Gism Butter

We always knew the market would be phenomenal. In the dozens of years since videogames were created, all us true believers have known that the world would change dramatically because of them. And here we are in 2007, with US $1.1 billion in game sales in October alone. This according to NPD’s gone-then-back-again numbers. That’s a year over year increase of 73 percent. Makes me want to laugh at the graphic shown above.

For the record, I think this graphic above is waaaaaaay conservative. I’d expect all of these numbers to be doubled by 2015. With interactive hardware obviously being the direction for the future–thanks to maxed out graphics capabilities and multi-thousand-man development teams– the industry will soon enter a period where significantly transcendent experiences will emerge and become the singular point of reference for all Americans. This type of thing occurred with the movies, back in the 20’s. Television in the 60’s and 70’s. Movies again in the 80’s.

It’s happened already in India with the Bollywood film industry. Imagine if there were some interactive experience where kids and adults went and played something like Vishnu’s World of Warcraft. Market potential, billable on hours-usage at cybercafes could make such a game the biggest ever.

Highly targeted cultural gaming will eventually emerge. It’s happened in America with Super Mario Brothers, though in my mind, that’s the prototype experience. I have no idea what form such a movie-replacing-game would take, but off-hand, I could imagine something like a battle-tech system with fully trickedut cockpits, billed at $3 an hour to play, only playable in that place. Or a simulated Dojo, where your opponents are projected on the walls in front of you and around you, and you perform fighting moves to best them. Best played with a bunch of friends in a karaoke-box type setting. Beer and pizza too.

Think Karaoke. Think Rock Band boothes at the mall where all the gear is availble to use. Or a massive exploratory dinner/murder mystery experience: everyone shows up, eats dinner, then they’re handed shotguns and told the zombies are climbing through the front windows. I’d certainly pay $20 to spend an hour in Zombie nightmare, provided the fake shotgun makes big booms and kicks like a mule.

Immersion. There’s sooooo much more coming, folks. We can’t even imagine the wild types of games we’ll be playing in 10 years.

While traipsing around the Intarweb today, I stumbled across this piece by A. J. Jacobs. I’ve never really delved too deeply into Esquire, but after reading this, I may have to pick up a copy. Jacobs does a terrific job of breaking all the journalistic rules, and still manages to come off with a top-quality piece.

Essentially, Jacobs is researching the topic of radical honesty: living ones life without any sort of lying at all. Telling people they’re fat, for example. Jacobs implements this practice into his daily life, and the ensuing results are encapsulated in the article.

I’ve been dabbling in radical honesty for years, though I had no idea I was a practicioner until I read this article. Mostly, my honesty just comes from being completely clueless, sometimes.  A top notch read, and one of the few pieces of long-form journalism I’ve actually completed reading. Given my horrible attention span, Jacobs should be proud.

Call me a big fart cynic, but I don’t think that anything is going to change about our current wireless situation, here in America. While Google’s, or more specifically, Eric Schmidt’s plan to pay for the whole shee-bang of the 700 MHZ spectrum–provided the spectrum is pushed into some open standards and practices–will come to naught. Let me restate that without digression: Google’s bid of US$4.6 Billion for what used to be television’s spectrum will not be accepted by the FCC.

Here’s why. The United States government is in the habit of doing two things when it comes to an auction or contract: giving it to the highest bidder, or–more commonly–handing the item off to whichever company has the favor of the politicians behind the bill. No bid.

I see the 700 Mhz spectrum auction as ending in one of two ways, with a possible third utopian out come.

The first outcome is one in which the 700 Mhz spectrum is divided up into relatively equal portions that end up in the hands of the major phone carriers. Perhaps, in this scenario, Google dishes out some ungodly sum of money for a small chunk of this, and good things happen in there.

The second possible outcome is that AT&T gets most of it, and Google gets the rest. Or T-Mobile gets most of it, and AT&T gets the rest. Or, yadda yadda yadda. In this scenario, the whole kit and kaboodle goes at auction for something around US$50 billion. Maybe lots less. Key fact, though, is that the spectrum ends up going for far more than the Google US$4.6 billion.

Of course, there’s always the chance that Google just gets the whole thing and we all dance off into the sun.

I really can’t figure out why, but I see parallels here to when Ted Turner gave US$1 billion to the UN in the 90’s. I know Google’s not yet done the deal, but it seems to me that Ted’s money was largely wasted, as King George the Retard destroyed all credibility and power the U.N. had. But still, ya gotta admire Ted’s pluck. Just like you have to admire Eric’s.

As if James Burgett needed to find his voice… He was featured on Voice of America, the government funded international radio station that’s broadcast in a number of languages, I believe. Congrats, James.

Took the test. No surprise really….