Girls In Tech

Think mobile gaming is just fun and games? Think again. The mobile gaming market has become a big business, projected to be a $10 billion dollar industry by the year 2014. Driven in part by Apple’s popular iPhone and iPad devices, a flourishing Apple App Store which owns 30% of the mobile gaming market share valued at $1.7 billion in 2010, and the proliferation and mass adoption of smart phones (270 million units sold in 2010), mobile gaming is only going to grow. With that growth comes a glut of new games hitting the market, which has made it far more challenging for developers to get their games noticed and for consumers to discover the best games available.

So how does one navigate the tsunami of mobile game content? Enter the International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGA). Launched in 2004 with the support of Autodesk, Criterion, Euroméditerranée, Fathammer, Ideaworks 3D, Iomo, Intel, Nokia, NVIDIA and Orange, the IMGA’s mission is to to recognize and reward the best innovators and the most creative developers of mobile games in the world.

During its six year tenure, the competition has earned a reputation for being the Mobile Entertainment Industry’s leading showcase for groundbreaking innovations, displaying exceptional quality and new trends in mobile entertainment, for a number of platforms including Bada (Samsung), Maemo (Nokia), iPhone, Ovi, Flash, Android, Symbian, Microsoft, Java, Linux, BREW, and more.

Each year, the competition draws global participants that include PhD students, researchers, artists, individual developers and the top 10 leading mobile games publishers and developers in the world. In total, the IMGA has reviewed more than 1,400 mobile games originating from over 52 countries including the USA, Ukraine, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, China, the Czech Republic, Brazil and Belgium.

On January 17th, 2011, the International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGA) announced the nominees for its 7th Annual International Mobile Gaming Competition. This year, the competition focused on six award categories including:

• Excellence in Design: Games with exceptional visual quality.
• Excellence in Game Play: Recognizing innovation in the way a mobile game is played and providing an excellent mobile gaming experience. This includes genre-busting concepts that create a new category of game content on mobile.
• Best Casual Games: Recognizing innovation in casual game-play, reach/accessibility to a mass market, uniqueness of artwork and level design, technical execution and ease of game adoption (how quickly can the user get into the game).
• Best Real World Game: Recognizing exceptional and effective use of the “mobility” aspect of a mobile game (read: games that make people get up and go, move, meet new friends and get into new, unexpected situations with other players both outdoors and indoors). This includes location-based games using GPS, proximity-based games using Bluetooth to detect nearby players, augmented-reality games, or alternate reality games that blend with the player’s real world.
• Most Innovative Game: Honoring games that stretch the technical possibilities of mobile phones and still provides a compelling game experience. User Interface, the multi-platform, location or context awareness, or simply a brilliant idea never thought of before.
• Best Sports Game: Honoring sports games on mobile handsets.

Nominees for each category have been selected by a panel of industry specialists and will undergo a second round of judging by Mobile Operators. A winner for each category and a Grand Prix winner (best game of the year) will be announced during the IMGA Awards ceremony taking place in Barcelona during the Mobile World Congress 2011. In addition, the IMGA has also opened up the voting to the community via the People’s Choice Awards. So register on the IMGA site to cast your votes.

As for me, I’ll be keeping my eyes on the Best Real World Games and Most Innovative Game categories for ideas on how to wrap emerging technologies and mobile game mechanics into real world learning scenarios.

To learn more about the IMGA, see the full list of nominees and cast your votes for your favorite mobile games, visit: http://www.imgawards.com/index.php.

Tags: Games, IMGA, International Mobile Gaming Awards, mobile games, Mobile World Congress 2011
Posted in All Chapters, Girls In Tech | No Comments »

Today, SGN launched its new title “Skies of Glory.” Some of the new features of this free, WWII aerial combat game include:

• 3D graphics
• Multiplayer game play (up to seven opponents around the world via 3G, WiFi or Bluetooth connection)
• Jukebox support
• Virtual goods to extend the customized experience of the game, &
  
• Access to planes and additional missions via in-app purchase

Also being launched into the App Store today are updated versions of iBowl Deluxe and i(fluff) Friends, their popular virtual pet offering. Among the updates made to these titles include:

• Cross-platform integration via Facebook Connect
• Ability to create custom avatars
• Twitter integration

So check out these new titles; and see how the intersection of these new title and versions &  your Facebook and Twitter can open up new ways to interact while playing your favorite games. (photos courtesy SGN: http://www.sgn.com/index.php)

Tags: (fluff) Friends, App Store, Games, iBowl Deluxe, iphone, SGN, Skies of Glory
Posted in All Chapters | No Comments »

Girls in Tech was on the scene yesterday as Virtual Goods Summit 2009 kicked off with VGS University.  Hundreds of people came out to the half day seminar to learn from case studies and presentations by Linden Lab, Mochi Media, IMVU, Gaia Online, Ning, Viximo, Shufflebrain and others.

