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Case Study: The Ball Master - October 2003

The Ball Master ñ the revolutionary soccer skills gameñ is transforming out of home gaming by providing a new kind of gaming experience writes Nigel Jones, marketing director of Sattori Systems. A totally enclosed physically active, non-violent experience that cannot be reproduced in the home. With units rolling out all over the county Jones looks at the implications of physical action adventure gaming and how it is set to change the face of arcade gaming.

The new physical action adventure games are producing excitement on a level not seen since when Space Invaders and its contemporaries took off in the 1970s. The games have a positive fitness element and are a much-welcomed move away from the often violent and always physically inactive video gaming experiences. The games are fun and challenging and competitive game play ensures that players never get tired of the game.
Games leading the way include physical soccer games such as Ball Master; Golf Swing games; and dancing games such as Konami's Dance Dance. Among the reasons for their success are their simplicity and the fact that the gameplay is based upon popular activities such as dancing and soccer.
All these games capitalise on the existing popularity of the activity and offer the player the chance to hone their skills before testing them in the real world.

The internet and physical games

The internet is having a large influence on physical gaming with many physical games bringing players together via the internet. For example, The Ball Masters League (www.ballmastersleague.com) allows players to compare themselves to other players from all over the world. Once the user has logged onto the website they can form their own league with friends and even compare their scores to those achieved by their favourite professional soccer player.
Mobile communications are allowing games manufacturers and operators to reach their customers through the use of text messaging services that inform the player of their position in a league as well as informing them of any special competitions and promotions that they may be running. This develops player loyalty and helps generate repeat pays, a key factor in developing and maintaining high usage.

In home or out of home gaming

The 1970s and 1980s saw the meteoric rise of arcade games with world renowned brands such as Space Invaders, Pac Man, Galaxian and Asteroids to name but a few. During the 1980s the battle for the consumer turned away from the High Street and into the home. First it was Atari then the battle between Sega and Nintendo and now the fight continues with Microsoft and Sony.
The rise of in home gaming has had an enormous impact on the number of people going to arcades but the new genre of physical games are starting to bring players back in droves.
Recent developments have lead to a move away from the simple push button controls to those that more accurately reflect the game. Graphics-based games have attempted to involve the user in a more physical way and this can be seen in games such as Beach Head which has a moving chair that attempts to simulate the feeling of the gunner's chair. Many of the racing games have chairs with pedals and gear sticks and have introduced vibrating steering wheels in an attempt to recreate the sensation of really driving the car. Physical action adventure games have taken this trend to its natural conclusion with the front-runners including Dancing Stage, Megabox and Ball Master.
Physical action adventure games are offering gaming experiences that cannot be easily replicated in the home and it is this, combined with the exhilarating physical and mental demands the games place on the player, that is driving the market forward.

The Ball Master

The Ball Master is a unique new soccer skills game, which tests a player's speed, accuracy and power. It's an eight and half-foot high soccer ball, you stand in it, you kick a ball, you score points. Each Ball Master is linked to the internet, enabling all players to take part in a Worldwide Ball Masters League - www.ballmastersleague.com. This is made possible through a networked database system that enables each Ball Master to communicate with each other. Players can challenge and compare themselves to anyone, anywhere on the planet, at anytime.
The Ball Master is designed to provide a physical and mental challenge for the player and is set to establish itself as the new cult gaming system that will surpass Konami's Dance Dance, delivering fun entertainment in a new format that cannot be replicated in home.

Games that have revolutionised arcades

The following is a selection of the most commercially successful and innovative arcade games since their inception in the early 1970s.
The rules governing what makes a great arcade game have not changed, and fall into the following categories: great content i.e. sport, fight, quest/adventure; technology; and the WOW Factor! i.e. does the game make you go WOW!

Timeline

Pong was the first successful arcade video game. The game play was extremely simple. It had two players, who both controlled a vertical bar, which could bounce back a moving dot moving between the vertical bars. Pong became an instant success and it created the arcade video game industry back in 1972. The 1970s saw a whole array of new games primarily driven forward by innovation in technology.Tank was the first video game, which used ROM chips to store graphic data. It had on-screen characters that actually looked like recognisable objects. Before that video games used simple block graphics like in Pong. Tank was not only successful because of the technology involved but because it had great content and tapped into the combat mentality of boys.
Similarly, Gunfight (1974) was a two-player game in style of Western movies. It was the first Japanese title to be licensed for release in America. A redesigned version was the first video arcade game to utilize a microprocessor.
Other games that took the games industry forward as a result of innovation in technology and gaming content were:

Night Driver (1976) was the first racing game with "first person" perspective, showing the road as if actually seen from the car. Before Night Driver there had been many racing games with bird perspective - seen from above.
Space Invaders, the first blockbuster videogame, rewrote the rules. In 1978, it brought video games out of arcades and bars into restaurants, corner stores and into the public consciousness. It was translated for the Atari 2600 video home game system and became a huge commercial hit and arguably was a massive boost to the in home gaming market which led to the deterioration of out of home gaming.
Football (1978) was the first true video sports game introducing "scrolling" video game displays to the world, allowing games to take place on playfields larger than the monitor on which they were displayed. It was also the first game to feature the track ball.
Asteroids (1980) was Atari's answer to Space Invaders. The game utilised a monochrome vector graphics display, which was capable of fast moving objects made of very sharp lines (compared to crude pixel graphics of its time). Combined with great game play it became the biggest selling of game of its time.
The idea of Donkey Kong (1981) was to control a jump man character, which tried to rescue a girl from a giant ape. Later on the jump man was named Mario, the most famous and successful game-character ever invented.
Pole Position started the trend for foto-realistic graphics in video games. It was the first (1982) driving game with perspective from the car view point, with modern driving games still more or less based on Pole Position, only the graphics have improved.
Street Fighter II had many truly different characters to choose from and good game play. In 1991, SFII started the new "golden age" of Fighting arcade games.
In 1994, Daytona was one of the first racing games to feature fast texture mapped and shaded 3D polygon graphics. Its great graphics, game-play and team-play option made it a huge hit.

For further information about Ball Master, contact: Nigel Jones, marketing director, Sattori Systems Limited, 01233 712 899

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