Gaming, be it online, via mobile, console, PC, handheld, or most any other platform, is a business that looks set to surge apace for some time to come. As that growth represents boundless opportunities to the games industry, an array of new and interesting propositions are also being presented to a TV industry constantly on the lookout for fresh concepts and content. The money-making potential for gaming is evident from market research data provided by Electronic Arts (EA). The games developer and publisher responsible for titles including FIFA, Command and Conquer, Need for Speed and Medal of Honor, cites that the US market alone spent US$8.6billion on software games and another US$9billion on gaming hardware and peripherals in 2007. Closer to home, EA estimates Asia Pacific’s software gaming market as worth over US$8billion in 2007, expecting that to grow to US$12billion by 2010, with online and mobile games the main drivers. Currently, Japan stands as the largest market for console and handheld games with retail sales totaling some US$3billion last year; while Korea and China are the main markets for online games. With the market looking up, Jon Niermann, president of EA Asia, reckons there is money to be made by the TV industry through exploring the synergy between the two forms of media. “TV and gaming are more synergistic today than they have ever been. You can see a strong sense of desire from both the TV industry and the game industry to blur the lines. It’s only natural to want to make TV more interactive, and interactivity is what we gaming folks do, so the fit is good and the technology is advancing at a rate that things are more possible this quarter than they were even at the last quarter,” he said. On their part, EA has been actively drawing the links between games and TV closer through deals with broadcast and content creation companies in Asia Pacific and Europe. Regionally, it partnered ESPN STAR Sports (ESS) April 2007 for a 30-min weekly gaming magazine show, Game, for audiences across Asia Pacific. The show provided gaming news, reviews, event reports, previews, behind-the-scenes, stories of athletes and their favourite games, as well as match-up simulations that use EA sports games to predict the results of ESS-broadcast sporting events. “(Our partnership with ESS is) the first collaboration of its kind anywhere in the world between our two companies, so Asia has led in that regard in bringing our content to TV audiences,” added Niermann. Having evaluated Game’s debut season, he revealed that the TV show may return for a second season with improvements. Similarly buoyed by the success of Game, Charles Less, senior vice president, advertising sales (SEA), ESPN STAR Sports affirmed, “EA was a great partner to collaborate on for this innovative genre of sports entertainment. By leveraging our pan-regional reach, we were confident this partnership addressed the needs of our client and provided them with the right avenue and platform to reach their target audience. ESS reaches out to a huge market of sports enthusiasts in Southeast Asia, and through Game, this partnership is certain to extend our reach to more viewers for sports entertainment by leveraging on the synergy between sports and gaming.” Internationally, also last April, EA struck up a creative partnership with TV formats specialist Endemol to develop Virtual Me, an online digital entertainment offering that allows users to participate in virtual versions of Endemol’s game and reality shows. “Our deal with Endemol will take us to the next level and will allow us to create content that is specifically designed to be interactive between the viewer and the content provider,” explained Niermann. Combining EA’s avatar creation technology and Endemol’s TV formats, Virtual Me provides online digital worlds where users of “astonishingly” life-like cyber-characters with customizable appearances and identities meet, socialize and compete. To debut with Endemol’s reality show Big Brother in the year to come, Virtual Me is currently being co-developed by an integrated team comprising EA and Endemol creatives. In the UK, February 2007 saw EA work with digital TV content provider etv on an advertising sponsorship for a daily free-to-view 12-min mobile TV show, Today on 3 Live, for the 3 network. In a six-figure sponsorship deal, Today on 3 Live included sponsor credits as well as EA-branded content that featured in the show’s line-up of interviews, video previews, chart information, competition and gossip targeting 16-26 year olds. The initiative followed the success of EA-sponsored etv mobile TV soccer show, Berlin or Bust which drew some 650,000 unique viewers when aired during the 2006 World Cup soccer tournament. On exploring regional possibilities offered by the fourth screen, Niermann revealed, “We currently do not sponsor any mobile TV shows in Asia, but we are actively exploring such opportunities in the new media arena.” In Asia, beyond EA’s Game magazine show, ESS has gone on to feature international professional