Microsoft has shaken up the gaming world with its $2.5 billion U.S. purchase of Mojang AB, the company responsible for the popular Minecraft game.
The acquisition of the Swedish game developer is a significant bet by the world's largest software company in the future of gaming.
Given Minecraft's popularity on mobile platforms such as iOS and Android, the deal also reinforces the fast-changing nature of mobile games.
Expect the deal to accelerate development of new platforms for enhanced voice work, and open up more opportunities for voice talent and audio production professionals.
Learn more in today's VOX Daily.
No Longer Just A Game
Consider it Minecraft's coming out party.
After weeks of rumours and speculation, it's official: Microsoft is buying Mojang, the Swedish-based developers of the virally popular Minecraft game. The deal, which will see the Redmond, Washington-based software giant pay $2.5 billion U.S. for the makers of the open world-type gaming platform, brings what was once an underground cult hit firmly into the mainstream.
Simple On The Surface
Minecraft allows players to create a virtual world by both creating and destroying 3D blocks of materials in an unlimited space. The game, originally released in 2009, is now available across multiple devices and platforms, including Xbox 360, Xbox One, Playstation 3 and Playstation 4, PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and even Linux.
It boasts over 100 million - and growing - users who rabidly spend hours daily creating and sharing increasingly intricate creations. Minecraft is unique among modern games in how deeply users can customize the experience, and its absolute lack of violence.
This largely explains why my own teenaged kids play it, and in their spare time can usually be found with an iPad, iPhone or laptop, adding new layers to their already-impossibly-detailed creations. They swap 3D elements with their friends, share fly-throughs on YouTube, and discuss ideas on Facebook and Twitter. No other game pulls them in this profoundly.
But...No Voice
What Minecraft doesn't have, however, is a voice. Or voices of any kind, for that matter. There are in-game sounds, all relatively simple and all keying off of specific creation and destruction events. Ambient background music, composed by German composer Daniel Rosenfeld, fills out the soundscape. But that's about it.
When the game was first built in 2009, the goal was to build it small and fast. Graphics were kept deliberately cartoon-like to minimize bandwidth use, while complex, high-fidelity sounds and voices were omitted for similar reasons. These architectural choices made it easy to grow the Minecraft universe across multiple devices and services, but it limited the creative opportunities. Until now.
With Microsoft writing a multi-billion-dollar check for the indie-classic game, it opens the door to take what was once the digital equivalent of Lego and turn it into the immersive environment it was destined to become. Because as virally successful as Minecraft is, it remains a world without humanity.
Once my son, for example, finished building an exquisitely detailed model of the interior and exterior of our house, there wasn't a whole lot he could do with it beyond walk us through it, post it online and then move onto his next project.
Toward A New Business Model
Adding voices and more involved audio elements to the mix would allow users to introduce characters into the mix and create life within the environments they've built. It would build on the already-strong viral pull of one of the industry's more unique gaming experiences by letting users create even richer forms of interaction. The potential for online sharing, which already sets a high bar for gaming, would grow even more.
It also opens the door to significant localization and translation opportunities, as Minecraft is uniquely global in its appeal, with deep local and regional user and developer support in virtually every major gaming market.
It goes without saying - but I'll say it anyway - that this would be an incredible boon to the voice over and audio production markets. Voice talent would have a new market to explore, while audio producers would have more opportunities to market themselves within a gaming industry that continues to find new ways to innovate.
Mobile Is Transitioning
The Minecraft deal comes about as the mobile gaming industry further matures into much more than a small-screened little brother to more traditional forms of gaming. While older mobile games were qualitatively compromised by limited processor power, on-board storage, and network bandwidth availability, those limitations are beginning to disappear.
"Most mobile games, like Candy Crush or Angry Birds, you can play on a bus, you can accomplish something in five minutes or less, then shut it off and continue with your day," Michael Schmalz, President of Digital Extremes, a London, Ontario-based video game developer, told Voices.com during an interview. "PC or console games are generally focused on telling a story, and need voice actors to tell the story in a compelling way."
The explosion in demand for large-screened devices like Apple's 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus and Samsung's Galaxy Note series is changing how games are consumed while on the go.
"The trend in mobile phones is heavily skewing towards newer, bigger devices where you've got the much bigger screens where you can sit down and watch a movie on an airplane," Schmalz said. "It might not just be that 5 minute experience on a bus. You can now tell yourself you've got 45 minutes to immerse yourself in that 5.5-inch screen. I think in general as you push the higher production values, that's where voice is going to grow."
More affordable data plans and more capable hardware is giving mobile game developers a bigger canvas to design more immersive, voice-centric experiences.
"As that data becomes cheaper, it becomes less expensive for developers and publishers to push rich sound and graphics onto their customers," added Schmalz.
Time To Go Proactive
Microsoft's big bet gives audio producers and voice professionals a golden opportunity to market the business benefits of taking Minecraft - and other mobile games - to the next level. It may have started off as an independent evening-and-weekend programming project, but it's since grown into one of the more significant developments in the entire gaming industry, an entirely new way to be entertained both individually and as a group.
Minecraft has become far more than a simple game, and it could very well represent an inflection point for the entire industry as it moves toward richer, more immersive projects.
It's now up to voice and audio professionals to make the business case for adding more immersive voice and audio capabilities to a platform whose market potential these days seems to be all upside. Which makes it anything but a game to Microsoft, and to the voice industry.
©Voices.com/Carmi Levy