Disruption is becoming an overused term in the tech and games industry. Many don't even know that it refers to a specific, well-defined academic principle as laid out in 1997 by Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen in "The Innovator's Dilemma." Formal disruption, as defined by Christensen, is designed to be applied as a real methodology in real world projects. In this talk, Ben describes how he directly applied the principles of disruption to the development of his new studio's first game, the revolutionary tablet and smartphone FPS The Drowning, by using Christensen's ideas to help make key decisions on what platforms, what partners, what technology, and what game design principles to use in its creation.
8. “We are bringing disruptive innovation
to the franchise and we are doing it on
several fronts.”
MISS-USE OF ‘DISRUPTION’
Eric Hirshberg
CEO,Activision publishing
10. DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION DEFINED
“A kind of innovation that improves a product or
service in ways that the market does not
expect.”
“Innovations that result in worse product
performance, at least in the near term.”
“Cheaper, simpler, smaller, and, frequently, more
convenient to use.”
11. CORRECT USAGE OF ‘DISRUPTION’
Eric Hirshberg
CEO,Activision publishing
12. “On several fronts, the Call of Duty
franchise is becoming worst performing,
cheaper, simpler, smaller and more
convenient”
CORRECT USAGE OF ‘DISRUPTION’
Eric Hirshberg
CEO,Activision publishing
28. QUESTIONS
• Do new platforms fit the patterns of a disruptive innovation?
• Which of those platforms should I focus on?
• What sort of organization should I create/join?
• How should we design our product?
• What level of product performance should we target?
31. IDENTIFYING DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION
“I would graph the trajectories of performance
improvement demanded in the market versus the
performance improvement supplied by the
(disruptive) technology.”
34. I CHOSE GRAPHICS
• Shows the technical performance of platform and code
• Shows the budget and staff quality for the project
• Acts as an easily-identifiable proxy for other improvements like physics,AI etc
50. DO NEW PLATFORMS FITTHE PATTERNS
OF A DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION?
Yes!
Console games = sustaining innovation
Mobile and browser games = disruptive innovation
52. THE ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’
•Facebook gets $550m annually through FB Credits, $375m comes from Zynga
•Zynga accounts for 12% of Facebook revenue
•Zynga spend $70m annually on ads in Facebook
•Zynga has an exclusivity agreement to use FB accounts for games
•In exchange FB have agreed to help Zynga hit certain growth targets for games
57. Join an incumbent?
No!
Incumbents very very rarely
succeed at surviving disruption
Found a startup?
No!
By 2013, it will be much harder to
succeed as a small company in
mobile
62. WHERE ISTHE MARKET FORTHISTECH?
“First, I would acknowledge that, by definition,
electric vehicles cannot initially be used in
mainstream applications because they do not
satisfy the basic performance requirements of
that market.”
63.
64. WHERE ISTHE MARKET FORTHISTECH?
They do not satisfy the basic performance requirements of that market.
65. WHERE ISTHE MARKET FORTHISTECH?
They do not satisfy the basic performance requirements of that market.
66. WHERE ISTHE MARKET FORTHISTECH?
“Historically, as we have seen, the very attributes
that make disruptive technologies uncompetitive
in mainstream markets actually count as positive
attributes in their emerging value network.”
67. ‘UNCOMPETITIVE’ATTRIBUTES
•Batteries produce fewer watts than mains electricity, meaning mobile
CPUs and GPUs are less powerful
•Mobile devices have smaller screens because they don’t connect to a
television screen
70. WORK ‘WEAKNESSES’ INTO STRENGTHS
•Game should satisfy core gamers, but be designed to work in
situations where console literally couldn’t compete
•Don’t try to go head-to-head and make a better CoD/BF/etc
•Aim to become a ‘trojan horse’ - so engaging that eventually we would
compete with console hours and dollars
71. HOW SHOULD WE DESIGN OUR
PRODUCT?
• Play to the strengths of the platform. Make a mobile game
• Action game rounds last no more than 2 minutes
• Played in 30 minute sessions
• Played with two fingers on one hand
• No in-game cutscenes, lulls in action, few little scripted moments
• A strong element of collection, crafting, inventory management
73. PERFORMANCE OVERSUPPLY
“The cycle of evolution itself is driven by the
phenomenon of performance oversupply, that is,
the condition in which the performance provided
by a technology exceeds the actual needs of the
market. Historically, performance oversupply
opens the door for simpler, less expensive, and
more convenient—and almost always disruptive
—technologies to enter.”
74. PERFORMANCE OVERSUPPLY
• Incumbents get trapped in a cycle of ‘sustaining improvements’
• Trying to compete with other incumbents
• Trying to improve last year’s model
• Performance improvements go beyond the point they are meaningful to the average
customer
• At that point, consumers seek out other improvements (price, size, convenience)
100. WHAT LEVEL OF PRODUCT
PERFORMANCE SHOULD WETARGET?
• Console/PC graphics are close to reaching Performance Oversupply
• For each doubling of power, the perceivable increase in quality for the average
consumer is less and less
• When things hit oversupply, the average consumer turns to something with the
same quality, but cheaper, simpler, more convenient
• So we should create great graphics, but not worry that mobile is less powerful than
console/PC
101.
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103.
104.
105. RECAP
• Are new platforms going to disrupt the core
games industry?
• Yes!
• Which platform should I focus on?
• Mobile!
• What sort of organization should I create/join?
• Big company with startup attitude
• How should we design our product?
• Turns weaknesses of the platform into
strengths
• What level of product performance should we
target?
• Make it as good as possible, but core
games are close to oversupply