disappointment early on um  but what we're trying to do here at black block   is we're trying to work on mobile first connected  open world so what we mean by that is basically   mmo games done for mobile done mobile first um and  we're working on a title called retroit so retro   is all about living in the city it's a massive  open world it's set in always online sandbox   city and every vehicle in the world is driven by  a real player it's a very very lofty ambition with   this but we're building it mobile first so we're  focusing on making it simple and accessible and   something that can be played in short bursts and  events driven we recognize that mmos traditionally   have a very very steep learning curve they  require a lot of time spent playing them   they're very demanding you have to be online with  your friends in the right place at the right time   we want to completely lower the barrier and do  away with that and we want to we want to basically   take it to mobile make it super accessible  but still keep that ambition of creating a   huge open world that's persistent and that can  support thousands of players in the same space   it's a free-to-play game so of course the business  model is very important to us we need to make   something that is commercially viable first and  foremost in order to basically be able to support   our creative endeavors and do these crazy things  so players will be unlocking new vehicles they'll   be participating in a dynamic job economy that'll  be rising and fluctuating based on the actions   within the game and they'll be participating as  part of a community and then with that there's   sort of a deep social media game on the back  of that to keep people engaged and playing for   for not just days or weeks or months but hopefully  years so you know they'll be living in the actual   city they'll be living in a community with their  friends engaging in political systems and so on   and then this is where where we get into the  stuff we're doing with genvid so we are mobile   first but we're also cross-platform later or  cross-platform second right so we are and one   of the things we're doing in that space is looking  at this interactive live streaming functionality   it's very important for us to to make sure that  we're not just focused on mobile we're actually   riding the wave and sort of heading in the  direction the industry is heading which is   a direction of platforms not really mattering  the walled garden is coming down essentially   but we want to still do it from a mobile first  perspective in order to get that super mass   entry point ultimately though we just want to make  something that's as relatable and aspirational as   it can be and allow people to create the society  they had in real life because that is really   the magic of mmos is getting all of these people  together in a shared space seeing what happens so   now i just go into a few pillars just basically a  few few kind of pillars of how we see the industry   and sort of what guide our thinking our vision  so the first pillar is the future is connected   quite a cheesy generic statement but what we mean  by this is mmos as we know them today just the tip   of the iceberg rapid developments in networking  technology cloud gaming platforms computation   they're now kind of ushering in this new wave of  developers that are really focused on making these   new kind of cross-platform multiplayer experiences  or social worlds or you know online virtual worlds   and they're pushing that into the mainstream and  they're also taking bold steps into creating this   sort of high-level concept that we like to throw  around called the metaverse you know this sort of   double life that people can live online and as  chris said earlier uh the the pandemic and then   sort of the lockdown restrictions have really kind  of accelerated that you know they haven't i don't   think they've actually changed anything for good  but they've definitely led to an acceleration of   what's already been uh happening and it's kind of  the perfect storm right now so you've got these   cloud gaming platforms the investments into those  and also the networking technology and you've got   the um all the next gen online games that have  been worked on the high profile ones like eve and   amazon's new world but also the the kind of  lower profile ones that are being worked on now   by indies or vc back startups or other companies  so it's kind of like this perfect sort of stars   aligning kind of ecosystem that's happened through  all these sort of uh developments happening in the   industry and we've done our own tests in this  area already so we've done and this is a running   theme as well we try and test as much as we can  early on so our test here is that we've been   testing high ccu in the same mobile  environment so we have a mobile game   we have this virtual world that we've built we  built it super early and as soon as we built the   virtual world we started funneling uh either users  or people or bots that simulate connected users   into the save environment so we've you know tested  it with hundreds or even a thousand users in the   same environment or entities and just really  ramped it up to make sure that we actually have   robust enough tech in place to start doing these  these things and then the second pillar is that we   want to make games that are as relatable as  the world that we live in or the real world   so you know if we're trying to make a if we're  trying to push mmos or virtual worlds into   a mass market audience then we need to lower  the barrier and to make sure the experience is   as relatable as possible so that they can  enjoy it so we're less focused on doing things   with sort of dungeons and dragons or sci-fi and  spaceships and all those gaming tropes that are   actually quite niche and we're more focused on  sort of big concepts that everyone can relate   to such as sort of living your best life which  we hear so often today in 2021 so we're loving   the life sin basically as a genre so you know  there are other games out there that are hugely   successful that have touched on this before this  grand theft auto or grand theft auto online or   even the grand theft auto role play servers that  are currently sort of generating a lot of um   viewers on twitch there's animal crossing which  was kind of the game of the pandemic as as sort   of dark as it is to say which uh you know was  a massive hit for nintendo i think it increased   their their operating profits by over 400 percent  in the first quarter um and then there's you know   games like sim city uh there's a sim city building  game that's here out of helsinki there's bitlife   which is a personal favorite of mine so this idea  of being able to sort of tailor your life i feel   is an ex especially compelling fantasy now in  2021 than it ever has been before again we've   tested some of this so we've taken to our facebook  and we've taken to advertising platforms like that   and we've actually pushed our ads as early as  possible for the sort of experience that we have   so we've advertised different things you