The Business of Casual Games

I recently received mail from a game publisher offering me free access to one of their PC games. The invitation was very nice; they were offering it to me since I talk about video games, obviously looking for a review but not insisting. I was, actually, pleased that they asked.

Yes, of course it is a marketing ploy. They would like me to write a review. But they managed to walk a very delicate balance between gifting and requiring reciprocation. It was an offer, and nothing more. And I appreciated that.

However, I was still left in a bit of a quandary. I am not a professional reviewer. I talk about games I am playing when I think I have something interesting to say about them (either good or bad). I don't review everything I play and I certainly don't have time to review lots of games sent to me out of the blue. (I do have another career, etc.)

But even that wasn't what bothered me. And then it struck me: my problem is that I don't play PC games. It is kind of funny because I work with computers all day (and frequently at night) so have plenty of opportunity. And it is not like I've never played games on computers. (I was very fond of Tetris and various Breakout clones years ago. I even wrote a few games -- toys really -- as programming practice while with one of my previous employers.)

But with a few exceptions (Myst, Riven, The Journeyman Project, and Microsoft Flight Simulator) once we got into game consoles -- and especially handhelds starting with the Gameboy SP -- I have not done any PC gaming.

Why not? Well, there are several reasons:

• Usability: Quite frankly, the keyboard and mouse are seriously under par as a control set for real-time games. They are OK for strategy/board games with a lot of pointing or typing, but otherwise the controls are awkward. Game systems on the other hand are designed specifically for that purpose. (I'll save my comments about bad game console design for another time.)
• Compatibility: why do I need a $3,000 computer to play a $50 game? Or why does a $20 game insist on resetting the color scheme and resolution of my monitor (and not setting it back)? Or why can I play games on one version of an OS and not on another?
  
• Lack of time for "real" PC games: Quite frankly, I no longer have hours to devote to the larger PC games like Myst, Age of Empires, etc.
  
• Lack of patience with "casual" PC games: I just can't get involved in the multitude of what might be called "semi-professional" downloadable games that litter the casual games market for the PC.

It is this last item that got me thinking. I know I don't have time for longer games - whether on the PC or a game console. But casual games would seem to fit right into my vector of needs, interests, and limitations. Quick, fun, no heavy investments...

But they don't attract me. Why? Because I've been burnt before. As, I suspect, have many of you.

Its very simple: there are lots of amateur and semi-pro casual games out there (most with free downloadable demos) and the majority of them stink.

Now, I am not saying there aren't console games that are deplorable (and I've been unfortunate enough to play several). I also don't feel quite comfortable with my previous remark about "the majority" of semi-pro PC games. Despite the high cost of entry for publishing console games, if I were being frank it is unclear whether the ratio of gold to dross is any higher for consoles than for PC games.

However, when you encounter a loser on a console, you simply remove the cartridge and throw it away with no side effects. No uninstall, no danger of virus contamination. No leftover hidden bits and pieces you might not know about. With PC games, there is always the lingering doubt (and plenty of quirky behavior on the part of PC's from whatever source) about its long-term impact.

So, as kind as the offer was, I declined. It is unfortunate, because I would like to give independent artists and developers their due. But ultimately, time and the technology is not on their side. This may be why the market for independent games on smart phones (such as the iPhone) is taking off. It provides both the marketplace -- and a relatively secure hardware platform -- that gives users the confidence to try out less familiar or well-financed options.

Sustainable KM: The Challenges

[Continued from Notes Towards a Theory of Sustainable Knowledge Management]

Budget is not the only factor affecting the sustainability of knowledge management. In fact, it is only a minor obstacle that tends to impact all larger business initiatives equally. By far the most important factor is the people involved in the program and their willingness to participate.

When people talk about the "sustainability" of a KM program, they are usually referring to the level of engagement of the target audience and their willingness and enthusiasm to keep participating. No effort is sustainable if its audience is resistant. However, this is unfortunately the case for many KM programs.

