Exploration #106

Hate Longscrolling? Jump Around!

• If You Click Only One…

• Things to Think About…

• Things to Know About…

• And finally…

Hi all. It was great seeing some of you last week at PMVG’s TechConnect ‘24. I debuted my 2024 presentation, Evolution Calling: Emerging Technologies that are Shaping Public Media. If you are interested in me giving the presentation to your team or your station (Zoom or in-person) drop me a line.

This week we’ve got a focus on games, as well as stories on Adobe’s AI updates to Premiere, a new generative music app of note, and new 360 camera you might want to check out. But first…

Innovations in Accessibility 

This Thursday (4/18) the Public Media Innovators PLC is hosting its 3rd Thursday Webinar: PBS KIDS: Innovating Accessibility in Children's Media (register free). Jen Rodriguez, Director of Research and Inclusive Design; Nita Mandar, Director of Product for the PBS KIDS Games App; and Kelly Corrado, Director of Game Tooling & Analytics, will share their latest advancements in accessibility within children's media. You’ll get a firsthand demo of the approaches and tools that PBS KIDS is employing to ensure their content is inclusive and accessible to all audiences.

And in case you missed Julian Wyllie’s story in Current last week, “Growth of games on PBS Kids aims to meet children where they are,” this stat made me do a double-take: "In total, the PBS Kids Games app and website host approximately 375 games. A child who discovered PBS Kids Games on New Year’s Day could play a different game every day this year without repeating themselves. And for PBS Kids’ target demographic, that variety is king."

Game On for Public Media?

Of course, games are not just for kids. The oldest (video) gamers are now approaching 60. My dad, who would have been 77 this year, brought home a Pong game console when I was little. Video games have been a part of popular culture - and I’ll hasten to add a constructive part - for more than five decades. Evan Armstrong writes in one of today’s ‘Think’ pieces, “Nearly every consumer innovation you come in contact with, in one way or another, owes its lineage to some video game company’s innovation in content, pricing, or go-to-market strategy. Nvidia built graphics chips for video game rendering, Slack started as a video game chat system, and that 30 percent fee that Apple takes from developers partially stems from mid-1980s agreements between Nintendo and Pac-Man creator Namco.” Supporting that thesis is Charlie Fink’s piece in Forbes last week, that the metaverse is alive and well in 3D games.

It’s well passed time for public media to embrace general audience games. The New York Times is, in addition to being a newspaper of record, a gaming company. And if that doesn’t convince you let’s follow the money. Krishan Arora reported in a Forbes piece last December, “Global revenue generated by the gaming industry is greater [by 3X+] than the global revenue generated by the music and movie industries combined.” For scale, according to Arora’s numbers, in 2022 that amounted to around $26B each for music and movies, and $184B+ for games (all totals global). And that money is not solely pooling into the coffers of AAA gaming studios either. In February, Cecilia D’Anastasio reported in Bloomberg that Roblox Game Developers Earned a Record $741 Million Last Year. ICYMI, a creator economy exists for games just as it does for YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

In Nebraska we are committed to games. We’ve been working up to this cautiously, organically for years, and our first true video game drops this fall. Next year, in collaboration with PBS Wisconsin and with support from Vision Maker Media, we’re intending to ship the first video game co-pro in the system. I know that other public media companies are also playing in this space and thank goodness. If you are making games or thinking about making games at your station, we need to start comparing notes more often and start working together where possible.

If we want to be relevant to future generations, we need to ensure that the good work done by PBS Kids to “meet children where they are” eventually extends to adults as well. On the broadcast side, we’ve long lamented that we lose audiences between childhood and parenthood. There is a chance right now to avoid replicating problem in this new public medium.

Games are unequivocally a part of American culture but could still benefit from the values and editorial sensibilities of public media. As an ecosystem, we have something to contribute to this industry.

For years, public media has embraced the idea of lifelong learning. It’s time for us to embrace, with the same commitment to mission, the idea of “lifelong play.”

Okay, on to the links…

If You Click Only One…

Growth of games on PBS Kids aims to meet children where they are (Julian Wyllie - Current) - An unintentionally well-timed bit of homework leading into this week’s webinar. I referenced it above, so I won’t go into more detail here.

Things to Think About…

Why adults need to make time for playtime ($) (Sadie Dingfelder - National Geographic) - Another compelling argument for the incorporation of play into public media's mission. Here’s an alternate link, in case the paywall proves problematic.

