GDC 2011 talk posted

I get many requests for the slides of that talk, so I simply posted it on slideshare here.

Have fun, and don't forget to quote me please when you use it.

GDC 2011: Out of Client services

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This will change the world of technology

Simply watch it how natural it works. Its Minority Report for the masses.

An entirely different topic: upgrading iMac 2009

I spend some time thinking about buying a new machine. I use an iMac i7, late 2009 model for work and gaming and I love it. Apple didn't manage to anounce a new one so I upgraded my machine with a SSD and a new graphic card. Wait, a new gfx card - usually not possible on an iMac. Well, Apple used very similar layouts for 2009 up until 2011 models so the 2011 card fits into the 2009.

You can see the work needed here: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac-Intel-27-Inch-EMC-2390-Graphics-Card-Update/9553/1

GDC Europe talk 2010 and its echo

At GDC Europe 2010 I did a talk together with Chris Schmitz from Ubisoft about free to play monetization. An editor from Gamasutra (Brandon Sheffield) wrote an article about it which spawned a heated discussion about ethics in free to play games (see comments underneath article).

So for your enjoyment read this first:

GDC 2010 talk by Teut Weidemann - with comments

and then their really well done fllow up:

Playing with fire: Ethics and Game Design

PC/Console gaming is dead - oh really?

My talk from Quo Vadis 2012 about the usual returning statements that either the PC or Console is dead -which never happens:

PC gaming is dead - oh really??

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Golem Quo Vadis Interview II

The second interview by Golem.de with me about the future gaming market  (German only, sorry folks)

- which fit my talk at Quo Vadis about the future of the industry (see newer posts)

Video: Teut Weidemann - der Tod von Konsole oder PC (7:26)

F2p market foundations

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

F2p market foundations

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Community Management vs. Support - Fight!

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Community Management vs. Support - Fight!

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F2p foundations II and OOC issues

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F2p foundations II and OOC issues

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2x Podcasts mit Teut

Sorry, German only: 2 Podcasts mit mir und anderen Veteranen:

Einmal der Pflichtpodcast Spieleveteranen, hier anzuhören oder per iTunes abbonieren:

Spieleveteranten Podcast

und ein zweites mal über alte Zeiten und meine Rainbow Arts Zeiten:

Radio Paralax Interview

knapp 4.8 Stunden über Retro, Amiga und Co.

Clint Hocking about Gamer Generations

This talk impressed me not only because its presented in very funny and direct way but also because he views gaming from a different perspective.

Noch ein Interview

Ein kurzes Videointerview was ich auf der Quo Vadis noch führte findet ihr hier.

German: My video Interview on Golem.de

Ich wurde interviewed aufgrund meines Vortrages auf der Quo Vadis über den Games Markt 2015. Der Vortrag hängt als PDF im Artikel am Ende von Seite 4 und kann aber auch hier runtergeladen werden.

Video: Interview mit Teut Weidemann über den Spielemarkt im Jahr 2015 (7:58)

Creating Worlds

I wonder what influence the movie Minority Report had on the industry regarding interfaces, but this video one beats it all. Touchscreen is the latest craze of the industry, the iphone woke up the mobile industry and now computers move to touch as well. This one shows the future, watch this first before the second video, which shows the touch interface in the real world ... awesome stuff!

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Next² Console Generation?

If games characters look like the following in a couple of years, where will movies be? The following pictures are all 3d rendered images, most of them can be found at Cgsociety.org.

Lecturing and Teaching at Universities

As some of you know I am an active teacher at two universities. One course is Game Design at the Media Design Hochschule in Düsseldorf (also active in Munich and Berlin), the other one is the famous Filmacademie in Ludwigsburg (even earned OScars for their films).

At the first I am looking for an easy to use level design tool with a game attached already. They need to learn the tool pretty fast and be able to design a complete, playable level within 1-5 weeks. Any recomodations? This can be an online game, single player game (any genre) and needs to be freely available.

Please leave comments about recomodations.

"World of Warcraft is officially Casual!"