The afternoon panel on the Payments Landscape featuring SuperRewards, TrialPay, BOKU, PlaySpan, and ORCA garnered a packed ballroom.  Charles Hudson, host of VGS09, moderated the panel and asked whether it’s a good or bad thing that the payments space is so chockfull of players.  Not surprisingly, the panel thought it was a good thing – and that it speaks to the vast potential opportunity for virtual goods in games.  They also agreed that the need for payment solution providers is high since payments are complex, requiring relationships with often hundreds of banks and wireless carriers if you take into account the international landscape.  Then there’s the sticky issue of fraud and security.  Finally, there’s scale of economies, and the idea that a game producer should concentrate on making great games instead of getting caught up with building a payment solution.  Overall, more payment providers means more choice for game publishers, and more pressure for payment providers to deliver better products and customer service.

The panel shared the following statistics: For free to play games on social networks, virtual goods conversion for those who actually pay is 3-4%. This of course varies depending on the virality and engagement quality of the game.  Lex Bayer from PlaySpan suggested that for each daily active user associated with a game on a social network, there is ten dollars of annual revenue potential.  Therefore, if you have five million DAU’s your potential revenue is $50 million in annual revenue.  Not shabby.

Big revenue potential and a young market makes for great energy, an eagerness for learning, sharing, and collaborating, with a good measure of competition and creativity thrown in.  This is going to be one good summit.  Join us today for part two of the third annual Virtual Goods Summit taking place today at the Westin in downtown San Francisco.  And stick around for the after party that Girls in Tech is co-hosting with Offerpal at Harlot nightclub!

Tags: Charles Hudson, Games, Lindin Lab, Mochi Media, Ning, social networks, Super Rewards, Tina Tran, TrialPay, Virtual Currency, Virtual Good Summit, Virutal Payments
Posted in All Chapters, Events | No Comments »

The night started off with a humming buzz – the sound of 70+ attendees energetically chatting and networking over wine, beer and nosh.  The ngmoco:) office setting of old brick walls and beautiful exposed beams served as the background for our sold-out, industry-heavy event.  The attendees included Electronic Arts, Sony, Playfirst, Lightspeed Ventures, Namco Networks, Mochi Media, Zynga, SGN, RockYou, Serious Business, Inside Facebook… I could go on!

The evening started with a sobering discussion about why there are so few women in games.  The panelists went deep and the discussion touched on the lack of female computer science majors, the lack of female venture capitalists, and the fact that men’s attitudes towards giving other men a hand is much more open and beneficial to men than women’s attitudes and behaviors when it comes to helping other women in business.  Yikes.  It’s a hard thing to hear, but it’s valid, and it’s important to tackle the hard stuff in order to have a meaningful discussion about the things that are hindering women’s advancement in technology and business in general.

As we moved onto gaming specifics, the panelists agreed that the recession has had a positive impact on games as people shift their spending to entertainment and small ticket items.  Another factor that has been beneficial to games is the openness of platforms — Shervin from SGN estimated that a one billion dollar market has developed over the last two years as a result of gaming opportunities arising from open platforms. Due to the new revenue opportunity, the space has become increasingly crowded, though there are still untapped areas of opportunity.  One area of opportunity that was called out is social learning games for kids.  When Joel Brodie of Gamezebo asked the panelists what one word summed up the opportunity in games, they provided the following:  virality, iPhone, distribution and entrepreneurship. 

The night ended as it began, with the humming buzz of networking and business being done.   A big thanks to our panelists and attendees for bringing such great energy to the discussion about the opportunity in games today!

Game tip:  Several of our panelists are currently addicted to Restaurant City on Facebook

If you missed the event, or had such a blast that you want to experience it again, you can view the video here.

Big thanks to Shirley Lin for providing the photos in this blog, and to Lucia Giacomantonio for providing the video.

Tags: Casual Games, Games, Gamezebo, ngmoco, SGN, Shervin, Social Games, Tina Tran
Posted in All Chapters, San Francisco | No Comments »

College students no longer have to choose between playing video games and doing homework.  Now they can play video games and study at the same time!  George Mason University, the University of Florida and Carnegie Mellon have all started offering programs in computer game design.  The programs are created to train students in a curriculum that melds the left and right brain with classes in computer sciences as well visual and digital arts. 

The creation of a computer games major speaks directly to the growing games industry that is increasingly about more than just fun.  In addition to console, mobile, and casual online games, there is a high demand for games in non-entertainment areas such as business management, medical and military training, education, and work-force training, to name only a few areas.

Girls in Tech recognizes the huge opportunity in the growth of games and we are kicking off our first games industry event this Thursday.  Join us at the San Francisco office of ngmoco as Girls in Tech Presents: The World of Casual and Social Games.  We have an amazing lineup of panelists from among the top players in the industry — Zynga, SGN, Mochi Media, and Super Rewards. 

Space is limited, so sign up before tickets are sold out!  You can register here.

Event details:
Thursday, May 28, 2009
6:30pm Networking & wine
7:00pm Panel start
Location: ngmoco:) Office — 118 King St. 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 

Tags: Carnegie Mellon, Computer Games major, Games, George Mason University, Tina Tran, University of Florida
Posted in All Chapters, San Francisco | No Comments »