Sony and Its Gaming Strategy

Tomas has been blogging about Sony and its gaming strategy...

Sony is a giant in the gaming world – that is of no doubt. The original Playstation changed gaming forever. It was technically a great machine and pushed games and gaming into new areas.  After an initial shaky start, the PS2 carried that momentum forward, selling 150 million units worldwide to date. As well as the commercial success, some of the titles that came out on the PS2 were critically renowned too; Ico, Resident Evil 4, Shadow of the Colossus, GTA: Vice City to name but a few.

We’re now in a new era from then. The rules of the game have not only changed, but are changing still. This is no longer a simple console war-zone between Sony and rivals like Microsoft and Nintendo. Sony is having a bad news month with the hacking of the Playstation Network, but are there deeper troubles – deeper than just the Playstation division?

Auroch's Tomas Rawlings' New Game Studio Launches

I'm really excited to say that our new game studio - 

Red Wasp Design

 - has officially launched today and we've announced our first project, which is in development as I write this.  Red Wasp Design is a new Bristol-based micro studio and our first title is a game based on the cult Call of Cthulhu RPG (role-playing game).  Why not follow us on 

Twitter

 or 

Facebook

?  This is from the initial press release.

An agreement between Call of Cthulhu impresarios, Chaosium and new development studio Red Wasp Design will see the award winning role-playing game (RPG), Call of Cthulhu, coming to a mobile platform near you. The first title, 'Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land' is set in the midst of World War One and pits a team of investigators and soldiers against an ancient enemy, older than humanity itself. This eldritch enemy is using the carnage of the great war to build an undead army amidst the battlefields of Europe. The game will be a 3D turn-based strategy/role playing game and will initially launch on iPhone and Android with more platforms to follow. As the game is still in development, release dates and price points are to be announced after the summer.

Call of Cthulhu was originally the title of a novella by cult horror writer H.P. Lovecraft which has, since it was published in 1928, captured the imagination of generation after generation of fans.

Op-Ed on Gamezebo

Tomas has an opinion editorial on the gamesite Gamezebo:

It is a busy time for new consoles. This spring saw the launch of Nintendo’s new games console, the 3DS. Nintendo has just announced that a successor to the Wii is due soon, too. We’ve also had the news recently of Sony’s PSP follow-up, currently codenamed NGP, or Next Generation Portable. ...

But the world the 3DS was born into is not the world that the DS knew. This is the post-iPhone world, and all the rules of the game have changed. The question is not so much who will win between the 3DS and the NGP, but can either of them stay relevant in a world dominated by the mobile phone? I’m not sure they can.

Filth Fair on Guardian Games Blog

The Filth Fair gets a nice mention on the Guardian's Games Blog:

Dirty games

The Wellcome Foundation has commissioned an iOS and online browser game named Filth Fair to coincide with its Dirt season, which runs until August 31. Players must track down a series of words associated with dirt and disease, using cryptic clues to guess at the missing letters. Think of it as dirty hangman. No wait, don't think of that.

It's quite compelling, especially as, when you guess a word correctly you get a link to a relevant web article so you get to learn lots of interesting things about squalor and hygiene through the ages.

Wellcome Trust Profile of Filth Fair

There is a long blog post written by Tomas on the Wellcome Trust blog:

Making a game about dirt was never going to be the easiest topic. As a concept it is both broad and narrow. A game about throwing mud around, for example, would be fun but would miss the many facets to the subject that the Dirt exhibition had to it. Many ideas looked around the contrast between being clean and dirty and the conflict we often perceive there. We liked these but were looking for something that we also felt had a very broad appeal ­­– we all have a relationship with dirt, after all.

We wanted to create game that everyone could explore at their own level, and looked long and hard to find the right people with the right approach. What emerged from this process is a puzzle/trivia word game developed by Guildford-based developers Toytek. They had already received a degree of acclaim for their work on The Ultimate Alphabet app, so we took the core idea for this game and made it, well, dirtier.

All About the Filth Fair

Filth Fair is a great little word puzzle game that we've been producing for the Wellcome Trust to tie in with their 

Dirt season

.  It's been developed by 

Toytek

.  The game is for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and the Web (as a Flash game).  Here's a screenshot from the game:

The best way to see the game is to play it!