Some of the common complaints I've heard about KM programs over the years include:

• I don't know where to put things.
• How do I use it?
  
• Why do I have to enter this information again?
• I don't have time to participate.
• And (one of my favorites) how do I charge the time I spend on knowledge management?
  

This last is particularly confounding, because no one asks how do I charge the time I spend drinking coffee or the time I spend using the xerox machine?

Each of these complaints is often handled separately, by developing training on the benefits of the KM program or how to charge time (further increasing the size and complexity of the initiative). But they are really just symptoms of a larger problem, which is that KM is seen as separate and distinct, an "extra" activity from the normal work of the employees.

Trying to convince someone that an activity is good for them is always an uphill battle. So one of the first principles of sustainable KM should be do not to make KM additional work. Knowledge Management practices should be embedded in the existing business processes.

Note that I say "existing business processes". A second reason that KM initiatives are often so top heavy is that they attempt to alter business processes to make the processes more amenable to managing the knowledge. By attempting to change the process -- no matter how well-intentioned -- you are seriously adding to the "weight" (in terms of cost, both in resources and money) of the program and the likelihood of failure. Changing people's behavior is extremely hard to do from the outside.

Programs that are trying to externally influence behavior are easy to recognize. They inevitably include activities labeled as "change management", which can consume up to 50% of the project.

To put it crassly, change management means you are trying to get people to do something they don't want to do. This is both expensive and usually only partially successful, if that.

That doesn't mean change can't happen. Often change is necessary. But trying to dictate change leads right back to the need for an executive champion -- someone willing to enforce the change -- and all of the deficits and difficulties such sponsorship presents.

So how does change happen if you don't enforce it? It happens because it benefits the people who need to enact the change. In other words, people change when they see value for themselves in the change.

It may seem like a contradiction, but changing processes is extremely difficult, whereas getting people to change the processes themselves (if they see fit) is much easier. An example might help:

Say you were building a skills database. (I am not promoting this activity, just using it as an example.) You will require all employees to fill out a form identifying their individual skills and level of ability. Managers will use the database to find resources with the appropriate skills and employees will need to keep their entries updated.

Now, even assuming this is a good idea, why would employees participate? They get no benefit from the results of the activity (only managers get to see the results) and it repeats work they are already doing (they already have to maintain an up-to-date curriculum vitae). The effort requires training for all employees and a significant management push to get them to comply with the initial loading of the database. Worse yet, once loaded, there are no triggers in their regular work that would initiate an update. So there will have to be an equivalent effort put into getting updates every six months. This is anything but sustainable.

Before you argue that this is a nonsensical example, i would point out that I know of at least two companies using a system like this. An alternative approach would be the following:

Build the skills database so that everyone has access to the results. Use the content provided by the users to generate intranet profiles. (E.g. employees immediately see the results of their effort and get feedback from their peers as to its usefulness.) Also, collect enough information to autogenerate the CV they need to maintain under current policies.

Which system do you think employees are more likely to contribute to? By extending the initial purpose and putting in the effort to provide extra functionality, you not only fit the new system into the existing process (i.e. employees maintaining their CVs), you significantly reduce the overhead required to enforce compliance.

So another principle of sustainability is avoid change management, help change manage itself.

[Continued in Part 2]

Notes Towards a Theory of Sustainable Knowledge Management

This is the first in a series of posts.

For a number of years there has been a growing interest within the field of physical design for "sustainable architecture". Definitions may vary, but the general theme is to design buildings that do not drain the pool of natural resources: buildings that generate their own energy through solar power; that minimize the need for mechanical heating and cooling; even buildings that can be recycled without harmful bi-products when their usefulness is over. In other words, buildings that have a positive impact on the environment.

For some time now, I have thought that knowledge management as a discipline could do with a similar initiative.

Now, there are certainly things that can be done to make knowledge management systems and the computers they run on "green" or greener. However, these ecologically sound IT practices are not specific to knowledge management. They apply equally to all computerized business applications: supply chain, document management, accounting, etc.

