Extenuating Circumstances is a weblog by Dan Hon

5 Things I’m Thinking Right Now

Also known as the “Before I’ve been to Develop” edition.

Alice did it first, and then Kim did it. Here’s mine.

1. I’m calling it. We’ve hit Peak Game. Sure, Jesse Schell called it too, but mark my words: we’ve hit the top of the Gartner Hype Cycle and 2011 will be the year of the trough of disillusionment when everything we do will come with points, badges and achievements. Badgeville is a sign of things to come, and advertising agencies and brands are going to come crash the gaming party hard.
2. My friend Mink touched on this at her talk at GameCamp, which hopefully will get a second airing at SXSW 2011: with the explosion of non-core games, male game designers (and traditionally male gaming pursuits – the ‘emotionally immature’ shooting stuff, racing, explosion-y games) are going to become marginalised over the next five years. It seems like no one else other than Nintendo and some of the Facebook social games developers have realised this yet (and the latter in a copying, cargo-cultish way). Put simply: games designed by ‘non-gamers’ for ‘non-gamers’.
3. Where’s the first mass, non-checkin based location-based game going to come from? I still maintain that Foursquare isn’t a game and is instead a social utility.
4. The new publishers: indie developers don’t need traditional publishers and are starting to have an explosion of funding models available to them. Are they going to start to get agents? CAA have been looking into this for a while – they represent thatgamecompany, I think – where are the indie developer talent scouts? (Other than, say, Valve…)
5. Android, the Smartphone OS for everyone else.

Things I’m ignoring, probably at my peril:

• Set-top boxes (Canvas, Google TV)
• the iPad/tablets, because I’m thinking about them anyway
• Nintendo and Online (because they are, too)

No doubt I’ll update this next week.

Are you not spending any time thinking about Hungarian Vizslas?

Is there a timesheet code for that?

Just put it under ‘admin’.

[...] Following on from Matt, Alice, Ben and Dan… [...]

[...] things I’m thinking about Following Alice and Dan, here’s my contribution to the ‘blog 5 things you’re thinking about’ [...]

[...] Dan Hon: peak game, boys in game design, location-based games, the new publishers and Android [...]

I done did my 5: http://blog.dwlt.net/post/803651482/5-things-july-2010

I too, am looking forward to seeing the rise of games designed by ‘non-gamers’ for ‘non-gamers’. However, I still feel that there’s enough room for both.

.. and as for Foursquare, I’d argue that it started off as a game but has since evolved into a social utility. Similar to Twitter, it has changed form and that’s almost what makes them so much more exciting to me.

Loving the blog!

Hi Kumiko

Thanks for the comment – there’s absolutely room for both games for gamers and games for non-gamers, but I think there should be a recognition that there’s way more non-gamers right now than gamers.

And for Foursquare – while it might have started off as a game, it started off as an incredibly simplistic one. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with that at all though.

Completely agree with both your points. It’s interesting to see that someone from another agency is looking at this technology with such a similar eye.

I’m actually visiting friends in London later this summer (early August, to be exact). I am trying to see if I can get an informal tour of W+K – would it be okay if I contact you if that gets set up? I always love talking about these sorts of thing in person and geeking out.

Kumiko – drop me a line at firstname.lastname@wk.com and I’ll see if I can sort something out.

[...] Toby, Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 Following on from Matt, Alice, Kim, Ben and Dan, here’s my contribution for the meme 1. Ipad as board game/hungry hippo I was ever so excited [...]

[...] this thing of “five things I’m thinking right now” suits me fine. It unburdens my “blog” tag in Remember the [...]

[...] on from the meme that has gone through Kim and Alice and Dan and David and no doubt elsewhere, here are five things I’ve been thinking [...]

[...] 5 things I’m thinking about right now… Following on from Chris, who wrote a piece after an open invitation from Ian, who himself was inspired by Matt, Alice, Ben, and Dan… [...]

[...] Apple, crowdsourcing, Facebook, foursquare, frogmob, Google, openideo, transmedia Dan Hon and Duncan Gough did it; here are the 5 things I’m thinking about right now (better late than [...]