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3.5c - What progress do you expect to make during the NESTA funded phase of your project? - TIMETABLE

NESTA suggestions:

"In this section we want to know when the NESTA phase will start, how long it will take and what the key milestones of the phase will be and when they will occur? We also want to know why is it important to have support from NESTA now? For example, is there a particular window of opportunity to be exploited or has the idea reached a critical stage where it requires specific support in order to help achieve its potential?"

The NESTA phase of funding would start in March 2004. It will last until the completion of the console demo and initial presentations to games publishers in the first quarter of 2005.

The key milestones will be:

1. Incorporation of new company (working title being MODfilms) - March 2004

2. Launch of MODfilms.net (closed beta) - March 2004

3. Finalisation of shooting script - May 2004

4. 1st draft of interactivity design document complete - June 2004

5. Completion of Animatic (interactive storyboards and concept art) - September 2004

6. Interactivity demo complete - December 2004

7. Launch of MODfilms.net (open to public) - December 2004

8. First presentation of demo to games publisher - January 2005

Since the re-acquisition of the property in 2002 and during its subsequent development, the visibility of "shared content" projects has increased to the point where this is one of the most significent development trends in the entertainment industry.

This is in part due to the general public's growing recognition of the potential of the internet - in the last quarter of 2002, there were 34,000 new customers signing up for a high-speed Internet connection each week (ZNet - Nov 15th 2002). Awareness of and familiarity with internet resources and capabilities has consequently rocketed in 2003. Companies are increasingly exploiting the potential of up-stream bandwidth (users uploading, not just downloading).

At the same time the Creative Commons project, in conjunction with the open source movement, and the availability of P2P file-sharing networks is having a profound impact on how people view the producer-consumer relationship.

It is vital to secure funding at this stage to stay abreast of the competition. Much of the thinking that has gone into this proposal, over a year's research, is becoming common knowledge. The landscape changes each month.

User-contributed content, particularly for online titles, is being touted as the future of the games industry.
http://www.gamespy.com/amdmmog/week8/

Despite public condemnation, the music industry is (quietly) paying for statistics from P2P file-sharing networks as a new form market intelligence.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=487&e=1&u=/ap/file_swapping_intelligence

Weeks after my original NESTA proposal, Greg Dyke announced that BBC would follow suit, and release the corporation's entire programme archive using a derivative of Creative Commons.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/start.html?pg=1

The mockumentary "Nothing So Strange" (www.nothingsostrange.com) captured the imaginations of such publications as WIRED magazine in producing an open source model for filmmaking.

The game industry is having difficulty in harnessing all these developments. To do so, business models have to change. Most titles (eg. first-person-shooters) are established formats that existed for PC long prior to the above developments. In a year that has seen an estimate of UK game industry losses put at "24 companies, 1200 jobs go, 20 per cent of the workforce", there is a short term opportunity to obtain investment and key talent to realise the aspirational aims of the project "under the radar".

Console games often suffer from overcomplexity of design and for the hubris of their ambitions. In a market acknowledged as overly driven by technology, it is vital that conceptually simple creative projects such as SANCTUARY be encouraged to leverage, and in some cases join up existing technologies in a way that can fire the popular imagination.

The DVD product is riding the crest of a wave of cutting-edge development. I need investment to beat the competition to the top of the mountain, which is being built as we speak. My idea can go little further without investment (a fraction of which is spent on most games) to position the SANCTUARY product as an influential world-beating prototype for a new market that is emerging.

Posted by .M. at October 17, 2003 01:20 PM