What interests me is looking at knowledge management in a new way to see if we can reduce the impact and cost it has in terms of human resources. Can we design knowledge management initiatives with a smaller "footprint" in terms of cost in dedicated headcount, learning curve, and unique time away from people's "real" work? This is the concept I am calling Sustainable Knowledge Management.

Why Sustainable?

Knowledge Management has a reputation for requiring large, expensive initiatives with questionable results. That reputation is not entirely unwarranted. Many of the early KM programs were overly ambitious and software vendors have often sold large, all-inclusive systems (e-mail, document management, CRM, etc) as KM solutions.

Even smaller KM initiatives often require a significant upfront "push" in terms of cost, headcount, and executive attention to get them started.

Is all this effort necessary? More importantly, once the effort is underway, how much does it cost to maintain the initiative? Knowledge management is not unique in this respect. The same could be said of quality initiatives, change management, business process reengineering, etc. But my focus is KM.

Although I have no objection to having a career for life, there is a serious danger that knowledge management programs are pricing themselves out of the market. This is particularly true when there is no reliable or believable way to calculate Return On Investment (ROI) for most KM programs. This is because KM is focused on the longer-term improvement of business and employee performance and expertise, not bottom-line financials.

So without the direct-to-the-bottom-line connection between KM initiatives and improvement, it is important that KM programs reduce their disruptive impact and avoid becoming a ready target for cuts.

One common approach is to find a sponsor or a champion within upper management. Within KM circles, the need for "senior level" support is often discussed as a key component of a KM program. This means a VP or other high level manager who can influence budget and ensure the program is not axed. However, proponents of this approach are not so quick to explain what to do if you can't get that support.

Even if you do find a champion, relying on one person for your existence is risky. Management, particularly in western corporations, have a habit or restructuring and repositioning themselves frequently. It's called climbing the corporate ladder. What happens when you champion changes jobs? Can they still support your program?

Over the past 5-8 years, I've spent a nontrivial amount of time creating presentations explaining and justifying various KM programs to new managers. Having senior management support -- short of the CEO, and not even reliably in that case -- does not ensure that a KM program can be seen though to completion.

What we need is a more systematic approach to designing KM initiatives that are sustainable over the long-term.

Other posts in this series:

• Sustainable KM: The Challenges
• Sustainable KM: The Challenges (Part 2)
• Sustainable KM: The Challenges (Part 3)
• Sustainable KM: The Challenges (Part 4)
• Sustainable KM: Principles & Approaches
• Approaches to Sustainability: Embedded KM
• Approaches to Sustainability: Design to Zero

What I'm Playing: Persona 4

It seems unlikely, but I am playing Atlus's Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4. Why so improbable? Because, as I've mentioned before:

• I don't like RPGs,
• I don't have time to play long games or games that need extended play between saves,
• And I mostly play portable, not console games
  

Well, Persona 4 is a straight up RPG on the Playstation 2, complete with points system, level ups, turn-based attacks, etc. Game play consists of long story episodes with few saves spots and intermittent battles. Not exactly my usual type of game.

But I am addicted.

It is not the game play; I have hardly got far enough to have even the barest minimum control of the game. Mostly it is an extended animation interspersed with my pressing X to move mechanically forward in the story. Oh, and every once in a while I get to choose my response in discussions with other characters in the story. Only every once in a while.

And there are battles. But what has me itching to keep playing is the story, the environment, and the presentation.

• Story-wise, playing Persona 4 is like reliving high school, complete with the plodding pace, the often inane conversations, and seemingly menial activities. The game captures this perfectly -- including the verbal banter that often masks an intricate social dance of half truths, dares, flaunts, and feints. I don't need to relive high school (I am way past that) and there are many movies and TV shows that, sadly, pretend to. But few actually capture the meaningless intrusion of random external events quite like Persona 4.
  
