Consulting

Interactive Entertainment Means Games

The game industry -- or industries, as conventional retail, arcade, casual, indie, mobile, web, mass-market boardgame, and hobby games constitute overlapping but different industries -- is the second largest entertainment industry in the world, and growing faster than all alternative forms of entertainment.

I've been involved in the field virtually since its inception, almost 30 years, and have experience as a game designer, software developer, producer, manager, and entrepreneur. With a deep understanding of "the game" in all its forms, of business practices and models, of software development methodologies, and of the aesthetic of the audience, I can assist your firm in its interactive entertainment ventures.

Whether the need is for business strategy and analysis, positioning a technology for success in the games industry, repurposing existing IP for profitability in the gaming space, implementing entertainment or educational product with game-like aspects, an understanding of the nature of the field, or the development of a solid interactive design, I can provide the knowledge, services, and contacts you need to ensure success.

Clients

Business consulting clients have included:

Motorola, on the implications of mobile games for mobile handsets.
Intel to educate them about the mobile games industry and its implications for their drive for greater market share in the market for mobile telephony.
IBM to assist them in formulating a strategy for participating in the game industry's growth.
Themis Group to help them achieve their ambition to be the industry's leading provider of community management and marketing services for massively multiplayer online games.
Viacom work out its online game strategy for the web operation of its Blockbuster unit.
Sarnoff Corporation to explore the use of their computer vision technology in the games industry.
Roland Berger & Partners, an international management consultancy, to help them advise a major European carrier on its wireless data strategy.
France Telecom research the online games industry in preparation for the launch of Goa.com, FT's online game portal.
Eden Soft Corporation perform research and construct a business plan to implement netplayable hybrid and online-only military conflict simulation games.
Skotos on their online game strategy.

Game Design

I've designed more than 30 commercially released computer, online, wireless, board, and roleplaying games; there's a complete ludography on this site.

As a consultant (as opposed to staff member), I've worked with:

Macarthur Foundation: I created a boardgame based on Daniel Burnham's "Plan of Chicago," a landmark of urban planning credited as influencing the 20th century evolution of the city; it was distributed to middle school after-school programs in Chicago by the foundation.
Playdom; I designed Nightfall: Bloodlines, a vampire-themed social network RPG, for them.
Go Cross Studios, providing advice as they develop a suite of team-based online games.
Big Huge Games, advising on an unannounced title.
Crossover Technologies. I designed Fantasy War for this New York area independent game developer; it launched on The Station@Sony.Com, but is no longer available.
Learn Technologies Interactive. I helped this New York-area new media firm design a graphic adventure, for which they had a publishing deal with Southpeak Interactive.
Simon & Schuster Interactive: Worked on the design of a prototype for a computer RPG based on a major science fiction media license.

Writing

I wrote the original draft of the text for the Games for Change Toolkit, a set of documents and videos designed to educate not-for-profits about games and how to create games that function as effective vehicles for advocacy.
Back in 1999, I wrote a report on The Future of Online Games for Creative Good, the web's leading user experience firm; you can now download the report for free.
I write frequently about games, game industry business issues, and game design for a variety of web and print publications; articles may be found here.