• What's new for LOGIN 2010
• Louis Castle Announced as LOGIN Conference Keynote Speaker
• Less than two weeks left to submit speaking proposals for LOGIN 2010
• Meeting of the Minds: The New Moore's Law
• Industry Highlights
• Shanda Games acquires Mochi Media for $80m
• When MMOs pay out: real money economies
• Phat loot and neurotransmitters in World of Warcraft
• Meridian 59 developer closes doors
• ZAM explores Star Trek Online's ship combat
• Senior Designer Joe Morrissey on CoH's Architect system
• Sponsorship Opportunities Available at LOGIN 2010

What's New for LOGIN 2010

Welcome to the first LOGIN Beat newsletter of 2010! We hope the new year has been treating you well. Here at LOGIN, we’ve resolved to make this year's conference pack even more energy and more great opportunities than ever before. We love all the positive feedback we’re receiving so far, and that’s given us an even deeper sense of dedication and purpose to make 2010 our best year yet.

Networking has always been one one of LOGIN’s strongest assets. Without compromising the intimate feel that has made the conference second-to-none, we will offer more ways to spend time with the industry insiders at LOGIN 2010. The great conference space at the Seattle Waterfront Marriott Hotel, sit-down keynote lunches, free time between sessions to rub elbows, our first-class true networking parties, networking breakfasts, and interactive networking games – all open doors for making that connection or re-connecting with an old friend in the business.

One of the facts we’re most proud of is how diverse and international our attendee base is. In 2010, we’re reaching out to all corners of the globe where many new opportunities for partnerships and new points of view are waiting to be explored. You’ll see this international presence represented in our topics, speakers and some of our unique networking venues.

Past attendees know what a great conference LOGIN is for business development, but LOGIN is also the place to hear cutting edge technical and design talks by industry veterans. To make LOGIN even more valuable to developers, many of whom attend conferences on their "own dime", we'll be offering special developer pricing.

There will be specifics about some of these fantastic changes to announce not to long from now. One place you can be sure you’ll hear about it first is in the LOGIN Beat newsletter.

Cynthia Freese Executive Director LOGIN Conference

Louis Castle Announced as LOGIN Conference Keynote Speaker

Evergreen Events is delighted to announce the first keynote speaker for the 2010 LOGIN Conference. Louis Castle, CEO of InstantAction Inc., will be discussing current and future alternative methods of digital distribution for interactive entertainment. Mr. Castle’s talk will be a case study in the business philosophies and technologies employed in launching the new InstantAction site, InstantAction.com. The goal is to help attendees navigate the myriad technologies and techniques of digital customer acquisition and interactive entertainment delivery. Lessons learned from the reinvention of InstantAction will be shared to help others find suitable solutions for their content or distribution service.

"LOGIN has a proud history of providing compelling keynote speakers that keep our attendees engaged and excited about being a part of this wonderful industry; Lou Castle is sure to keep that tradition," said Cynthia Freese, Executive Director of the LOGIN Conference and Co-Founder of Evergreen Events. "It's rare for someone who was so entrenched in the more traditional, brick-and-mortar side of the games industry make such an astonishing leap to online games, especially someone with Lou's level of clout and recognition. We are thrilled to have him as our first keynote, and can't wait to hear what insight and anecdotes he shares with the conference."

Mr. Castle is the co-founder of Westwood Studios, former Vice President of Creative Development for Electronic Arts Los Angeles, and serves as the CEO of InstantAction Inc. an IAC (NASDAQ IACI) company. "I'm extremely honored to share InstantAction's learning with the distinguished online game industry attendees at LOGIN 2010. I look forward to being educated and inspired by such a targeted event," said Louis Castle, CEO of InstantAction.

 Official Press Release

Less than two weeks left to submit speaking proposals for LOGIN 2010!

The opportunity to submit a session proposal expires less than two weeks from now on January 25, 2010. Speaking at LOGIN is an exclusive opportunity that allows you to raise your profile in the industry, influence decision-makers, expose your company to influential audiences, and to share your passion and expertise.

Visit the speakear submissions page for more information about how to submit a session and a few topical suggestions to get you started.

 Read submission guidelines and suggested topics

The New Moore's Law

There have been several reliable truths that have long defined the daily life of working for the game industry: 1.) Schedules and plans will always miss the mark -- bugs and feature-tweaking will make sure you're only "done when you're done"; 2.) The network will always be down right when you've got a time-critical goal to reach; and 3.) Pizza and Mountain Dew are the pinnacle of the food pyramid for programmers. Somewhere near the top of all these truths is one the most sacred laws that has governed not only the forward progress of the game industry but the pacing of the mainstream technologies space, and that is Moore's Law. Introduced by Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore in a 1965 paper, Moore's Law generally states that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit will double every two years, more or less equating to a doubling in performance every eighteen months.

Moore's Law has applied to hardware advancements in console and PCs in entertainment centers and atop desks. Predictably, every four or five years a new generation of consoles is launched with a new round of increasingly robust capabilities. Every other year a groundbreaking game for the PC is unveiled to the "oohs" and "ahhs" from some, but to groans from others who must upgrade their silicon to be able to play. Polygon counts risen to the point that 3D visuals are becoming the next frontier; audio channels are pumping out more realistic, richer sounds; greater numbers of players can be entertained online at once through increasingly complex interactions.

Rolled out in 2005, the Microsoft Xbox 360 (and the Sony PlayStation, introduced a year later) is being given a ten year life cycle. Where did the reliable technological pacing, kept in time to the steady heartbeat of Moore's Law, of the game industry go? Where is this usually metronomic law being applied if the rules of the entire game have changed? The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 both are endowed with robust multi-core processors, three and nine respectively. Take the Sony PlayStation 3, for example. Even after production costs have been reduced, the highly customized 120 GB PlayStation 3 Slim hardware still costs $336 to manufacture, while selling for $299 -- the closest to break even for Sony on the PS3 yet.

