This entry is part of a small series of entries based on the recent XMediaLab conference in Sydney called "Global Media Cultures'.  Each conference speaker presented individually and I have decided to group them according to a common ground. This entry is based on Julien Merceron's presentation for XMediaLab.

The video game industry is huge in revenues - close to $57 billion.  In 2007, it was $18 billion in revenues with the progress being 30%.  Does that indicate that the growth is sustainable?  Or that growth can be extrapolated?  According to Julien Merceron, the CTO of video games publisher Eidos, the video game industry is young and only 30 years old.  Compared to film, it was only 30 years ago that the transition from black and white to colour was made.  The games industry is in its infancy, or developing stage, still.

With online, half of the advanced business models, such as pay-per-play and micropayments, has integrated with games.  Games nowadays can be seen as a media platform or even a business platform.  How so?  Many of the video games today are single player and online multi-player friendly. 
Julien detected that PDLC's, community features and user-generated content will be the featured ways to generate new business models for the games industry.  There is also a mention of adopting a long-tail business model where content delivered is according to want/need.

Once a game has been developed and shipped, the cycle does not stop.  The following will drive the new project cycle:

• New content needs to be produced (preferably more dynamic content)
• The community needs to be managed (the players need to be known)
• There needs to be a reliable and good infrastructure available for user-generated content. 

There needs to be a move towards:

• Changes in content of the game and feature set
• Identity/branding (ie ones with long term and dynamic vision)
• Know about the self/others
• Create/share (how can designers and players interact?)
• Function to play anywhere
• New paradigms in multiplayer

In terms of infrastructure:

• New processes for authentication/billing
• Live content updates
• Trading and sharing platforms

What I found surprising (or predictable, either way!) is that I have found many of these points can be adapted to other industries such as film, music, journalism.  This is already recognised by Julien where he saw other opportunities between games and other media industries. Read more about serious games here.