can do in  our city such as joining the police or working as   a fire engine or repairing the city all these kind  of concepts that we we think people might relate   to and we've just collected as much information on  who who these resonate with and how they perform   and actually we're very very happy with  how we've been able to validate this so far   we found out that a lot extremely large amount  of both clicks to the store page and installs   and just generally a large volume of players  were coming through based on these ads which   is great great validation for us you know i think  the thesis is that they've been seeing something   that is very different to what's already out  there and they've been responding to that   um pretty well and then the finally is we're  committed to mobile first so you know more than   half of the world's population of mobile internet  users it's kind of like what chris said earlier   with with uh all of the the rival peaks players  being on android right it's where everyone's at   so if we're going to build an online world then we  have to start start by creating something for them   and take it from there you know we don't want  to create a pc game and just chuck it on mobile   that's not the opportunity so we love mobile  mobile's mobile freedom play revenue in particular   is just continuing to increase increase it's going  to strengthen strength and we've been testing   um some of our mobile ux and design already  as early as possible and we've been able   to refine that early on and actually going  back to uh the tests we did on facebook here   that you know being able to get so many users  into the game by running tests with these kinds of   ads has allowed us to refine the game a lot more  rapidly than we otherwise might have been able to   at a much lower cost as well so now i'm getting  into cross-platform which is a little bit more   uh what we're talking about in today's kind of  uh presentation so our approach to cross-platform   is basically a platform native one so what we  want to do is have multiple entry points into   the same shared world so we have this world  the world of retreat that lives on servers   and basically each device is a unique entry  point into that same shared environment   and we recognize that basically people have  different plate habits across different devices   so people typically play a lot more frequently on  their mobile device throughout the day but a lot   shorter sessions and people on pc they might just  do one session but it'll be a much longer one same   with console so we're trying to tailor the ux and  the entry point into to to basically meet the uh   play habits of the people on these that use these  platforms and of how people typically engage with   them so basically the client is just a window into  the world it's just like a customized portal into   the world that has ux that is tailored to to that  audience and then on browser here this is where   we're starting to to get into what we're doing  with genvids so we're exposing some of the world   data and actually allowing viewers to interact  back with that server basically turning viewers   into players so with genvid we've been able  to build an interactive live streaming entry   point into the world of retro so we have the retro  live news channel and it's basically a completely   new perspective on the city that is uh native to  how people interact on those streaming platforms   and the live stream itself is 24 7  because the world is always online   and players can have access to multiple  different type cameras and viewpoints   and they can earn currency and they can interact  with the world in a very small and lightweight way   we've actually been through a couple of iterations  on this already together with gemvid so i mean for   example the first iteration we had was very  much just uh suited for one single viewer to   interact with we had one camera stream we had  one stream and multiple cameras within that one   single stream which meant that if two people  three people four people were using it they   were constantly switching around the camera for  each other it wasn't a great user experience   so our second iteration was actually working with  a unadvertised um feature called command center   and this enables us to have multiple streams uh  much like the rival what rival peaks has there   and actually allow users to switch between these  different camera camera viewpoints each being its   own separate stream so just to sort of dig into  what we're doing a little bit more specifically so   the first thing you can do is uh watch players so  the game's always online it's the exact same world   but it's from a different perspective so you're  able to access it from a bird's eye view sort of   like the ant farm perspective which you cannot see  you cannot access it from from the mobile client   or the pc client um you're able to watch live  players playing from mobile and other devices   in real time uh side note is we currently do a lot  of testing with ai at the moment but that's just a   logistical thing so you can watch the live players  playing for mobile and other devices in real time   so you can see them going about their business  in the world engaging in conflict with each other   working together so on and the world is of course  dynamic the world that we're building so you can   watch the world change as players fix it or as  they put out fires or as they do jobs or engage in   car chases you can just see all of the emergence  happening over time these are all real players   and then you can spectate and switch cameras  from you from angles uh unique to the viewer   experience so i can go from this helicopter cam  straight to a over-the-shoulder cam following a   vehicle straight to a cctv cam so now the second  thing you can do is you can earn cash so basically   this is retro sending data to the streaming  overlay and in this case the overlay on twitch   so what it's doing is it's sending data on car  crashes and cars bumping into each other in the   world over the switch overlay and populating this  this map here with these little blips and if the   user if the viewer is clicking on these blips  they can earn cash and this is obviously a very   very small lightweight thing but it's basically  just um taking this idea of data being sent from   retroit to the overlay and building something  very very small around it that we can then   start to iterate on once we get data so at the  moment we're optimizing for information we want   to do the smallest implementation of a concept and  understand how people use it and build from there   and then finally this is kind of like the reverse  to the to the earning currency one you can drop   items in the world so the viewer is actually  sending commands back to the game world and   interacting directly with the city so they're  actually using that currency they've earned to   unlock different items to drop in the world and  again this is basically trying to test an idea   it's trying to test the idea of is this engaging

2021-04-21

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