| Play from beginning |
| 00:00:05 | While we're studying trends |
| 00:00:08 | there are a lot of trends to look at. |
| 00:00:10 | Currently the cost of disc drives is plummeting |
| 00:00:15 | and has been plummeting at a truly ludicrous rate. |
| 00:00:20 | However the speed of internet connections hasn't been growing anywhere near as fast. |
| 00:00:24 | To the point where drives have been getting cheaper |
| 00:00:29 | but not bigger as fast as you might expect |
| 00:00:31 | simply because people can't fill them. |
| 00:00:36 | They can't download enough stuff to fill them. |
| 00:00:39 | At some point you can download anything instantly. |
| 00:00:42 | However, for starters you can move up to HD quality video |
| 00:00:50 | for everything that you watch |
| 00:00:52 | which people are definitely going to want to do. |
| 00:00:54 | And that gets you a couple more years of net connections |
| 00:00:57 | not being anywhere near fast enough. |
| 00:01:00 | And you can possibly go up higher than that. |
| 00:01:07 | There are a number of other trends going on. |
| 00:01:09 | The costs of production of all kinds of things are definitely going down |
| 00:01:16 | The costs of production of audio have already pretty much bottomed-out, |
| 00:01:22 | in that the equipment costs so little it's ridiculous |
| 00:01:27 | And mostly when you're recording something your primary concern |
| 00:01:31 | is getting a decent sound-proof room |
| 00:01:34 | and most people have one of those in their house already |
| 00:01:39 | and the toilet doesn't really distort the sound too much. |
| 00:01:43 | So the recording industry is having this problem now |
| 00:01:47 | that new artists know that they don't want to get signed. |
| 00:01:53 | And they've read the various essays talking |
| 00:01:56 | about what an incredibly bad deal getting signed can really wind up being. |
| 00:02:03 | And they have their music themselves and they're distributing it online |
| 00:02:08 | which is pretty good for them, not so good for the people who are traditionally resellers. |
| 00:02:15 | They have a problem. |
| 00:02:19 | So, in the case of... now that doesn't mean that music isn't getting produced -- |
| 00:02:25 | quite the contrary, tonnes of music is getting produced |
| 00:02:28 | and lots of people who would otherwise have trouble reaching an audience |
| 00:02:36 | via their music can because in the past you were completely beholden |
| 00:02:41 | to what you could possibly get played on the radio |
| 00:02:43 | and now you can just |
| 00:02:44 | put your stuff online and lots and lots |
| 00:02:47 | of bands are getting followings that way, however |
| 00:02:50 | the traditional industry of how music is distributed |
| 00:02:57 | is having to reorganize. |
| 00:03:02 | Now in the case of video, costs are definitely going down |
| 00:03:09 | not as much as in the case of audio |
| 00:03:12 | but things are shuffling around in interesting ways. |
| 00:03:16 | Right now reality television is getting very popular. |
| 00:03:20 | I personally am rather fond of just about the trashiest |
| 00:03:25 | reality television you could possibly find |
| 00:03:30 | Now this sort of seems like it's a great innovation in narrative form, |
| 00:03:37 | which, it more or less is. |
| 00:03:40 | However there is something else going on here |
| 00:03:42 | which is that the cost of film is getting very very cheap. |
| 00:03:49 | So in the past, film was so incredibly expensive, inherently |
| 00:03:56 | that you would never dream of having people literally goof off |
| 00:04:01 | in front of it in the hopes that they did something interesting. |
| 00:04:05 | And now it's gotten so cheap |
| 00:04:06 | that you can do exactually that. |
| 00:04:09 | And all of a sudden the big problem is editing this mass of garbage |
| 00:04:14 | down into something compelling. |
| 00:04:18 | So that hasn't actually made overall costs of production |
| 00:04:23 | that much cheaper |
| 00:04:23 | but it's definitely shuffled things around quite a bit |
| 00:04:28 | We've also seen some other interesting trends |
| 00:04:31 | that product placement is getting much much more prominent |
| 00:04:34 | than it has been in the past |
| 00:04:37 | It's not at the point yet of... with some exceptions |
| 00:04:41 | but for the most part it's not at the point of literally |
| 00:04:43 | making something just for the product placement, |
| 00:04:45 | but it might very well get there. |
| 00:04:48 | It sure looks like it's close with some of the things I've seen lately. |
| 00:04:54 | Now, in the case of games that's very interesting |
| 00:04:58 | because games basically has it all figured out. |
| 00:05:02 | In games whatever client software runs, by and large |
| 00:05:06 | you can just download and run. |
| 00:05:08 | The problem is, for a consumer, software doesn't do much unless it's talking |
| 00:05:13 | to the central service. |
| 00:05:15 | If it's not connected to the service it's not much of a game. |
| 00:05:17 | There's no interaction with other people. |
| 00:05:19 | There's no getting critical information about what is happening to you |
| 00:05:22 | as you're playing. You basically can't play, and the whole entire games industry |
| 00:05:27 | was traditionally based off of people writing all this stuff |
| 00:05:32 | and having a few really big hits and most of them are failures. |
| 00:05:35 | And it's mostly continued to be the very same thing. |
| 00:05:40 | It's run off of a few really big hits. |
| 00:05:42 | And most of them are failures |
| 00:05:44 | and the main shift has been there's an online play component |
| 00:05:47 | which has been very compelling |
| 00:05:49 | Users love it, it adds a whole new dimension to the experience |
| 00:05:52 | but it also makes it straight forward to have scarcity in it. |
| 00:05:58 | It makes it easy to charge people to play the game. |
| 00:06:01 | And interestingly the thing that people are afraid of happening |
| 00:06:06 | to video has had the exact opposite thing happen in games |
| 00:06:12 | in that people are worried about not being able to get together the money |
| 00:06:17 | to have the sorts of productions we've had in the past for video. |
| 00:06:22 | Now it's not like that's unprecedented. |
| 00:06:25 | Live performances had budgets in the past which |
| 00:06:30 | just will never happen again. |
| 00:06:34 | But if games are any indication the
exact opposite thing might happen |
| 00:06:39 | and there are games that cost over a hundred million dollars now |
| 00:06:42 | which is phenomenal, it's just astounding. |
| 00:06:45 | In the past when I was a kid a game was two people |
| 00:06:48 | for 6 months. And they make a game. |
| 00:06:53 | The change is not necessarily all good |
| 00:06:56 | Games look a lot better, they look a lot more polished, they have a lot more |
| 00:07:00 | production values but the amount of innovation in game engines has just plummeted, |
| 00:07:05 | there's very very little left because if you're going to |
| 00:07:08 | spend tens of millions of dollars making a game |
| 00:07:11 | you're not going to use some experimental game engine |
| 00:07:14 | which might or might not work |
| 00:07:15 | you're going to use something which you know works. |
| 00:07:20 | And with a few notable exceptions that's by and large what everybody does. |