I am quoting the headline from a friend of mine who droppt this in a chat. And he is right. Considering that you can level from 70 to 80 in days very easily plus you can enter instances/dungeons in normal mode 5 levels before the level requirements and having no difficulties helps the casual player reaching goals he would never be able to earlier.

At level 80 random groups for Naxxramas, the 10 man instance, were running Naxx successfully days after the expansion has been released. Even for the heroic version of Naxx, the first 25 raid you might enter, are being run with success.

Now 2 german players solo'ed Loatheb, a boss in Naxx, in heroic mode! Thats how easy it has become.

The elite guilds hate it, casual players love it as the difficulty is ok for them. Two things start to happen: the elite guilds miss the challenge and casuals are raiding like the pro's have been before. Fun fun fun, but Blizzard has a problem. The pro guilds were the heros of WoW and casuals saw them as their role model. Of course they complained that they never can raid like they do, but still they liked that there is somethign after their level cap to reach, unlikely, but it is there.

Now everyone can raid and the feeling "there is somethign beyond" is missing. That might lead to the problem that pro guilds stop playing or waiting for the next expansion as there isn't an alternative for raiding outside WoW right now (neither WoW nor Lord of the Rings do it "right"). My personal opinion is that Blizzard needs to offer an elite content patch real soon otherwise they are going to loose the role models of the masses.

Check this: the majority of the playerbase never saw the inside of Sratholme before Burning Crusade came out, less than 5% of the players at that time never saw Naxx from the inside. Less than 5% of the playerbase before Wrath of the Lich king saw sunwell from the inside.

Yes, its the right move Blizzard to make things more casual and more fun for everyone, but do not forget what principle (among others) made WoW big: Elite content for the core players.

Fiction Book on Nano Tech

A friend of mine wrote a pretty neat book, it took him serveral years to complete and he offers it as a free download with a donation optional if you like it. Want to check it out?

Read it here

Item Selling?

The latest craze in online gaming: Free to play and item selling. But this word "item selling" is misunderstood. Casual users think that you can buy anything the game offers in items, that you must spend money in order to succeed. In RPG's itemselling  suggests you can spend real money to buy the best armor or weapons available.

But this doesn't work for RPG's. A fellow gamer looks at you and thinks "hey, he spend money and has better equip, I won't pay so why should I continue playing?".

Some games do allow exactly this but they are designed in a different way. Those games are made to have a stickyness of maybe 3 month (With stickyness I mean how long the player actively plays). In this case it is ok to sell anything you want as the player is merely a bypasser in the game world. The business concepts varies here: some publishers push millions of users through their games and only a fraction stay. Many user in - many users out.

Some games, usually virtual worlds like MMOG's, have a larger stickyness. I heard from games where people play it since years, just like you read from World of Warcraft. Exactly here the word "itemselling" is hurting the user base.

So care must be taken how you implement item selling. I prefer the term "Micropayment" as you pay in small amounts and buy things which aren't usually visible to fellow gamers in the same world. A famous example is the XP scroll, which grants you a temporary boost in experience points you gain for monsters and quests.

However the experimentation goes on and usually the creative teams thinking exactly what their customers would pay for are successful. Here customer bahviour or motivation research is very important.

In one game I have data that seasonal items are the best sellers. Halloween costume anyone? Santa Claus hats? People who spend a lot of time in a virtual world love this. Ask yourself why and you are close to find the grail of itemselling.

Generally there are a lot of good business cases here but what works is hard to research if you are just starting or don't have connections to the industry. Thats one point where I usually get paid for, to tell people which works and what doesn't for their online game.

German Developer Awards 2008

I was attending the German Developer Awards 2008 yesterday and was in for a surprise: one of my last games "Panzer Tactics DS" won the "Best German Console  Game"! The game had a difficult history in all aspects and surely this award will help this game which many strategy fans don't even know about.

The developer Sproing Interactive surely is proud of this award, and rightly so! Many people worked hard on this project and it wasn't easy to bring on the market.