| AtomShockwave
brings back the days of classic arcade gaming
By Michael Lafferty Remember
the good old days when you and your friends would gather in the arcade, drop
quarters into the various slots and indulge in a rousing game of Joust? Ok,
perhaps you are a little young to remember that title, or others like Rampage,
or Spy Hunter. These games were precursors to the hi-tech, sophisticated,
intriguing and sometimes overwhelming titles of today. It was a simpler time
in the game world. A time when all you had to have was a fast trigger finger
and the reflexives of a finely honed professional athlete. (Maybe that is a
bit of a stretch, but ask any older gamers and they’ll swear it is true.) Those
days may not be so far removed as you might think. In fact, some of those
classic arcade games are just a Web address away. Perhaps you’ve already
been there and sampled some of the free offerings. There is more there, but
you do have to pay for the privilege of reliving some great arcade
experiences. Atom
Films and Shockwave have partnered to produce a nice little product called
Shockmachine. This enables you to download some great old games, and play
offline. One is The Favorites Collections, a smattering of the new and old.
Here is where you will encounter DJ Fu and Tamale Loco. They are
two-dimensional, walk, duck or jump games that epitomize the style and lush
graphical elements older gamers grew up with. The Midway Collection features
1980’s arcade favorites like Joust, Spy Hunter and Defender. The games that
are included in the two new collections have been played online over 100
million times. Of
course there is more to the Shockmachine experience that merely playing games.
You can download free content from shockwave.com to create a personal
collection of games, e-greetings, music, and animation. So
what is this site all about? John Welsh, senior director and executive
producer of games at AtomShockwave took a few moments to answer some questions
about the site, the games and the trends in gaming. Question:
Explain a little about the concept behind this selection of games? What gave
you the idea to launch a site like this? What do you think your niche will be
in the realm of Web-based games? Welsh:
“Shockwave.com has established itself as a leader in Web-based games (we
have over 40 million registered users) and now we’re taking it one step
further by offering our consumers a chance to purchase and download their
favorite games for play offline. The time was right for Shockwave.com to start
offering premium paid content for several reasons:
We already have an impressive Shockmachine user base of 7 million
The quality of Shockwave and Flash games has advanced tremendously
Consumers are more willing to pay for content (CyberDialogue quotes 5 million
online game purchases).
We continue to offer a free product, but we feel that the market will be
receptive to our premium offering, which is based on the sale of great
content, not a device.
The wonderful thing about the web is that we can offer “try before you buy”.
We need to bring the market around to this way of thinking, as opposed to “play
everything for free”, and the success of our pay channel will feed right
back in to creating better and better games. Consumers pay for quality
entertainment in just about every forum other than online gaming. You can’t
blame them; we have all been giving it away to date. That is going to change
rapidly across the entire industry.
Advertising and especially rich, integrated sponsorships, will continue to be
a major revenue channel. We hope that ‘brought to you by…’ evolves to
literally mean that the sponsor has brought an excellent game out of the pay
channel to offer a branded game free of charge.
“Using
the Shockmachine device consumers gain total control over their gaming
experience – they buy their favorite titles in two collections, try new
games and levels, play them full-screen, anytime, from the convenience of
their desktops or laptops. The two new game collections, the Midway Collection
(arcade classics) and the Favorites Collections (popular and new games) are
each available for download for $19.95 each or $29.95 for both. Each
collection contains ten titles. Targeted at the casual gamer, these
collections combine quality games with the user-friendly gaming experience
that is associated with the Internet.” Q:
Tell me a little about what it takes to evolve a game until it is ready for
the site? How many people are involved, how long from planning meetings to
final release – that sort of thing? What is the biggest obstacle faced when
building one of the games? Welsh:
“We’re dedicated to offering the best games to our site and devices, so in
addition to internally developed games (Tamale Loco) we offer games that are
developed by third party developers like gameLab (Loop, BliX). We try to
maintain a balance between internally and externally developed content. “As
with console or PC/CD-ROM titles, development cycles vary greatly. Clever
puzzle games may be developed in a matter of several weeks or a few months by
multi-talented individuals. High end games such as InkLink and Big Mouth Bass
3D had a team of several programmers, artists, producers, and quality
assurance engineers working over a much longer time period. Whatever the
scale, the games that stand out do so for the same reasons as they do on other
platforms: an intuitive user interface, a solid implementation free of gotchas,
and – most importantly – compelling gameplay that is finely tuned to
encourage repeat play as the player progresses in proficiency.” Q:
What are your favorite games and why? Welsh:
“Shockwave.com has a large library of games in different categories, as our
goal is to have quality games to please a variety of tastes. Some my favorites
in the two collections are: Tamale Loco: Rumble in the Desert. A preview of
this game created by Shockwave Studios was launched in November 2000 and was
acclaimed by both consumers and the gaming developers community (Tamale Loco
was nominated for a GDC award for best character). The sequel, Rumble in the
Desert, absolutely blows away the preview; it is without a doubt the most
advanced platform game available in a Web browser. The very cool – very
relevant – animated story line makes this game a sure hit.
