Mobile games are the rage. In some jurisdictions, mobile gaming … real money wagering … is hot. Some companies are even working on poker for mobile devices. Not video poker against the house, but real money, multi-player poker. I think that’s nuts!

Let’s review. Real money poker is a time-based, sequential game. You act, and then I have to act. If I don’t act in time, the system acts for me … check or fold. That’s it. Buh-Bye Dan. All-in disconnect protection, where it is available, might help me once or twice if I lose my connection, but abuse of all-in protection has resulted in most sites limiting or not offering it.

Now, put me on a bus or a train. Even in countries with great cellular infrastructure, mobile means connections get weak or completely disrupted. Sure, I can be sitting in a station or at an airport, and a couple hours of poker, playing from my smart phone, might be a great way to spend two hours waiting for a departure. But do I really want to risk being in a big pot, with the nuts, while riding on a bus, train, or in a car? Not me!

I simply don’t see mobile technology as quite ready for a time sensitive, high stakes wagering game. Any gaming where a player has time constraints, and multi-player poker certainly fits that description, is not a good candidate for mobile devices at this stage of the technology.

Any gaming company that rolls out real money multi-player poker on mobile devices would be wise to cap the stakes and to avoid pot limit and no limit varieties. Yes, even multi-table tournaments, where the prize pool could be large, are unwise for mobile device access. Pity the customer service representative who has to deal with a player using a mobile device who got folded at a critical point because of a loss of signal. This could make dial up seem downright reliable in comparison under some conditions.

Setting aside tablet devices, most mobile devices have fairly small screens. Touch technology allows for easy to use user interfaces. But consider the perils of designing a poker table interface for a mobile device. Put the fold, check, and raise buttons too close to one another, and add in a few untimely bumps in the road, or poorly steered piece of luggage as the player acts, and the wrong action could be selected. Sure, the GUI designer could add an “are you sure” step for all critical decisions, but that would take away from the flow of the game, and slow the player’s response.

Call me conservative, but I just don’t see mobile and real money multi-player poker as a happy marriage.

From a project management perspective, this was a different kind of project for me in some ways. This was my first time working on an e-commerce retail site, and with the open source e-commerce system, Magento.  I have had a chance to get an understanding of the particular issues relating to setting up a store, including populating the products, setting up payment processing, and making sure that customers get a good experience, from using the system, through to fulfillment.

GreenMonsterPromos.com offers a wide (and ever widening) range of customizable promotional products.  These are products such as reusable grocery totes, reusable water bottles, hand sanitizers, stress balls, and lip balms.  Each of the products can be custom imprinted with art and a message to present the “brand” of an organization, group, or business.   We are striving to provide the best combination of price and service.

I realize this blog entry falls into the category of shameless self-promotion but if I don’t promote my interests, who will?  :)   So if you are associated with a sports organization, club, school group, or religious group … if you work for or own a business that needs to get its brand in front of people … if you have a store or professional practice … you need to promote your brand.  Buying customized promotional products from GreenMonsterPromos.com is a great way to to get the name and message of your organization out into the public’s eye.

Word is that Facebook and Zynga are on the outs, as Facebook is trying to monetize its own platform.  As I wrote in a prior post, betting a business on the ability to access or leverage another company’s business carries risk.  Just how much risk is going to vary by the situation but the principals of any business that is dependent on another business must be cognizant of the risk factors, and should re-evaluate regularly.

If a company can execute crisply and take advantage of an opportunity built on another company’s platform, and is confident that the short term ROI is sufficient to go forward, then there is nothing wrong with building such a business.  The problem I see comes when the time frame for sufficient return on investment extends too far out into the future.  The longer a business is dependent on another’s, the higher the risk that a change in the relationship could bring the dependent business to an end before it gets the required return.

My take-away is that one must craft a solid plan that reflects an understanding of investment and expected returns, and that supports effective implementation.  Dithering will only decrease the likelihood of success.

Copyright 2010 Project Management Consulting

Regardless of the country, when you outsource at the project level, you must remain engaged with the project and the implementation team. I  recommend some form of Agile approach in that you should require numerous short term deliverables  demonstrating the team is moving the project in the direction you intended. Set up regular conference calls so you can ask questions and the team can ask you questions. Approach it like a virtual scrum.

There is, I believe, a tendency for any outsourcing vendor to over promise. Add to this that in many cultures, acknowledging that something asked was not understood would mean losing face.  That can lead to paralysis on the project team’s part as they internally debate what you really were asking for, or worse, a complete misinterpretation and incorrect direction. See the first paragraph regarding keeping involved! 

Don’t be afraid to ask the team leader to restate in his/her own words what you’ve asked, said, written, etc. Don’t say, “do you understand” and settle for “yes” as an answer. But don’t be condescending either … you are outsourcing because you believe you can get bright, well trained people at lower cost. Don’t fall into the trap that because the team’s English is different, or not their native language, that you are somehow better. You might be surprised how often this happens, and how counterproductive it is.

In addition to keeping highly involved and requiring frequent interim deliverables, you must provide as detailed a set of specifications as possible. As language will inevitably cause misunderstandings, make sure you avoid idioms and cultural contextual references in any written requirements. Try to use tools such as sequence diagrams and flow charts to communicate your requirements.

Match the capabilities and structure of the vendor being hired for an outsourced project to the work to be done. If you are dealing with time to market issues and the application can be “fixed on the fly” then don’t hire an SEI CMM Level 5 shop. Find a shop that “gets” the iterative approach. On the other hand, if you are outsourcing an application that involves tracking other people’s money, or something life-critical, you probably should look for a Six Sigma Blackbelt shop. I certainly would not want my car’s brake software built on the fly!