No wonder Microsoft and Sony have relied on a multi-channel approach with retail software, downloadable content and microtransactions to help recoup their manufacturing costs.  

These increasingly demanding-of-Hollywood-sized budgets game titles require more financial resources, manpower, and tools just to effectively keep pace with the current generations of hardware. These software and hardware companies are increasingly wary of what would have to be a supercomputer-class of machine to realistically be hailed as "next generation". So the revenue tails lengthen, with greater storage on the hardware side and more online services and downloadable content being offered to take fuller advantage of the platform.

The PC is not exempt from this trend either. This upgrade-hungry platform is following the same pathway toward multitasking, instead of raw speed and power: processor core counts are expanding but raw horsepower is not keeping pace. Moore's Law does seem to still apply to video card hardware, which have a "stream" of potent processors in their own right and upwards of one gigabyte or more of memory.

What's driving these changes toward pragmatism isn't just the impracticality of a frighteningly powerful nitrogen-cooled, self-aware black box sitting underneath a television, or the costs of rolling out hardware of that caliber or creating software to keep pace with the hardware. Nintendo has shown you don't have to play the "my dad can beat up your dad" games Microsoft and Sony or Intel and AMD have played for years. Their Wii hardware can be succinctly described as an enhanced GameCube with a fun wireless remote-style controller, and so they can afford to cut prices to help continue to keep Wii sales bouyed. On the software delivery side, Apple has shown how effective an software application store can be, offering an enticing alternatives to developers weary of million dollar budgets to create a risky proposition as far as games go. After all, the iPhone is in millions of hands, and games are inexpensive to develop and cheap to purchase. Game developers are risking the development of fewer triple A game titles, since so few can afford the cost that it takes to design a competitive game that'll get reviewed with scads of positive superlatives by jaded journalists. However, an inexpensive mobile, casual or social game seduces a developer with lower development costs, greater profit margin potential and much simpler online roll-outs.

Moore's Law is speculated to be feasible for another 20 or 30 years or so, but the reality is we've hit a speed bump on the next generation of the hardware side of gaming. Companies don't want it and consumers don't need it for a good long while. On the software side, driven by microtransactions, cloud computing, platform-agnostic gaming, that's where we just might see a new exponential law emerge defined by the power and growth potential of communities instead of transistors. We will see if it's sooner rather than later. 

Post your comments

Paul Philleo Contributing Editor LOGIN Beat

Industry Highlights

Shanda Games acquires Mochi Media for $80m

Chinese online game developer Shanda Games is to acquire San Francisco based Mochi Media for $80 million. Mochi Media has over 140 million monthly users of its online games network, with 15,000 browser-based games. Its platform offers distribution, advertising and monetisation solutions to game developers. »

Story on gamesindustry.biz

When MMOs pay out: real money economies

First Planet Company, a Swedish MMO developer and creator of one of the biggest real cash economy MMORPGs, Planet Calypso, may have just kicked this year off in an interesting direction with their announcement that they had just broken the Guinness World Record for the "World's Most Expensive Virtual Object." The team noted that their public auction of the popular in-game hunting location, the Crystal Palace Space Station, had ultimately fetched $330,000 USD, a price which shatters the previous world record, achieved within the same game, for a $100,000 Asteroid Space Resort purchased in 2008. »

Story on ZAM

Phat loot and neurotransmitters in World of Warcraft

How are loot-based games like World of Warcraft, Torchlight, and Borderlands related to slot machines, chemical bliss, and evolution? Jamie Madigan, a gamer with a PhD in psychology, looks at the scientific reasons why our gets excited over loot on his site, The Psychology of Video Games. »

Article on The Psychology of Video Games

Meridian 59 developer closes doors

Near Death Studios, the developer behind ageing 3D MMO Meridian 59, is to close its doors following a long-running lack of support for the title. After its relaunch, Meridian 59 "never really grew" said one of the game's developers Brian Green who, along with Rob Ellis, purchased the rights to the game from The 3DO Company in 2001. The game, originally developed by Archetype Interactive, was first launched in 1996, and is credited as the first 3D massively multiplayer game. In 2004, Near Death released an expansion complete with new rendering engine, which offered a range of enhancements to the game and to its Doom-based visuals. »

Story on GamesIndustry.biz

ZAM explores Star Trek Online's ship combat

This week, ZAM continues their series of Star Trek Online early-preview coverage by giving you a first-hand look at one of its most exciting aspects; space travel and ship combat. So far, they’ve played around with the character creation system and experimented with a few alien races in an earlier preview of the closed beta currently underway. In this week's installment, ZAM shares their initial experiences with the "space" elements of STO, which account for about half of the game. »

Article on ZAM

Senior Designer Joe Morrissey on CoH's Architect system

MMOGamer sits down with Joe Morrissey, a Senior Designer at Paragon Studios to discuss the inspiration behind, and current implementation of the Architect user-generated content system in City of Heroes. Topics include preventing exploiters, how high-quality material can stand out from the crowd, and even whether the system allows a player to create art through a video game. »

Interview on MMOGamer

Sponsorship Opportunities Available at LOGIN 2010

Without our sponsors there would be no LOGIN! We are currently seeking sponsors for the 2010 event. Interested? To learn more about sponsorship opportunities at LOGIN visit the sponsorship page on our website, contact Cynthia Freese at cynthia@loginconference.com, or call 1.425.533.5973.

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