  
• This is made all the more interesting because the story is acted out in modern Japan. This is not a ploy to create a feeling of alienation. It is an artifact of the game's origin; it was developed in Japan and Atlus unapologetically makes no attempt to Westernize it. The result is a fascinating immersion in the smallest details of Japanese culture: the houses, the streets, the furniture and clothing, even the advertising in the trains, all share a distinctly non-western look.
  
  
• Finally, the game is presented in a curious mix of 2D animation, 3D animated game sequences, audio, and printed text overlaid on top of two colored text boxes set at different angles on the bottom of the screen. The text, besides giving an edge to the presentation, also gives a "staged" appearance to the 3D segments (staged as in presented on a proscenium stage, as opposed to contrived) that helps to fit with the distinctly 2D animation. It is not a big deal, but just enough of a quirky -- partially formal, partially "hip" -- presentation to keep the player going through the story segments leading up to game play.

I know what is coming: a whole lot more fighting, dying and restarting, trial and error as I try to find the right combination of attacks and special powers, etc. Will the story be able to retain its interest through this?

Can't tell yet. But for the time being, I'm thoroughly enjoying the change of pace.

A Small Piece of Gaming History: Welcome to Gameland

I was digging through some old board games we have stored in the attic last weekend. In one box I came across an advertising flier that was a common insert in games during the sixties.

What caught my eye (besides the astonishing fact that whoever originally owned the game had not discarded it and that we had not discarded it either) was the image on the cover. The stereotypical 1950's family -- Mom, Dad, and three smartly dressed children (is the son wearing a bow tie?!) -- walking through gates made from giant board game boxes. The image itself is surreal enough. But when you consider that this was not some post-war hallucinogenic vision but a 1960's retro marketing view of what American families wanted to believe they looked like, it is also weirdly delusional.

Did we really think we looked (and acted) like that? Based on my childhood in Ohio, I would say no. But I think many parents wished their families looked like that and I can only assume the flier was intended for those parents not their children.

And today? I haven't looked inside any modern major board games recently. (I mostly play old ones, several that are listed in the flier pictured above!) But based on advertising fliers in the paper, most games are being sold to be played by children either alone or with their friends, not their parents. I don't remember seeing a lot of adults in the advertising for games and toys recently. (With one exception. More on that later.)

The advertising in the Sunday papers tend to contain product images, not entire scenes, so they are not totally representative. But over the holidays we received a special toy catalog from Target. Of the 57 pictures showing people with the products, 50 depicted children alone, 7 depicted two children playing together, and none contained any adults. Stranger still, the one picture of a child playing a board game (what one might imagine most requires multiple players) she is playing alone!

So have we reached a point where society no longer expects parents to participate in their children's play and games? The predominance of video games (which are often single-player or only multiplayer online) and "licensed" toys and games makes families playing together difficult. It can be hard for an adult to acclimatize themselves to game characters based on pre-teen TV shows such as Hannah Montana or Bakugon. (Although the game play itself is usually very traditional or simplistic.)

I mentioned before that there is an exception. If it wasn't obvious, the exception is Nintendo. The entire design and marketing campaign of the Wii video game console is that games are to be played together, often as a family. The 2008 holiday catalog for Nintendo has 17 pictures of people playing, 8 are pictures of groups playing, and half of those are multi-generational groups.

Nintendo not only defied the accepted wisdom of video game marketing (16-24 year old males playing by themselves), they defied the accepted wisdom of the game and toy industry as a whole. Neither segment has completely recovered from the result, nor learned to accept that they may have been wrong.

We are beginning to see signs that Sony and Microsoft acknowledge this previously "silent majority" market -- the new Xbox 360 avatars are an example. But the toy and game industry still does not seem ready to believe their audience contains anyone over the age of, say, 14...

The Downside of Twitter

I've written about my experiences with Twitter before. But I am considering whether I need to stop using it. The problem is too much Twitter -- I'm becoming depressed.

