The Other Next Platform: ITV Gaming Takes Its Time

Electronic Gaming Business, Jan 28, 2004

PlayJam has real world experience with ITV gaming patterns in Europe, and simple and addictive is the key. "People love the slots game," says Furuichi. "We get a lot of kids but a lot of adults." Curiously, viewers treat the gaming channel much like another programmed piece of entertainment. The curve for usage rises after school and peaks in mid evening leading into prime time. ITV gaming seems to be something to do before and between other forms of entertainment, but the typical session lasts 22 minutes, approximately a half hour time slot, and it includes playing a couple of titles.

Licensing mainstream game properties into ITV gaming will be a part of the eventual product offerings in the U.S., says Furuichi, but he foresees some difficulties in getting the business relationships and revenue splits just right for both parties. One problem may be determining the real worth of familiar game brands in this channel. PlayJam has had most of its success by taking generic gameplay types and wrapping around them their own creative twists. In the U.K., PlayJam did license Tetris. "It's a strong name everyone knows, but they also found it didn't increase game play that much." Media-themed tie-ins, like a PlayJam game integrated with the Eight-Legged Freaks film did attract a lot of play, however. In the U.S., however, Furuichi admits, "It's a little early. We want to build an audience that is worthy and big enough for those guys."

Clear as Mud

Everyone in and around the ITV industry seems convinced that games will be one of the platform's key drivers, but the eventual forms TV-gamers will want are unclear. Many feel that the communal nature of television in the home discourages gaming as a ubiquitous activity, but others feel that community actually will be key to ITV gaming's appeal. TVHead is building into its channel environments functionality to allow tournament play contests against others inhouse and in the neighborhood. Others feel it is more likely that ITV users will first latch onto play-at-home versions of broadcast sports and game shows. The recently renamed Game Show Network (now GSN) boasts 84 hours a week of ITV-enabled programming via partner GoldPocket Interactive.

Quietly, many industry players seem to be talking already as a dance between mainstream gaming and ITV starts. Digital cable trivia game maker BuzzTime recently had three of its new titles rated by the ESRB. TVHead itself is manned by former executives of Midway. Zodiac Gaming has already created over 100 titles in a wide variety of mainstream genres such as adventure and sports sims with 3D effects over digital cable set top boxes and even offers game controllers. Company president Alexander Libkind recently declared in a statement, "Our mission is to bring hundreds of games to this newly evolving platform in order to make the ubiquitous set-top box a major competitor in the games market."

With next-gen game consoles taking on some of the hardware properties and subscription-based business models as set top cable/satellite boxes, and some in the ITV arena talking like console game companies, the two industries are either fixing to partner or compete, converge or clash.