Weapons of Mass Disruption: Creating The Drowning
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Disruption is becoming an overused term in the tech and games industry. Many don't even know that it refers to a specific, well-defined academic principle as laid out in 1997 by Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen in "The Innovator's Dilemma." Formal disruption, as defined by Christensen, is designed to be applied as a real methodology in real world projects. In this talk, Ben describes how he directly applied the principles of disruption to the development of his new studio's first game, the revolutionary tablet and smartphone FPS The Drowning, by using Christensen's ideas to help make key decisions on what platforms, what partners, what technology, and what game design principles to use in its creation.
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Weapons of Mass Disruption: Creating The Drowning
- 1. WEAPONS OF MASS DISRUPTION Ben Cousins, GDC 2013 @benjamincousins @thedrowning
- 2. WHO ISTHIS GUY ANYWAY?
- 6. CONTENTS •Questions I asked on the way •Process I went through to find answers •The answers to those questions
- 8. “We are bringing disruptive innovation to the franchise and we are doing it on several fronts.” MISS-USE OF ‘DISRUPTION’ Eric Hirshberg CEO,Activision publishing
- 10. DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION DEFINED “A kind of innovation that improves a product or service in ways that the market does not expect.” “Innovations that result in worse product performance, at least in the near term.” “Cheaper, simpler, smaller, and, frequently, more convenient to use.”
- 11. CORRECT USAGE OF ‘DISRUPTION’ Eric Hirshberg CEO,Activision publishing
- 12. “On several fronts, the Call of Duty franchise is becoming worst performing, cheaper, simpler, smaller and more convenient” CORRECT USAGE OF ‘DISRUPTION’ Eric Hirshberg CEO,Activision publishing
- 14. Performance
- 15. Performance Time
- 16. Performance Time
- 17. Performance Time
- 18. Performance Time
- 19. Performance Time
- 20. Performance Time
- 21. Performance Time
- 23. 2010
- 24. 2010
- 25. 2010 Incumbents
- 27. 2011
- 28. QUESTIONS • Do new platforms fit the patterns of a disruptive innovation? • Which of those platforms should I focus on? • What sort of organization should I create/join? • How should we design our product? • What level of product performance should we target?
- 29. CASE STUDY
- 30. DO NEW PLATFORMS FITTHE PATTERNS OF A DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION?
- 31. IDENTIFYING DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION “I would graph the trajectories of performance improvement demanded in the market versus the performance improvement supplied by the (disruptive) technology.”
- 32. Performance Time
- 34. I CHOSE GRAPHICS • Shows the technical performance of platform and code • Shows the budget and staff quality for the project • Acts as an easily-identifiable proxy for other improvements like physics,AI etc
- 35. BUT...
- 36. BUT...
- 37. BUT...
- 39. COMPARISONS 2005 •Graphically impressive PS2 shooter •Graphically impressive smartphone shooter •Graphically impressive browser shooter 2011
- 40. COMPARISONS 2005 •Graphically impressive PS2 shooter •Graphically impressive smartphone shooter •Graphically impressive browser shooter •Graphically impressive PS3 shooter •Graphically impressive smartphone shooter •Graphically impressive browser shooter 2011
- 50. DO NEW PLATFORMS FITTHE PATTERNS OF A DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION? Yes! Console games = sustaining innovation Mobile and browser games = disruptive innovation
- 51. WHICH OFTHOSE PLATFORMS SHOULD I FOCUS ON?
- 52. THE ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’ •Facebook gets $550m annually through FB Credits, $375m comes from Zynga •Zynga accounts for 12% of Facebook revenue •Zynga spend $70m annually on ads in Facebook •Zynga has an exclusivity agreement to use FB accounts for games •In exchange FB have agreed to help Zynga hit certain growth targets for games
- 53. IPAD EATS LAPTOP SALES
- 54. WHICH OFTHOSE PLATFORMS SHOULD I FOCUS ON?
- 55. WHAT SORT OF ORGANIZATION SHOULD I CREATE/JOIN?