I only follow a small number of people (17 at this point) and most of them are interested in knowledge management. So there is a high signal-to-noise ratio -- most of the tweets are interesting and/or intriguing. But I am finding my mind is turning off. There are so many opinions about communities of practice, so many top ten lists, articles about what you need to know, etc. Either all the world's knowledge problems have been solved and I just need to read about it (if I had the time) or there are so many "answers" I am loathe to add to the pile.

I hate to say this because most of the people I follow (and those they retweet) are friends of mine -- or where I don't know them personally, they are people I like to think of as friends. They aren't pretentious know-it-all types. And individually their tweets don't give that impression either. But taken together, they are simply overwhelming.

Now, it seems I have three options:

1. I can stop using Twitter. I would feel no guilt about this and it would stop the influx, but it would also negate all the benefits of the service as well.
2. I can rethink my choice of who to follow. Perhaps I shouldn't be following knowledge management devotees. Perhaps, rather than feeding (and overloading) my primary interests, I should follow alternate topics where I would be less concerned about missing things and happy to learn whatever comes my way.
   
3. I could follow more people. Although this sounds illogical, it is possible I am following too few people too closely. If I increase the volume (and the variety) my Twitter stream would become more of a river that I occasionally step into, rather than a stream I attempt to follow diligently.

However, the real problem may be that I have nothing to say right now. This is not uncommon. I go through spurts of writing emails, blog entries, phone calls when I get excited about things. But then will often fall silent for weeks at a time as I get down to the hard work of getting things done. The problem is that the Twitter stream doesn't stop when I shift modality to get-things-done mode, at which point the stream -- no matter how interesting -- becomes an annoyance.

To test this theory (and as part of my ongoing education in what makes Twitter users tick) I did some analysis of the tweets of those I follow. My feeling was that I was receiving an unduly large number of references to outside content -- links to blogs, websites etc -- that significantly increased the "weight" of the stream because many of the 140 character messages actually pointed to 2-3 pages of serious content. Far more than I could possibly keep track of.

And sure enough, there were a significant number of outbound links (43%). However, not as many as I suspected. 55% of the tweets were still what could be called "new content" in the stream (no linking or retweeting). However, when compared to the stream of another user who uses Twitter primarily for personal exchanges, the difference is visible.

So, what to do? For now I think I have to accept that I am a "binge" user of Twitter. This may not be a terribly good social behavior for a system that is "always on" (unlike other technologies that are "as needed" point-to-point, such as email or traditional collaboration tools like bulletin boards). But I may not be so unique among the many different usage patterns that is developing around Twitter.

Is SharePoint the Lotus Notes of the 21st Century?

Or at least of the first decade of the 21st?

Lotus Notes was a revolutionary entrant into the computing landscape and dominated the software market segment it created. What made Notes so unique and powerful was the combination of three things:

• A complete set of business-focused capabilities
• Integrated into a secure, distributed, extensible framework
• The ability to customize or extend the system through programming

The first two made the system attractive to enterprises, because it had the necessary security, manageability, and scalability to meet corporate needs; the third made it attractive to the users and created an entire market for third-party add-ons to address specific industry-focused needs once the platform was in place. Notes was poised to take over the world.

So, what happened? Well, I'm sure everyone has their own answer to that question: competition (especially in the email market from Exchange), too many 3rd party extensions, upgrade issues, etc. My personal belief is that they suffered from feature creep -- where each version of the product became more and more convoluted, threatening the basic premise of a simple framework -- to the point where companies are known to have backed off major new versions there were so many problems.

That is not to say Notes has disappeared. It is still a very strong competitor in the enterprise unified communication market. But now they have the additional issues of trying to keep up with technological advances (primarily internet-related) that further cut into their market share.

So why compare SharePoint to Notes?

There have been document management systems before (e.g. Documentum). There have been team collaboration tools before (e.g. eRoom). There have been customizable portals before (e.g. Plumtree and Vignette). The unique thing Microsoft did was put all three components into a single package integrated around Microsoft authentication (NTLM) and Microsoft Office.

