Summary
Speakers: Daniel James, Three Rings; Matt Mihaly, Iron Realms Entertainment
Very brief notes…
The roundtable this year was as bad or worse than the last couple of years – probably around 100 people turned up on the first day, crowding out the tiny room, most of whom had no intention of saying a thing, and just wanted to go to a lecture. Ditto on subsequent days, although the room was only 2/3 full on the day I went (but STILL over-zealous CA’s refused to allow people in to the session, I heard afterwards).
CMP / Daniel and Matt – please stop doing this roundtable on its own, do it as a lecture instead, and do a roundtable for the people who genuinely want to talk about it, not listen passively :).
Interesting thoughts
Make the shopping experience in games as enjoyable in and of itself as it is in real life
– social aspect of shared-shopping, so that each purchase has a story behind it
Freestyle are finding that even with the weight of Vivendi behind them they cannot renegotiate better risk deals with credit-card companies when billing outside NA
Wizards of the Coast see that the tiny percentage of people who make the same amount of money living off secondary market as they spend gives everyone else a lot of aspirational power to keep them in the game and keep them buying
If micropayments and virtual goods are king, when will subscriptions die?