Despite the high attendance and enormous enthusiasm at the Milia multimedia show in Cannes last week, it was a humbling experience. The reality is that multimedia has not taken off nor fulfilled the promise of just three years ago. That said, the show demonstrated that there is still heaps of activity in the market. No one is downhearted and exhibitors maintained an ever enthusiastic approach to their media which remains exciting even if it isn’t yet profitable.
By Abigail Waraker
This year the focus was the computer games market, with a whole conference day devoted to the subject. The more cynical attendees commented that this is the only sector of the multimedia industry that is actually making cash. Sony Corp had a stand for the first time and Intel Corp was promoting its MMX multimedia technology for improving game play on the PC. In the discussion forum, the gaming industry grappled with the realities of shifting a successful movie into successful gaming content and vice versa, but even for the burgeoning games and film industries that transition is not simple. The two industries need to understand each other’s business processes, the speakers said. The two industries are just getting to grips with the idea that film is a linear experience and a computer game is essentially interactive. The movie industry needs to understand that screen writers working on a game is no good because they are linear, said Matthew Costello, president and creative director at Polar Productions Ltd. But it is good to realise that good writers are important. Key to making a successful game from a movie is collaboration between the two sides on the project. Alan Gershenfeld, vice president of production and creative development at Activision argued that making games is more difficult than making films. There is no template to making a good game. And the games platforms are changing under us in a way that they are not in the movie industry. Hollywood writers seemed to think that they knew how to do it. They have woken up in the last four to five years. Now a positive synergie is starting to form, he said.
Movie tie-ins
Synchronization of film and game release is a second key factor for success. Leonard Mlodinow, vice president of new media development at Scholastic Inc said the fact that it sold 200,000 units of the 101 Dalmations game in the first four weeks of launch was because it came out on the same day as the movie. 100,000 of that wouldn’t have been sold if the game had been brought out two months later, he said. But the relative success of gaming meant that it wasn’t the topic on everyone’s lips. Funding and future development of multimedia was key. The European Commission is keen to invest in the technology to make sure it plays a part in providing jobs in the future. But the fact that bodies like those of the Commission are setting the example gave the impression that industry has yet to take charge. The Commission announced financial support for one project and presented the results of another. It launched the Europrix MultiMediaArt ’98 award to encourage development of ‘multimedia for a purpose’ under the auspices of its Info2000 program. The award includes five categories including multimedia for small and medium enterprises in the workplace; improving democracy with multimedia and knowledge and discovery. Competition is open now and winners will be on show at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October. The Commission also demonstrated work being carried out as part of its Multimedia Support Networks. Industrial sectors covered include electronic publishing, educational and training software, animation, online publishing of image databases, creation of digital archives as well as art and culture and textiles and clothing. The 12 projects are funded by the Commission’s Esprit programme and provide a range of services and products to the European multimedia networks and related industries and eight of them shared a stand to demonstrate their work. In order to keep costs to a minimum and add value to multimedia content, some companies announced moves towards collaboration. Bertelsmann Book AG, the consumer division of IBM Corp, Havas Interactive and World Book Publishing joined forces to announce the Multimedia Consortium.
Making the most of multimedia
The Consortium’s goal is to make the most out of multimedia assets by sharing them between members for use in future educational and reference CD-ROM products. The idea is that if members share content it will make product development costs cheaper due to shared costs. In addition, the Consortium will license that content to other companies. Such a move was seen a vital by some observers in a market where few CD-ROM developers are making a profit. In another content sharing move, Scala Online announced with Museums Online that it will offer its digital database of paintings on the Web, bringing together images from across the world from both museums and private collections for license to multimedia developers. Scala too has its roots in European funding. It is a partner of Museums Online through Menhir, a European Union Esprit project. So with continued funding, collaboration and a healthy dash of enthusiasm boosted by glorious sunsets over the Mediterranean in Cannes, the multimedia industry is adamant that one day it will be big business.