The result is a very powerful collaboration, simple document management, and web space management system. It didn't hurt that V2 of the team collaboration portion of the product (known at the time as Windows SharePoint Services) was "free" for most enterprise Office customers. SharePoint essentially invented a market segment which until that point had been occupied by "integrated" combinations of large and/or complex product sets. Just as Lotus Notes did 20 years ago.

Another similarity is the limitations of the basic architectural design of the product. All products have what could be called a "design center" -- a focal point -- an ideal business problem that the product tries to solve. The design center defines the core architectural goals of the product. SharePoint's design center is flexible collaborative functionality centered around light-weight document management and customizable portals.

And the fact is SharePoint's design center hit a bull's eye. The need for easy-to-use collaboration spaces and web sites that don't require web programming -- that work well with Microsoft Office and the Microsoft security model -- has been a big hit inside corporations. As a salesman for a competing product once told me, his job is not so much selling their own product, but explaining why customers shouldn't use SharePoint.

Saying easy-to-use collaboration and web sites is SharePoint's design center is not to say the product cannot do other things. Part of the architectural model includes flexible lists and libraries so the data can be structured by normal human beings (not just data architects or librarians). Programmable web parts go the next step, allowing additional functionality beyond just search, sort, and display. Web parts also provide a business opportunity for 3rd parties to build on SharePoint, much as Lotus Notes' programmability created a new market before.

So SharePoint has flexibility built in. However, beyond certain boundaries -- the extent to which Microsoft expected or designed customization into the product -- using SharePoint becomes much, much harder than any user expects or can imagine.

As SharePoint's market domination increases, customers think of more and more ways to use SharePoint. In many cases, these are not uses for which SharePoint is really suited. This problem is amplified by Microsoft's marketing SharePoint as a one-size-fits-all enterprise solution.

SharePoint is designed with flexibility at the space or site level. It allows individuals to take responsibility for managing their own sites and collections of sites. But if -- from a corporate or even a divisional level -- you want to manage the larger collection, SharePoint becomes resistant -- almost belligerent -- to control.

The inability to create even simple relationships between lists in different spaces (beyond simple filtered aggregation) without programming is the first sign of strain in SharePoint's design. Then there are site columns. Site columns let you -- ostensibly -- define common metadata for multiple lists or libraries. However, you cannot enforce the use of site columns and site columns only work within a single site collection. There is no metadata control across multiple site collections. In other words, simplified control within the sites leads to lack of control at the macro level.

These are all just symptoms of a larger systemic issue: SharePoint is designed around the site. In Version 3 (also know as MOSS 2007) site collections have been introduced to provide some limited amount of cross-site control. But the underlying design principles of SharePoint (ie. user control and customization) work against control at the higher level.

Another Achilles's heel for SharePoint is search. I have yet to find anyone who is happy with SharePoint search. Oversimplified syntax, bad default search behavior, too many results, bad relevance, poor presentation... The list of problems goes on. Again, search is customizable -- if you have the programming expertise and access to build your own search interface. But few if any users do. Besides, why shouldn't search work out of the box?

There are other issues with SharePoint: large files (multimedia), support for browsers other than IE, and reporting, among others.

But the real issue is SharePoint's success. SharePoint has been so successful (and Microsoft has been so successful at selling SharePoint as a global solution for any corporate information problem), its use has far outstripped its design constraints and no one has told the customer yet.

There is likely to be a backlash against SharePoint as more and more customers unwittingly bump up against the boundaries of its intended use. And Microsoft will continue to extend the product with each new version -- further blurring the boundaries. Which is a shame. As I said, SharePoint is an excellent solution for what it was designed for. As Microsoft tries to stretch those boundaries -- just as Lotus and IBM did with Notes -- it is possible that the original design center of easy-to-use collaboration spaces may get lost, while never fully satisfying customers who are pushing at the edges, It is a dilemma that has no easy answer -- for Microsoft as a vendor or its customers.