Russ Pearlman's Blog

Nice article from Dean Takahashi from GamesBeat following a speech from Rich Hilleman, Chief Creative Officer for Electronic Arts. One part to really focus on: “… Hilleman talked about the changes he has seen in more than 25 years at EA, which he joined as employee No. 39 in 1983. The audience is moving beyond males. The platforms are becoming mobile, social and online-connected. And the play style is moving from hardcore to casual. The business models are in flux as well.” (Emphasis is mine.)

It’s no surprise to anyone who has been engaged in the video game business that change is afoot, but I think the difference between “change” and “flux” is that change is directed, flux isn’t.

Interactive entertainment is quite different than non-interactive – watching a movie on a small screen, on a large screen, etc. is still fundamentally the same experience – it’s just different levels of quality. Not to belittle that, but playing a video game on a small device vs. a large device is fundamentally different. I think the same thing holds true for the connected entertainment device – playing a game against the computer vs. others is a very different experience. Additionally, the opportunity to dynamically add in more content is different – while you can download additional episodes of a TV show, it’s still a serial experience. Interactive is user driven – so adding in new content is more fundamental to enhancing the experience (or completely changing it).

So, while I see “change” in the industry related to video, music and books, I see “flux” in the video gaming space. I see a dramatic opportunity over the next few years to totally transform the experience from the 1983 video game idea (albeit higher quality graphics, physics and audio) of today towards a more immerse, connected, dynamic and growing experience for tomorrow. Just like the Internet opening opportunities for emergent companies to take hold (think Amazon, EBay and others) it also opens up a lot of competition and ways to expand revenue.

I can’t wait…

• First In First Out (FIFO) – the idea here is that items get processed in order – the first request is the first to get processed; this is exactly like the line at McDonald’s or just about anywhere else you go. The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t take priority into account.
• Round Robin – this approach works when there are multiple queues, you pull one item from one queue, one from the next queue, etc. For priority, you can use this approach by having a ‘high priority’ queue and a ‘low priority’ queue; this way, both will get serviced over time. Since I travel a lot, I know of a good example of this one: the ‘first class’ line at the airport. Agents typically service someone from the regular line then someone from the first class line then regular then first class and on and on. This approach works fairly well in helping to assign priority, but it’s still doesn’t discriminate between levels of priority, and it can cause a backlog of priority jobs that don’t get serviced in time.
• Priority based – this is an ‘enhanced’ round robin approach. In this case, you assign a priority amount to each work item. Each item in the queue is then sorted based on priority so that the ‘most’ urgent requests get serviced first. Again, using the airport example, this is how airline employees are treated – they get to move to the front of the ‘first class’ line when going through security – ahead of the elite travelers.
• Shorted Job First – this approach sorts jobs based on what can be completed the quickest. It ignores priority, but it does tend to optimize the system so that you can get the most jobs completed over a period of time. By way of analogy, think about standing in line for a copy machine. If 10 people have 1 page to copy and 1 person has 100 pages to copy, it’s most efficient to let the 10 people go first. The problem with this approach, though, is that as more work items come onto the queue, it’s possible that long running processes get pushed back so far that they never get done – essentially aging out.
• Multi-Level Feedback Queues – this approach uses a number of queues which take into account both processing time as well as priority. It can also take aging into account to make sure that a low priority, large job eventually does get completed as its age eventually makes it high enough priority.

As I’ve continued to approach various digital supply chain problems, I’ve been continuously reminded that most of these problems have been seen before in various other contexts. It’s a good idea to make sure that you don’t re-invent the wheel – if there is a good algorithm or approach already being used, leverage it…

In a discussion yesterday with a client, we discussed some bleeding edge concepts around the Internet – they insisted on calling this Web 3.0.

Tim O’Reilly, innovator of the term Web 2.0, has already staked some ground on that term, however. Web 1.0, according to O’Reilly, was the first generation of the web for Internet sites, basic e-commerce, B2C, B2B, etc. It gave rise to several giants including Amazon, EBay, Google and others. Then – the bust… Following that time, O’Reilly sponsored a conference entitled “Web 2.0″ – it was more about the resurgence of Web 1.0,  but it quickly took on a whole new term as C2C, social networking and a new slew of technologies (e.g., AJAX) hit the scenes.

So, then, what is Web 3.0? Canonically, Web 3.0 can be thought of as the ‘semantic web.’ In Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, there is data, there are transactions and there are SILOS. Does Facebook know what’s happening on other sites? Does Amazon.com integrate with your iTunes account to provide recommendations? In a Web 3.0 world, that can all be broken down.

I think some of the first foundational pieces of Web 3.0 are showing. Microsoft announced that Facebook and Twitter will be available from within the XBox 360 console. Not integrated, mind you, but a step. And, Facebook’s recent announcement of  buying FriendFeed is another good example. On the technology front, things like RDF and cloud computing will become common.

I know I’m excited… But, as the client and a collegue pointed out – what about privacy issues? Oops. The human factor may get in the way.