OnLive is a new service that offers on-demand games (some news articles here, here, and here). Except instead of being online in the browser (like gog.com or gametap.com) or on a console (like downloadable content), OnLive is everywhere. They achieve this by running games on their own servers instead of having the player’s machine install and process games.

Each OnLive customer gets an OnLive “micro-console” which is basically a small box that takes in input/output devices (controllers and keyboard/mouse, video, and audio) and plugs into your ethernet port to connect to the internet. This micro-console can connect to any TV or a program can be installed on a computer to simulate the micro-console. Since the games are all processed on OnLive’s servers the only thing that is sent to the customer is video, so no major machine is needed.

Obviously OnLive has massive implications for gaming in general. It may get rid of the need to have consoles or the need to find demos when deciding whether to buy a game (since the newest games will be immediately available). On the negative side it gets rid of modding and other forms of customization that people enjoy when they buy a full fledge game, having access to the software.

What I actually found the most interesting however is the tangential features that OnLive brings to the world of gaming. These include the community features that OnLive is offering. Features like: live streams of gameplaying, recorded gameplay footage and tagging/rating/commenting on footage.

A few weeks ago I talked about the concept of ludovestigums or recorded player experiences. OnLive is a new platform for players to share their ludovestigums in extremely easy ways. These recorded experiences are not the same as game ghosts, or ludophasmas, which allow players to play with the experiences but they are still experiences that can be shared with other players by sharing gameplay footage. Yet, OnLive allows for players to not just view recorded experiences but interact with current game experiences, or ludoexhibeos.

Spectating in games is nothing new, professional game tournaments have made use of spectating through video (online stream, TV) or in game engines (spectating Counter Strike games while running the engine). In OnLive, players can spectate other player’s gameplay in real-time and then some. What OnLive is doing is adding the concept of actively participating while spectating another player’s game. For instance while a player is watching another player’s gameplay they can rate their performance. This ludoexhibeo, real-time game experience, thus takes on the same type of feel as a ludophasma, allowing the spectator to interact with the real time experience that another player is having, even having the ability to affect the experience as well.

Privacy issues come up when discussing these features but so long as players do not care their gameplay footage is being released I only see great things coming out of OnLive. Not to mention that once game experiences are recorded players can use them in different ways. For instance, just today I wanted to find a specific game event that occurred in Fallout 3. If OnLive offers records of gameplay footage, and saved games, players can tag and catalog game instances that will make finding content inside of games much easier. It will really help out us game scholars that like to find specific instances in games that show our theories and findings.

OnLive is offering ludovestigums in an immediate sense with ludoexhibeos. While it may not be sentient ludophasmas that embody the spirit of a past player, making it easier to interact with real-time game experiences is a good start.

After working on my labs Digital Improv project for more than a year now I am fed up with people and their excuses about video. In a four hour period our project collects 10 hours of footage that can be captured, encoded and trimmed in less than a week. That’s with as few as three people. We even stream video to a server so that we can have some video recordings available, in near-real-time, WHILE we are taping more footage. That streamed video is also available to us at any time in the future.

So here is my question, Why in the hell do more conferences not tape and upload their presentations? Let’s look at some of the excuses for why more conferences do not do this.

Man Power

Excuse
“We do not have enough people to record the video and then get them online.”

Answer
One thing that every conference should be asking for is volunteers, especially of the student persuasion. Conferences are expensive for students, I personally have rarely shelled out the cash to go to conferences that I was not presenting at (a side point is that conference participants are usually there to get a line on their CV). Allowing students to come to the conference, mingle with the crowd, in exchange for some work is a tried and true method. Student volunteers are usually tapped to control conference registration or moderating sessions. Why not put some on video work?

If camera equipment is already setup student moderators can just hit the record button and continue to moderate. They may have to change a tape out every hour but that is not very hard. Or, if you have a streaming video server, just hit record on your laptop connected to the camera, no tapes required. (see Equipment below)

Now if you use tapes then they will have to be captured (transferred to a computer) and then encoded/trimmed in a video editing program. Capturing does take a while because it usually has to be done in real time (at least with Digital Video tapes). But if you have student volunteers they can work on the videos as the conference continues. This may leave only the last days videos left but a) most conferences have half days as their last days with little content and b) if a conference is put on by a university some student volunteers are probably local students who can continue to work on the videos after the conference is over.

