Feature: 'E3 2006: How Game Industry Leaders are Managing Risk'

In the second of today's Gamasutra main features, we look back on the final day of E3 2006, with a discussion panel titled "Future Shock or Smooth Sailing Ahead: How Game Industry Leaders are Managing Risk." The discussion, moderated by 'The Xbox 360 Uncloaked' author Dean Takahashi, brought together Todd Hollenshead, CEO and Co-owner of id Software, Inc., Lee Jacobsen, Vice President of Business at Midway Games, Ray Muzyka, Joint CEO of Bioware Corporation, and Jon Niermann, Senior Vice President and Managing Director from Asia Publishing at Electronic Arts to discuss risk management and budgeting during this most recent hardware transitional period. In the following extract, EA's Niermann discusses alternative funding models, and how the publishing giant might be approaching them: "Also up for discussion were the new business models that have begun showing up and will most likely continue in the future. Appropriately, Niermann tackled this by saying, 'In-game advertising is getting a lot of attention now. Customization is a big thing. For online, the models working right now are microtransactions. That’s relatively new for us at EA,' adding that 'it’s something we’re exploring in Korea with FIFA Online. Digital download is a new one for us, it’s been a challenge. A lot of people want to have the actual disc, but we need to make it available online as well. Jamdat is another example for us. We’ve had about 40 distribution deals around Asia alone with that. New IP is something we haven’t done locally in the [Asian] market.'" You can now read the full Gamasutra feature (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external web sites).