Games for Alexa
Games have been a killer app for just about every new platform, from PCs to TVs (via game consoles) to Facebook to smart phones.
If voice computing, exemplified by Alexa, is going to be a new compute platform, I bet that we’ll see games becoming a killer app for this new platform too.
Game publishers are awesome at what they do. They pick winners based on existing trends incredibly well. They dominate the jump to new platforms that follow the trends of better graphics (more polygons) and deeper gameplay. With each new generation of gaming consoles we see a slew of amazing new games from the likes of Activision and EA. When VR becomes mainstream, I have no doubt that the big game publishers will dominate again. As AI gets increasingly applied to gaming, the big game publishers will lead the way. Their big budgets, top talent, game franchises and deep knowledge of existing game design best practices are huge advantages when gaming undergoes sustaining innovation like this.
However, game publishers have typically been slow to react to disruptive innovation. When a new platform initially has worse graphics and shallower gameplay, startups have beaten the big game publishers to the punch every time. Web games, flash games, MMOGs, Facebook games, smartphone games; all were industry sectors ignored at first by the incumbents. Instead, startups were the pioneers. As those sectors grew in size and importance, some of these startups have grown to become big game publishers in their own right (eg Zynga). Others (eg Mojang) were acquired.
In each case, games on these new, lower fidelity platforms were ignored or actively derided by the big game publishers. “That’s not a game, that’s just clicking around”. “What kind of game can you build with just one button”.
Voice-only presents the ultimate in low fidelity game platforms. Best practices in game design and game dynamics will need to be completely reinvented to figure out what makes a voice only game fun. I bet that fast moving startups will out-innovate the big game publishers in this platform too. And I bet that voice computing is right on the beginning of a huge wave that is going to make it the next big platform.
This isn’t just about Alexa. It’s about Siri, Cortana, Google Home/Assistant and the many new voice platforms from the likes of Samsung that are quickly coming on line. This isn’t about one company building a new platform, it is an industry. And it smells like opportunity for entrepreneurial game designers.
What kinds of games might make sense for voice interfaces? Some ideas are easy to imagine. Trivia games. Choose-your-own adventure style stories that harken back to RPGs. But if had the creativity or vision to know the answer, I’d be an entrepreneur, not a VC!
For a game to become successful, beyond fun gameplay, it also needs to solve the discovery problem. This is unsolved in general on Alexa today — many skills languish with few users. A multiplayer mode might solve this, perhaps tied into Facebook via OAuth. Discovery might happen in the FB feed, and gameplay via voice. Again, if I had the creativity and vision to know the answer, I’d be an entrepreneur, not a VC…
If you’re building games for voice interfaces, and they’re growing and fun, email me at jeremy@lsvp.com and tell me more about it.
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