Filth Fair Web Version

There is also a Facebook fan-page here, http://on.fb.me/filthfair. The aim of the game is to find and uncover 331 hidden words from within a huge (and real, not digital) detailed and amazing painting by cult artist Mike Wilks.   Here is a preview trailer for the game:

http://www.toytek.co.uk The Filth Fair was commissioned by the Wellcome Trust as part of their Dirt Season. Running from March to September 2011, the Dirt Season will feature events at special dirty locations including the Eden Project, Glasgow, Glastonbury and other summer festivals as well as a major exhibition 'Dirt: The filthy reality of everyday life' at Wellcome Collection.

And some fun blurb written for the game:

Roll Up! Roll Up! The Filth Fair is Coming to Town!

For many months now Wellcome and Toytek have been building an experience that explores the issue of 'Dirt'. Yes, Dirt!  As part of the upcoming season by the Wellcome Trust, a veritable cornucopia of delights especially prepared for your delectation and amusement (and disgust!) is currently under construction.  Once completed in March this year, the Filth Fair game will be unleashed to infect the delicate sensitivities of gentle-folk.  This game takes the form of an “eye Pad”, “eye Phone” or “eye Pod Touch” iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch and alsotelegraphonic web game of hidden words and meanings. Central to this gaming experience is a huge painting by Mike Wilks, a noted and famous artist for his 1886 1986 bestselling book ‘The Ultimate Alphabet’.  This game has over 300 hidden words buried in objects.  The player's task is to find and identify all the words. It can be done via cryptic clues, descriptive clues or word-substitution.  Prizes and awards, not to mention acclaim, awaits those who can identify all of the objects within the Filth Fair.  Entrance to the Filth Fair will be free!  Visitors are advised to bring an active curiosity and a strong stomach.

Also of interest to the many visitors is the display of craftsmanship that has gone into the creation of the Filth Fair.  The central painting is not some digital-virtual hocus-pocus – oh no!  The central painting is a real painting, painted by a real painter!  Oh yes, this marvel has been rendered using non-digital paint on a non-virtual canvas in a real London studio.  Be ready to marvel at the “real made digital” before your very eyes!

Those curious to see the many sights and puzzles of the Filth Fair and those wishing to compose strong disapproving letters to their local newspaper about it's imminent arrival are advised to follow the Wellcome “Twitter” musings http://twitter.com/wellcometrust and/or to sign up to the “Face Book” page;http://on.fb.me/filthfair

Previews We had previews in Gamezebo, Pocket Gamer, 9cheats.com, ursegames.com, Touchaholics and Metro:

Filth Fair in Metro

Making of Filth Fair Video We also produced a short film about the creative process going from a physical paintning by Mike Wilks to a digital game. This was featured by Pocket Gamer, Design Week and on the Wellcome Collection site.  Here is the video:

Post-launch

Once the game came out, a few rejections by Apple over content while getting passed became news about the app (and also here too).  We also got reviews at Gamezebo and on 148apps.  We got a great 9/10 review on the blog NiveOverTen. There is also a big article about the game at the Wellcome blog, looking at how the idea came to be:

We wanted to create game that everyone could explore at their own level, and looked long and hard to find the right people with the right approach. What emerged from this process is a puzzle/trivia word game developed by Guildford-based developers Toytek. They had already received a degree of acclaim for their work on The Ultimate Alphabet app, so we took the core idea for this game and made it, well, dirtier.

The final result is an amazing central image, which comes from a real painting by cult artist Mike Wilks. The richness of the image meant that we could place objects in the image that were also in the exhibition, so linking the two experiences. Mike took ideas and objects from the Wellcome Library (including objects that are in the Dirt exhibition) and worked them into a collage of themes and colours. Being able to make these part of a game is especially nice because much of the content we consume nowadays is created and delivered in the digital realm.

Straight after launch the game went to No.1 in the US iTunes Store for Education and Trivia.  In the UK it was 24 and 13 for the same categories.  It got a great write up in Design Week:

It’s a captivating image that you could pore over for hours, even without the competitive element, and a great way to get people engaged with the exhibition’s theme and objects

Filth Fair Announced!

We're really pleased to be able to go public with the news that the Filth Fair is coming!

This is the game we've been producing for the Wellcome Trust:

Filth Fair gets ready to dirty up the App Store this March

Updated Feb 9, 2011, 10:15am

Nobody likes filth. It’s dirty, icky, and often downright disgusting. But the folks at Wellcome Trust? They’re celebrating it. Starting in March, the Wellcome Trust will spend more than five months showcasing the subject of filth in their upcoming “Dirt Season,” a series of special events and releases all revolving around our relationship with grime. One such release is the upcoming hidden object game Filth Fair for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

Read more: http://www.gamezebo.com/iphone-games/filth-fair/preview#ixzz1Dgfwm29c

In addition to this, there is also a preview over on Pocket Gamer:

Filth Fair is a hidden words and meanings game set inside a huge painting by Mike Wilks, an artist famous for his best-selling 1986 book The Ultimate Alphabet.

