predicting the future

I had a meeting with a chap at Scottish Enterprise West, one Colin Cross, and we got talking about student enterprise. Well, that was the topic of the meet, but we were just exploring ideas as we went along. And we wondered: what's the next great idea?

As we chatted an idea came into my mind. Not that this is the next great idea, just as an illustration of what is involved in creating that next great idea.

I was thinking about Second Life. You know, the AI-free virtual space where you wander around, meet people, etc. Kinda The Sims in cyberspace, and basically as interesting (i.e., not very, IMHO.) The question was going round the old brain: what could you do with Second Life entrepreneurially?

The idea that jumped to mind was: how about a company which creates second life chat and meeting spaces for companies still rigidly stuck in Web 1. It came about as we considered how clunky and unfriendly the world-facing Internet pages of both our organisations are. Don't believe me?: go to www.scotent.co.uk or www.uws.ac.uk and try to have a chat with me or Colin. Impossible.

So the idea is: take a games engine - in this case, Second Life - and use it for communicating between people.

So there we have the nub of much of enterprise: find a gap. However, finding a potential gap is one thing, but how do you turn it into money?

Where we both agreed is that, in creative industries the business plan is not of much use. I'm not implying you jump in and spend all your gathered funds like Alistair Darling going to the bank. (Actually, he was spending OUR gathered funds!)

Its just that a business plan requires a static model to build upon. Creative gap-finding needs more dynamism and eclecticism than a Business Plans For Dummies tome would allow for.

However, this has to be balanced by the fact that enterprise is about making money. Is there a need for a company who creates corporate meeting spaces for staff or staff-customer chats in Second Life?

This isn't a question which can be answered because there is absolutely no such market in existence. Is there a demand for it? Nobody knows as (see former sentence!) There is no clear link between here's-a-market and here's-a-product so here's-a-potential-profit. Life is full of unanswerable questions.

The very essence of creativity in games is risk-taking. I know that EA, Disney, Microsoft and Sony are highly risk-averse, at least in software terms. And even the creation of new platforms is a risk-avoidance strategy as old platforms stop selling.

However, Nintendo have beaten the pants of everyone else by taking risks. They nearly went under and did a Sega. The N64 was not great until Zelda The Ocarina of Time hit the shelves and saved the company. They left that one late! The Dreamcast was a safe seller, but didn't set any heather alight. The DS was a strange little box which did a GBA, again. Dr Kawashima is strange and wonderful. The Wii is very odd, as are its games.

This is not to suggest that Nintendo are woo-hoo-let's-go-for-it people. They are calculating, as far as these things can be calculated. But they also have an extra special factor that balances costs against opportunities, which Sony, for one, does not have.

Microsoft have it, a bit. After all the Xbox was a big risk, but it was never going to risk the family silver if it failed. Apple did it with the amazing iPod, iMac and Macbook. Again there was less risk for them than for Nintendo as Microsoft would have bailed them out again to avoid the monopoly finger pointing at them again. But, Steve Jobs creations are truly awe-inspiring.

So, is Nintendo just Miyamoto-sensei? Is it all this one man who makes a difference? In some ways the answer is yes, as truly as GTA is Dave Jones and Black and White was Peter Molyneux.

However, human and games-related creativity does not end with those bods. Somewhere out there the next generation of games-related risk-takers sits planning great new ideas that can be sold for millions, or billions. What advice can i find from my musings?

Think big thoughts. Count costs. Don't easily dump projects that aren't going anywhere. Perhaps they are going somewhere else. Follow that muse and see what can be done. After all what *is* The Sims? There is no genre for a new kinda game. It has to be created after the fact. All I can say is that you need to allow idea to develop, and this means allowing time and resources for these.

Two wee tales. I once worked for Rolls Royce aero engines in Glasgow. I signed the usual contract when I joined that all RR employees signed: everything I think of everywhere at any time while a RR employee and for 6 months fter leaving RR belongs to RR. Effect: nobody thought of anything until they had been 6 months out of RR. Creativity was non-existent.

A second wee tale. I once had a student who wouldn't get down to writing t can be rolled out. Find sugar-daddies to help you, but avoid the kind of crooks who appear on Dragons' Den as they make more mistakes than successes. Who are these people anyway? They are money-makers, not creativitists. his Modula-2 code for my Software Engineering module. Eventually he spent so much time not doing his coursework, I failed him. He left degree-less and, one year later, his game, Lemmings, hit the stands. One year further on he was a millionaire.

What would you rather have: a degree from The University of Puddleton, or a million-seller game? Enjoy your studies, but remember to keep the main thing the main thing: write games. Keep being creative.