Montreal Games Summit

I just got back from the Montreal games summit and in amongst the big studios and the usual crowd I saw some great new talent.....so watch this space.

Anyway I'm picking up on a Key note speech by David Braben called planning for the future.

The reason is I have discussed this topic with many people and I agree with David On the following points and have a few of my own.

1. We are NOT looking at the last generation on gaming machines
2. The whole of the future for the gaming industry is ONLINE (until bandwidth and speed is not an issue we will have retail)
3. A need to rebuild a relationship with retailers.
4. Look to change the pre-owned market or the long tail of games make dwindle, the same way piracy and sharing is killing music
5. Developers need to collaborate and be creative with production techniques.
6. Where possible developers should consider releasing games in episodes....may be that way the games that don't work can be dropped at an earlier stage saving money and the ones that do work well that's easy release the next episode and the fans will come. Imagine playing a game and getting to a certain level only to realize that episode 2 is required to carry on. However the trade off is the game cost a lot less to buy in the first place. Mix this idea with downloadable content and may be this is the future of development for some games.

Food for thought. But I think there is enough space for everyone I'm in online casual games but I for one don't think that's the only market of the future....how boring remember variety is the spice of life.