The encoding and trimming is almost negligible. Conference videos do not need to be edited together, you only need a camera to capture standard single shot footage, you do not need to go ILM on this stuff. Maybe normalize the audio, cut the beginning and the end off and you are right as rain. Encoding can usually be done in a batch process, meaning you setup all the videos to encode, hit go and the your encoding program runs until finished, hands free. (okay no more one liners)

Again capturing tapes and encoding/trimming them can be done with three students and a little training on a video program. Streaming video just needs someone there to push a button (and maybe upload to files to a new locations, see Money below).

Equipment

Excuse
“We don’t have the equipment that is required to record our presentations.”

Answer
B.S., are you telling me that in your entire conference committee no one has a camcorder? I’m not saying that every presentation at a conference needs to be taped, just having one room covered is a start. We use Canon ZR950 camcorders, which are under $300, and DV tapes are less than $2 a piece for 60 minutes of footage. I would suppose this is a drop in the bucket for most conferences especially since the camcorders can be used after the fact. A microphone may be needed (another $50) for each camera you have but if you are videotaping in a room that has loud speakers, or is just a tiny room, then mics may be optional.

If you want students to work on capturing tapes while the conference is going on then you will need spare camcorders or tape decks. You need them to connect to a computer with video editing software so that the tapes can be turned into video files. Having a spare camcorder would be the cheaper option because decks are expensive, but if you have a deck then more power to ya. Obtaining video editing software can be anywhere from free to expensive. Though, Adobe or Apple may give you a free copy of Premiere or Final Cut if you give them a sponsorship plug. While the conference continues one student just captures the videos, which entails setting the proper parameters and then waiting around until the tape finishes (they could leave it or study, either or).

Now for streaming videos obviously you need a server and a computer, with an internet connection, to upload your video while you record. We have a Quicktime Streaming Server and use a mac, connected to a camcorder, with free podcasting software to upload video. If you have a server, and good tech support, then you can probably get streaming software installed. If you are buying your space then there are hosts that will run a streaming server for you. Once you have the server and a program to upload the videos operating the laptop/camera combination is no different than using tapes/camera, except no switching tapes.

Now once the files are uploaded you do not need to keep your streaming server. Obviously paying for your own video server will have a high monthly cost and conferences do not need that extra expensive. The great thing is that the videos that are uploaded to your streaming server are ready to go as video files, no need to capture them. Just download those video files and upload them to Youtube, Vimeo or whatever and you no longer have to worry about paying for video bandwidth. Set up a group or channel on your chosen site and point users to all of your videos.

And if you want to go really low tech then use a webcam and record the talk to your laptop, then upload the video to Youtube. Or you can get a Flip Video recorder.

Money

Excuse
“We DON’T have the money to tape our presentations.”

Answer
As I mentioned in the equipment section, you can do one room at a conference for under $500. This would require student volunteers (that are let in for free) to handle the videos but they were not going to come/pay for your conference anyways. If you have a streaming server, it’s easier and requires less people. There are affordable streaming hosting packages that you would only need for the length of the conference. Those videos can then be uploaded to free video sites at no cost to you except the time it takes to upload them.

If you are really pressed for cash ask for donations. Participants would most likely give a few bucks more if you say all the money will go towards taping the conference and disseminating the presentations.

Second Excuse
“We CAN’T make money if we tape our presentations.”

Answer
Right, so no one will come to your conference if you put up all your presentations online. The point of conferences is not the presentations, it’s the discussion afterwards, the late night parties, and the connections you make. I wish I could go to every game conference under the sun, I’ve had tons of great ideas after speaking with others at conferences. It’s not the same if you see someone’s talk from a few months back and email them about their work, the dialog takes longer.