DJ Fu Wax Attack combines music mixing and Kung Fu fighting as you work your
way through 5 different levels to become a superstar DJ. Platform hopping
light with a big emphasis on mixing tunes, riding the half pipe for big
bonuses, and artful annihilation of sketchy dudes that would steal your
groove. Spy Hunter—one of the most popular titles on Shockwave.com, the
Shockmachine version of the game opens up arcade operator settings not
available on the site version. Believe me – you need them! This game was
designed to suck down quarters!
“Loop:
In January and February alone and average of one million have played Loop, a
unique modern game (you never have to click the mouse or press a key) with
addictive, progressive gameplay reminiscent of the great 80’s classic arcade
machines. The amazing thing about Loop is its wide appeal, from mothers who
applaud us for delivering a game they are proud to play with their young
children to office workers taking a coffee break that gets longer and longer
each day. Q:
What new technology(ies) have evolved from creation of these games? Welsh:
“The Shockmachine playback device is instrumental in bringing these titles
to users offline. The Shockmachine device has been downloaded over 7 million
times since its launch in 1999. It is a truly unique and user-friendly piece
of software that lets you download your favorite Shockwave.com titles, control
your entertainment experience with VCR-style buttons (play, pause, etc.), and
play back your titles in full-screen mode without need for a live Internet
connection. “We
are especially excited about the advancement to web gaming created by the
recent release of Macromedia’s new 3D Shockwave Player. Titles such as Big
Mouth Bass 3D were console-only until now. Also, developers are starting to do
things with Flash and Java that are absolutely astounding… you’ll see
several examples of each in our summer lineup.” Q:
What will people need in order to play these games and how did you settle on
those requirements? Welsh:
“The only thing people need to download these games is an Internet
connection. Since we target casual gamers, the factor that was most important
to us in developing the Shockmachine and the collections was combining ease of
use with advanced features of the entertainment playback device. The download
size is relatively manageable taking only a few minutes. Shockwave.com
realizes that most casual gamers do not have broadband connections in their
homes so we designed the download to be easy for a 56 K connection. Users have
the option of breaking up the download and downloading single games at their
leisure, as opposed to having to wait for the entire download. We provide the
consumer with the choice of how they want the content delivered during the
installation process. “Thanks
to the efficiency of Shockwave and Flash, and the expertise of our developers,
the minimum suggested platform requirements are a Pentium 233 with 64 megs of
RAM – far below what is required by other types of games.” Q:
If there was something you could do differently in regards to the game or
site, what would it be and why? Welsh:
“International Data Corporation estimates that 25 million households are
playing online games today with the number reaching 40 million by 2004. We
used to think of ourselves as the masters in the ‘casual gaming market,’
but late last year we realized that this massive market is really composed of
radically different segments. Thus we re-tooled ourselves into thinking about
six distinct product lines targeting three main consumer segments across four
different revenue channels. Hence major initiatives in Casino games, Puzzles
& Mind Games, and the paid content channel. Had we done this sooner, we
would be further along. Still, we think we are in a leadership position, just
not as far ahead of the pack as we would like.” Q:
Is there anything you would like to add – something that you would like to
state that hasn’t been asked yet? Welsh:
“Two things – first, to reiterate that paid content is a good thing for
consumers. How great would those feature films be if they were supported only
by advertisements and product placements? Shockwave.com will always have a
free offering, but we need the pay channel to support the creation of better
and better games. “Second,
look for Shockwave.com’s original brands – especially DJ Fu and Tamale
Loco – to grow beyond Web gaming alone. We are in discussions to bring these
popular branded properties to next-generation consoles and devices. Nothing is
final yet, though, so there is still time for a forward thinking publisher to
partner with us to capitalize on the strong recognition they have as a result
of millions of online plays.” Check
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