Gaming goes back to the bedroom
"It's just like the old days, isn't it?" remarked Kevin-the-cameraman as we were driving away from the at . And I had to agree.
For those of us of a certain age the creation of videogames was something undertaken by a dedicated few in their bedrooms. Thanks to the ZX Spectrum, the British videogame craze spawned a shelf of one-man games creators. Some made a lot of money and eventually graduated from bedroom to boardroom.
Here in the Midlands it formed companies like , and .
Today these companies make games that cost millions and have a staff of hundreds. But at the Future Gaming conference I saw something new - the return of the bedroom developer.
Sometimes this will be a standalone game such as . But more often than not you'll find new companies with just a few staff creating games that you'll play while logged in to Facebook. Games on Facebook are already huge business and new Midlands companies like and are looking to enter the market.
The advantages are access to Facebook's 500 million users and the ease with which one player can tempt his friends to sign up and play too. The downside is it is already a crowded market so you need something special to stand out.
For OOP that means a zombie based game where you need to cooperate with your real friends to survive.
In the case of SOSHI Games, they are giving their game a social-spin and linking up with charities and groups such as Fairtrade US, Kiva and Keep Britain Tidy. The idea is the game will be promoted by these groups and help them raise cash and earn money for SOSHI too. You can find their game .
And how do any of these games make money? Well while much of the content is free you can also spend real cash to buy virtual objects in the game. Usually just small amounts of real-world money are needed but it soon adds up. In the case of one of the biggest Facebook game makers to more than £50m a year. It is a rapidly expanding market and you can read more about it .
As Kevin-the-cameraman pointed out, it really is a return to the old days of single-person game creation. And if one or both of these games take off SOSHI and OOP could be the Codemasters, Rare or Blitz of tomorrow.
I'm David Gregory, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Science Correspondent for the West Midlands. My first law states: "Science is the answer." There is no second law. Feel free to drop me a line: 
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