gaming league, the Championship Gaming Series (CGS), in which its parent company STAR, US’ DirecTV and UK’s BSkyB co-invested. CGS gamers worldwide competed for the top prize of US$1million through a series of regional qualifying tournaments and a grand final held in LA last December. Broadcast from October 2007, the weekly hour-long show on ESS provided coverage akin to that of professional sports, and featured multiple ‘in-game’ cameras which followed the development of matches in PC games FIFA 2007 and Counter-Strike: Source, and Microsoft Xbox 360 games Dead Or Alive 4 and Project Gotham Racing 3. Departing from the review-heavy format adopted by its predecessors including Arcade which aired on Channel [V], the gaming series featured graphic-intensive visuals and profiled competitors – highlighted the competitive edge among them. Jeremy Hall Smith, senior vice president, STAR who oversaw the broadcaster’s involvement in the CGS, revealed their intention to bring gaming-related programmes beyond niche audiences. “Gaming shows provide a lot of opportunities for further development and reality shows are among these possibilities,” he noted. Further, in India, Kreeda Games has teamed with newly launched Hindi GE channel NDTV Imagine’s reality dance show Nachle Ve with Saroj Khan to feature Bollywood choreographer Saroj Khan on its online game Dance Mela. As a mass multi-player online song-and-dance game Dance Mela features new Bollywood and international tracks as well as dance moves for players using 3D customizable avatars. The game allows the players to chat, shop, socialize and compete in dancing contests in the virtual environment. Gaurav Gandhi, executive vice president (business operations and ancillary revenues), NDTV Imagine said, “Online gaming is on rapid growth in the country, and the synergy of a strong on-air property like Nachle Ve with Saroj Khan with a strong gaming partner such as Dance Mela, will surely be great fit for both the game and the show.” With the partnership, viewers of the show are able to catch Saroj Khan in action on the TV show, as well as play the game that has Khan’s avatar teaching dance moves in the virtual world. The highlight of the deal is a weekly virtual Nachle Ve with Saroj Khan Dance Mela tournament in which the winner’s dancing video will be aired on the TV show every week. In a symbiotic deal that makes Kreeda Games the show’s official gaming partner, and NDTV Imagine, the game’s official TV partner, the potential to synergize games and TV becomes clear for all to see. While content has taken centerstage in the game-TV crossover, the spotlight was stolen this January by technology providers BT and Microsoft. Announcing their collaboration at the Consumer Electronics Show held January 7-10 2007 in Las Vegas, the partners unveiled BT Vision as a “next generation” TV service that uses the Microsoft Xbox 360 gaming console as a set-top box to provide HD TV programmes, movies and games. To be based on the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform, BT Vision is touted to be the “first-of-its-kind” all-in-one entertainment platform, accessible by BT Broadband customers using the Xbox console. The service and device offering is expected to roll out in the UK from mid-2008. Xbox LIVE, the gaming console-based online social network will be integrated into the package to enable users to access online community features including voice chat, text messaging and the Xbox LIVE marketplace while watching television. “Our aim is to provide BT Vision on multiple platforms – giving customers greater convenience, control and flexibility over what they watch, when they watch and how they watch TV. It also means that we are able to potentially expand our BT Vision customer base by tapping into the popularity of Xbox 360,” said Dan Marks, CEO of BT Vision. Finally, in Asia Pacific, Australian pay TV provider FOXTEL is also in the crossover circuit offering on-demand games via its interactive Gamesworld service played using the FOXTEL remote. Relaunched December 2007, Gamesworld spots a new look and three new content genres including Kids Family, Brainteaser Trivia and Casino Sport. Produced with partners Turner International and NDS, the Kids Family genre brings pay TV brands including Cartoon Network’s Ben 10 and Boomerang’s Scooby Doo onto the gaming platform in simple and family-oriented games. Brainteaser Trivia, made with Australia-based TwoWay TV, features trivia, number and word games; and Casino Sport, produced with France-based Visiware, offers football, bowling, golf, and card games. Unlimited access to Kids Family and Brainteaser genres costs A$6.95 (US$6.20) while ‘Single Play’ across three genres costs A$1.00 (US$0.90) per game. “Part of the FOXTEL offering is providing services above and beyond core television programs. Our interactive services, such as games, complement our TV offerings and have enjoyed strong support in the past,” said Patrick Delany, FOXTEL executive director of content, product development and delivery.