Your task is to find and identify over 300 words buried inside numerous objects. Cryptic, descriptive, and word-substitution clues are on hand to aid you, with prizes, awards, and acclaim awaiting the best players.

According to Wellcome, Filth Fair has been created with the highest craftsmanship and without, "digital-virtual hocus-pocus."

Filth Fair will be available to play for free on iPhone, iPad, and online some time in March.

The Future of Gaming in 2011

Auroch Digital's Tomas Rawlings takes a look at what the future holds for gaming in 2011:

Transmedia is the idea of a media experience that transcends one platform. More often than not it is the story that lives across different media forms. I don’t just mean say a PS3 port of a PC game, but a game that offers a PS3 experience and a PC experience that together combine to make something even bigger. This can be cross-media too; so games into TV, films into books. Again to be truly Transmedia, the experience has to be extended and built upon and not just mirrored. This idea has been around for some time now, but this year I think we’ll see it really start to grow. So take the example of Deus Ex Human Revolution – where the story exists in the game and in a novel…

To read the full article, click here.

Our Work with the Wellcome Trust

We're happy to say that we have been commissioned by the Wellcome Trust as  consultants on computer games.   The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation with an endowment of about £13 billion which it uses primarily in funding biomedical research to improve human and animal health.  For example the Trust co-funded the decoding of much of the human genome.  Another example of an interesting project it has undertaken is  digitising back issues of important medical journals then making them freely available. Part of the Trust's work is also about enabling the public to explore and become involved with biomedical science, its future directions, its impacts on society and the ethical questions that it brings, and that's where our work comes in.  Games are a great means of engaging people that gets them thinking and interacting, but does not bash them over the head with the issue.

We're also happy to announce that we have just signed a second contract with Wellcome to produce their first game around the issue of 'Dirt', working with Toytek as the developer. We're excited about both projects and will keep you posted!

£30,000 People Award for Interesting Games Ideas

Auroch Digital is working with the Wellcome Trust and TIGA (the Independent Game Developers Association) to promote the Wellcome Trust's people awards - which are great news and a good opportunity if you are a small development studio looking to do something different:

People Award £30K Grants available for small games projects that explore the impact of biomedical science.

The Wellcome Trust, the second largest charitable foundation in the world, has a small grants scheme that enables you to explore the impact of biomedical science on society, its historical roots, effects on different cultures, or the ethical questions that it brings. Games are a great platform for exploring these issues and we invite proposals using this medium as we're interested in what ideas you may have. The project aims to encourage people of all ages and from all walks of life to consider, question and debate the key issues of now and the future. We want people to be informed, inspired and involved. The People Awards support projects that aim to achieve at least one of the following:

* stimulate interest, excitement and debate about biomedical science through various methods * support formal and informal learning about biomedical science * reach new audiences not normally engaged with biomedical science, as well as continuing to target existing audiences * examine the social, cultural, historical and ethical impact of biomedical science * encourage new ways of thinking about biomedical science * encourage high quality interdisciplinary practice and collaborative partnerships * investigate and test new methods of engagement, participation and education.

Applicants can apply for up to £30 000, for projects lasting a maximum of three years.

Organisations might include: museums and other cultural attractions; arts agencies; production companies; broadcast media; schools; local education authorities; universities and colleges; youth clubs; community groups; research institutes; the NHS; and science centres.

Partnership projects (between different people and organisations, e.g. scientists and ethicists, educators and artists) are welcomed. It is suggested that a possible approach is to find an organisation (e.g. science centre, museum, NHS trust, educational establishment, research department etc) and/or a scientist/s currently working in biomedical areas - then submit a joint proposal to make a game and/or interactive project. We would expect the resulting project to be distributed for free.

Please note: Standard health education and promotion projects, or projects dealing purely with non-biomedical sciences, are not eligible. In addition applicants must be based in the UK or the Republic of Ireland and the activity must take place in the UK or the Republic of Ireland. Finally, applicants need to have enough experience to demonstrate that they can deliver the project to a high standard. Deadlines:

* 29th October 2010 * 28th January 2011

There is more information including applications forms, lists of past applications etc online: http://bit.ly/peopleaward

Any questions and queries can be directed to; people@wellcome.ac.uk - however please check the website for answer before emailing questions to us.