Games and Mobile Forum: Who will Create a YouTube for Games?

Authored by Jay Baage on May 22, 2007 - 11:18am.

From the Games & Mobile Forum: An interesting discussion that John Welch, Playfirst's President and CEO, as well as several of the morning panels, touched upon is if the Games Industry will go the same way as the music and television industry? Will we see a YouTube for Games soon?

A common theme that carried over from yesterday was that the game consoles are doomed. In the future, you don’t pay for the box, a Cisco or Comcast will give it to you for free, perhaps integrated in the next generation set-top boxes.

John Welch mentioned that he sees that the major innovation in the games industry will be in software and new, interesting controllers.
“In the future I don’t think we’ll see living rooms equipped with the combination of a traditional television and a game console. It will just be integrated into the digital television”, said John Welch.

Another common theme is that open format as opposed to the closed ecosystems of the current console games is what drives innovation.
“Microsoft wants to own the platform, but not the box”, said John Welch.
Either a console maker like Sony, Microsoft or Cisco or a cable company or technology provider like Comcast, Cisco or Motorola will facilitate a platform that people can make UGC games for and upload, much like people upload videos to YouTube.
“Community becomes more important than pixels and polygons” said John Welch.

When it comes to new business models, many of the panelists believe that there will certainly be a move towards free, ad-supported models.
“We’re trying to move beyond banner ads to more engaging in-game ads, said Greg Mills, Director, Casual Games, AOL Games.
“There is a lot of hype around Second Life. I believe that women gamers would be more attracted to something like Pogo meets Habbo Hotel, something a little more user-friendly”, says Margaret Wallace, co-founder and CEO, Rebel Monkey.

Joakim Baage