- 56. Join an incumbent? No! Incumbents very very rarely succeed at surviving disruption
- 57. Join an incumbent? No! Incumbents very very rarely succeed at surviving disruption Found a startup? No! By 2013, it will be much harder to succeed as a small company in mobile
- 58. WHAT SORT OF ORGANIZATION SHOULD I CREATE/JOIN?
- 59. WHAT SORT OF ORGANIZATION SHOULD I CREATE/JOIN?
- 60. WHAT SORT OF ORGANIZATION SHOULD I CREATE/JOIN?
- 61. HOW SHOULD WE DESIGN OUR PRODUCT?
- 62. WHERE ISTHE MARKET FORTHISTECH? “First, I would acknowledge that, by definition, electric vehicles cannot initially be used in mainstream applications because they do not satisfy the basic performance requirements of that market.”
- 64. WHERE ISTHE MARKET FORTHISTECH? They do not satisfy the basic performance requirements of that market.
- 65. WHERE ISTHE MARKET FORTHISTECH? They do not satisfy the basic performance requirements of that market.
- 66. WHERE ISTHE MARKET FORTHISTECH? “Historically, as we have seen, the very attributes that make disruptive technologies uncompetitive in mainstream markets actually count as positive attributes in their emerging value network.”
- 67. ‘UNCOMPETITIVE’ATTRIBUTES •Batteries produce fewer watts than mains electricity, meaning mobile CPUs and GPUs are less powerful •Mobile devices have smaller screens because they don’t connect to a television screen
- 70. WORK ‘WEAKNESSES’ INTO STRENGTHS •Game should satisfy core gamers, but be designed to work in situations where console literally couldn’t compete •Don’t try to go head-to-head and make a better CoD/BF/etc •Aim to become a ‘trojan horse’ - so engaging that eventually we would compete with console hours and dollars
- 71. HOW SHOULD WE DESIGN OUR PRODUCT? • Play to the strengths of the platform. Make a mobile game • Action game rounds last no more than 2 minutes • Played in 30 minute sessions • Played with two fingers on one hand • No in-game cutscenes, lulls in action, few little scripted moments • A strong element of collection, crafting, inventory management
- 72. WHAT LEVEL OF PRODUCT PERFORMANCE SHOULD WETARGET?
- 73. PERFORMANCE OVERSUPPLY “The cycle of evolution itself is driven by the phenomenon of performance oversupply, that is, the condition in which the performance provided by a technology exceeds the actual needs of the market. Historically, performance oversupply opens the door for simpler, less expensive, and more convenient—and almost always disruptive —technologies to enter.”
- 74. PERFORMANCE OVERSUPPLY • Incumbents get trapped in a cycle of ‘sustaining improvements’ • Trying to compete with other incumbents • Trying to improve last year’s model • Performance improvements go beyond the point they are meaningful to the average customer • At that point, consumers seek out other improvements (price, size, convenience)
- 75. PERFORMANCE OVERSUPPLY IN MUSIC
- 76. PERFORMANCE OVERSUPPLY IN MUSIC
- 77. PERFORMANCE OVERSUPPLY IN MUSIC
- 89. 1991
- 90. 1992
- 91. 1993
- 92. 1994
- 93. 1996
- 94. 1997
- 95. 1999
- 96. 2002
- 97. 1991
- 98. 2002
- 99. 2011
- 100. WHAT LEVEL OF PRODUCT PERFORMANCE SHOULD WETARGET? • Console/PC graphics are close to reaching Performance Oversupply • For each doubling of power, the perceivable increase in quality for the average consumer is less and less • When things hit oversupply, the average consumer turns to something with the same quality, but cheaper, simpler, more convenient • So we should create great graphics, but not worry that mobile is less powerful than console/PC
- 105. RECAP • Are new platforms going to disrupt the core games industry? • Yes! • Which platform should I focus on? • Mobile! • What sort of organization should I create/join? • Big company with startup attitude • How should we design our product? • Turns weaknesses of the platform into strengths • What level of product performance should we target? • Make it as good as possible, but core games are close to oversupply