Inside The New York Times’ Big Bet on Games (Charlotte Klein - Vanity Fair) - As I’ve said in other venues, amongst the many things the New York Times has become, it has become a gaming company. But then so is the New Yorker and The Atlantic. Public media needs to, um, follow suit.

Distribution is King (Evan Armstrong - Napkin Math) - A refreshing remix on the somewhat cliched assertion that "content is king." (I wish we could acknowledge that content is a constitutional monarch, context is parliament and distribution is prime minister. But I digress.) This piece is about gaming, but if you squint as you read it, you'll see themes that apply to the distribution discussions we're having in public media.

Metaverse Alive and Well in 3D Games (Charlie Fink - Forbes) - This shouldn’t come as a surprise to OG readers of this newsletter, as I’ve been espousing this point for a while now. For a case in point, see the next piece.
—Related: Babel Fish? Roblox enables real-time AI chat translation in 16 languages

Europe’s Biggest Salt Mine Is Now in Minecraft, and It’s Helping Ukraine Rebuild (Justin Ling - Wired) - This piece does an excellent job showing how the emotional resonance of inaccessible places in the real world can be satisfied with virtual replications. We've seen similar impact from VR captures of Jewish holocaust sites, when shown to holocaust survivors. But this is very much game art that conforms to Minecraft's lego-like look and feel. Not photorealistic, nor intended to be. And yet it still creates impact. A French game studio is helping make this a reality, but it's the type of work that is within public media's mission to reflect and document culture. Read this one and then ask, what could I be documenting or recreating that is important to my community?

Things to Know About…

AI-Music Arms Race: Meet Udio, the Other ChatGPT for Music (Brian Hiatt - Rolling Stone) - I spent some time last night playing around with this. It's definitely good, but I'd dispute the assertion that it's as good as Suno (discussed last week).

Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro can now hear (Emilia David - The Verge) - This streamlines the process by eliminating the step of having other software transcribe audio to make the data ingestible by a chatbot.
—In other Google-catches-up-with-the-competition news, AI editing tools are coming to all Google Photos users

Adobe Premiere Pro is getting generative AI video tools — and hopefully OpenAI’s Sora (Jess Weatherbed - The Verge) - No release date for this yet. Will Adobe find itself playing catch-up on generative video the way it was with still imagery in 2023?
—And if you were wondering how Adobe is going about upgrading Premiere’s capabilities Brody Ford reports that Adobe Is Buying Videos for $3 Per Minute to Build AI Model ($) 

How the Ad Industry Is Making AI Images Look Less Like AI (Katie Deighton - Wall Street Journal) - The solution here is to use artists who are trained in how to get the most out of AI without looking like you are getting the most out of AI. I’m not a purist that thinks it’s all AI or all artist. Artists using AI is the future. If you are a visual artist don’t worry about AI taking your job, worry about the artists using AI taking your job.

LinkedIn plans to add gaming to its platform (Ingrid Linden - TechCrunch) - Gotta say, didn't see that one coming. We'll have to see if the games are actually fun. That's what matters.

Sling TV now lets customers play free arcade games while watching live TV content (Lauren Forristal - TechCrunch) - This type of multitasking isn't my jam, but I can totally see how it would work for others. Worth noting.

Epic Games announces game-changing MetaHuman integration for UEFN (Joseph Foley - Creative Bloq) - To me it's a question of whether Fortnite (referenced here) or Roblox is going to be the YouTube of 2050. The announcement last year of creator "islands" is an advent we've been tracking very closely, leading us to experiment with our Expedition Nebraska experience in the space. And their 2024 enhancements may lead us to another push at creating an island there.

Audio game The Vale: Shadow of the Crown available on PS4, PS5, and Switch (Marijn - Can I Play That?) - This is a good reminder that not all public media games have to be video games. Audio games are definitely an option as well.

Insta360 X4 announced with significant resolution increase to 8K30p 360 video (Simon Wyndham - RedShark News) - It's been a while (like, years) since we've had 360-video hardware of note. If you haven't experimented with 360, this new Insta360 camera could be a good one to test for mini-docs and smaller virtual tours.

Amazon virtually kills efforts to develop Alexa Skills, disappointing dozens (Scharon Harding - ArsTechnica) - If you are a station still maintaining Alexa skills, this is worth noting.

And finally…

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - a triumph of creativity over technology (Andy Stout - RedShark News) - And finally, a technical celebration of one of the best games of 2023. This piece will give you insight into the thought process of good game design.

Have a creative, productive week!