The superpowers of gamers
This month, Digital Cinema Media’s CEO Simon Rees takes a look at the growing union between the film and gaming industries – and notes powerful, cross-platform opportunities for brands.
Visionary game designer and author, Jane McGonigal, claims that gaming can help create a better world. It’s a big claim, but games can actually boost our resilience and even give us ten extra years of life, she says.
McGonigal uses current research from the positive psychology movement to argue that games can contribute powerfully to human happiness and motivation – even a sense of meaning – and in her 2012 TED talk, she explained why, as part of modern human happiness, we need to achieve 21 billion hours of online gaming a week by the year 2020. That’s an hour a day, every day for half the people on Earth.
McGonigal’s thoughts are gaining traction within the media industry. PHD took to the stage with McGonigal at Cannes this year, with Mark Holden, global planning and strategy director, sharing how the entire PHD global network is transforming its approach to collaboration by rolling out an in-house platform – Source – that embraces the principles of gamification.
Alongside facilitating co-operation and providing a framework for strategic decision-making, Source also hosts a leader-board charting the relevant output of PHD employees across the globe.
The professionalisation of ‘gaming’ in our industry comes at the same time as the average profile of a gamer is significantly changing due to the explosion of mobile and web-based games.
Sales of Wii U consoles and video games throughout 2013, as well as the likely release of Xbox and PlayStation successors into the market, are also likely to result in a market value increase of 11.6% for the year.
According to McGonigal, one of the reasons people enjoy gaming is that avatars are the most heroic, idealised version of who we might become. They are ‘Super Powered’ versions of ourselves and enable us to escape into a different world – just as we do at the cinema, whether at the latest Man of Steel, Batman or Avengers adventure.
Recent TGI data shows that 64% of cinemagoers own a games console (with 32% of these bought in the last 12 months), spending above the UK average and making up a massive 83% of the total £1.6 billion spent on consoles and 86% of the £1.4 billion spent on games in the last year.
While multi-platform games are also now an integral part of major film brands, video game franchises have also made it on to the big screen, with mixed results, but continued enthusiasm from the studios. This week, Sony has announced that it is developing a film based on one of its own video game franchises, Gran Turismo. Sony Pictures Animation has also entered into partnership with Rovio to turn the gaming phenomenon Angry Birds into a 3D animated film, for release in 2016.
DCM has also now partnered with IGN, the UK’s leading games and entertainment website, to open up these opportunities to relevant brands. Together, we reach more than 7.7 million UK based 18-35 year old men every month, via cinema admissions, web, mobile and social platforms, who have a shared passion for games and film.
As a medium, we have to understand the passion points of our audiences and create powerful, cross-platform opportunities for brands.