Having the videos available are for those who could not make your conference in the first place but want to know more about the talks that were presented. These presentation videos will act like advertisements for your conference. People can discuss the videos after the fact, twitter about them and get excited about the next conference. Why are you not taping your conference?

—

I would like to hear any arguments against what I have said here. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert at video production but I have run the spectrum of the different stages one needs to go through to produce videos. Considering conferences take place in-doors, in static environments and with little to no movement I think it is safe to say that they can be recorded quite easily.

The one thing I did not mention was how slides and speaker footage can be edited together. Most speakers have slides and their slides may be important. But really if you pan the camera back so that the slides and the speaker are shown in the same shot then this is a good starting point for recording your conference talks.

Also, because I love everyone, here are some links to some conference talks. I’ll try to find more.

GLS Conference 2008
GLS Conference 2007
Living Game Worlds 4
Meaningful Play 2008
Sandbox Summit 2008
SIGGRAPH 2008 (only 2 short movies)
TED

Disclaimer: All of this began because TED’s website was streaming slow and I had nothing to watch while eating dinner. DO NOT frak up my dinner video time.

I added around 30 more conferences to the conference timeline for 2009. I will be looking for more soon.

A presentation format is a presentation format. Whether I give a talk for 15 minutes or 6:40 minutes matters very little because I still have to make a condensed version of my work. I, personally, always try to use images before text, usually with great results. Beyond the use of images and a quickened pace that Pecha Kucha offers, I think the real problem is that there are good presenters and bad presenters. I’m not saying I’m in the former group but more often than not the latter group will fail no matter the format. Pecha Kucha or not.

With that said, I see two main problems with Pecha Kucha, in contrast with the obvious benefits of more speakers, concise talks and audience engagement. First, the talks are not in-depth. 6:40 minutes is not a lot of time and thus it is hard to go in-depth into any topic. Having an engaging presentation could lead to more audience questions or conversations after the talk but when do those occur? Does each presenter get time for questions after they present or are there ten talks in a row where the first few get lost in the fray. If the Pecha Kucha method is used there would have to be a way to address these issues, especially if the talk was so broad and high-level that people just do not know the right questions to ask.

Which leads me to the second problem, the talk cannot be referred to after the fact. I know I struggle with my poster design more-so than my 20-minute presentations because a poster is often experienced by the viewer at their leisure. Posters often have something that gets the viewer’s attention but then provides information or ‘talking’ points that can help the viewer understand the poster’s project without someone there talking over it, like a presentation would need. Therefore posters can be hung after a venue is over and still be useful. This can also be said for presentations that have actual text or substance on them as well, for instance placing them on slideshare.net. Pecha Kucha presentations would have to be digitally recorded in some format, otherwise I feel they would just not achieve the same resonance as the other formats can achieve after the presentation is over.

Though I think the format is useful. I was reading an old post over at Presentation Zen about the format where an example was given, students in a classroom can give a Pecha Kucha talk but then have to field in-depth questions for 20 or 30 minutes. This would help them create tight, brief talks but still have to talk intelligently about their topic afterwards. I also think that this kind of format would be beneficial for graduate students to give every year at the end or beginning of the school year, just to give everyone a clear picture of where everyone else is at.

In the end I really think that presenters need to be critiqued on their overall performance, not given a new format to screw up. Too often do we see a bad presentation at a conference and then just brush it off, with no further help to the one presenting. I know some conferences have feedback forms but an internal critiquing panel would be useful at conferences as well. Again format is format, a 20 minute talk can have the same feel as a Pecha Kucha talk if presented by the right person. The actual presentation skills of the presenter is where we should be focusing our attention.

Well I think a month is enough to break my vow of silence.

What an historic day. And I was able to be in Toronto, Canada today talking about conflict at the Future Play Conference. I was presenting my work on using conflict theory to build conflict systems in digital games. I can think of no better day to have talked about the concepts of human conflict.

In the last month I have presented work both at Meaningful Play and Future Play so I will be adding my papers and slides from those conferences shortly. And actually I was lucky enough to have two papers, from Meaningful Play, be accepted as journal papers. One of which I was the single author on. So October was a good month