In summary, the country doesn’t matter.  The vendor’s alignment to the project, and your involvement as the stakeholder are what matters.

Stepping outside technology for just a moment, consider that many baseball stadiums of lore were in urban neighborhoods. And many still are. Around those stadiums are bars, restaurants, parking lots, and other businesses that thrive largely because of the crowds (okay, some teams are too pathetic to draw large crowds but this is just an example) that attend 81 regular season home games. Now consider what happens when the team is moved to another city, or builds a new ballpark in another location. Ouch, there goes a micro-economy.

Now back to the tech sector. How many apps are being built to run on the iPhone? How many businesses are thriving because of Facebook? It seems to me there are few, if any, risk mitigation strategies open to companies totally reliant on either or both Facebook and the iPhone app store.

Facebook has been relatively consistent compared to Apple. Sure, Facebook has changed their GUI, and changed their application Ts and Cs, but by and large, Facebook has been a somewhat consistent and predictable environment for application developers. But … what happens if, one day, Facebook decides to reclaim some or all of the huge monetization economy created on its platform?

For a more immediate and relevant example, consider the iPhone app store. Just this past week, Apple began disabling a whole class of applications, and from what I have read, without prior notice, without a clear set of guidelines, and to some extent inconsistently. While some may applaud Apple for barring apps that are sexual in nature, and many argue the vast majority of the affected apps were boorish or rip-offs, these actions should give anyone considering building an iPhone app cause for concern.

Effectively, there are no current regulations on the actions taken by the likes of Apple and Facebook. They are businesses and may operate their businesses as they see fit, so long as they break no laws. Thus, I suggest, “app developer beware!”

Consider Zynga. Today, many believe Zynga is positioning itself for an IPO. Zynga has a business that, today, is not totally dependent on Facebook, but I simply cannot imagine the impact on the company’s valuation if Facebook were to decide to eliminate games applications from third parties.

Years ago, I worked for a company that produced the first commercially available web server for the Windows platform. As has happened to many other companies, when Microsoft decided to offer its own web server, for free, that highly promising line of business imploded.

I am not offering any solutions here. I am simply observing that the owners of any business that is built on the back of another must understand the risks that accompany a lack of control over the actions of that other company.

The question was based on a faulty premise. Not all technology projects are code-oriented. Projects may be based on a wide range of objectives. For example:

• Infrastructure & Network build out projects
• Data Center migrations
• Data migrations
• Requirements gathering
• Quality assurance
• Documentation development

Even for software oriented projects, I see little to be gained and possibly much to be lost from having a project manager step into the code in almost all cases.

A project manager is trained in, or hold a set of skills that focus on completely different purposes than a software developer. Sure, many project managers in the software space come from a coding background, but the role of the project manager is apart from coding.

I would argue that even if the project manager has the coding skills appropriate to the project, it is problematic for the PM to dive into the code. It suggests the project hasn’t been well scheduled, well budgeted, and well managed. Someone who has not been in the code that “dives in” will lack the context and be unaware of the nuances and cross dependencies. This could be more dangerous than helpful!

The PM’s job is, as I said, apart from coding. The PM should be focusing on planning, scheduling, task tracking, quality metrics tracking, communicating up and out, as well as down and in. The PM is about managing risk, managing change, and coordinating outside the team. Pull the PM into the code and those other functions will be at risk.

Someone who is coding and managing or coordinating the team of software developers is probably better labeled the “Project Leader.” A project leader typically doesn’t have the same breadth of external communication responsibility, and has time budgeted for both coordinating the development team, and actively coding.

It is appropriate for the PM to understand the software technology and application domain. It is fine for the PM to participate in architectural design, to provide feedback on wire frames and prototypes. I see value in the PM being involved in QA, GUI design and feedback, and in general, to serve as the first “user” of the software.

I just don’t believe a project manager should code.

For purposes of this document:

• Multiplayer game means any game where more than one player is involved in some form of competitive play, or non-competitive, interactive play (such as in Second Life).
• A client is the software that runs or displays on a player’s computer, handheld device, smart phone, or similar device.
• A server (back-end game server) is a computer (or set of computing related devices), accessed over the Internet, whether by landline or wireless connection, that either runs a game for multiple users or tracks game play and related information for multiple users.
• A synchronous game is one where play between players is organized around a schedule requiring play at the same time.  An asynchronous game is one where play is independent of when other players play.
• A sequential game is one where the game is based on turns following a set of rules governing the interactions.  A player may only act within the game when it is that player’s turn.  A non-sequential game is one where the game does not require interaction between players in any defined order.  The difference here is between “turn-based games” and games where players’ actions are not limited by turns.

A game on a client may run as an application.  This is a downloaded software application that must be installed on the client device.  A game on a client may also be presented to the player in a web browser, most commonly using Flash technology from Adobe.  There are other client presentation models such as Shockwave and as on iPhones.

There also is a different server model, as is commonly found on game consoles such as PlayStation and X-Box.  These systems support multiplayer games using the “host” console as the server.  That is, multiple players are able to interact over the Internet, using each player’s console as the clients, and using the console of the player who hosts the specific game instance as the server.  Even in this model, a central server is required to advertise and communicate game instance availability.

In general, multiplayer games require coordination by a server amongst the various participating players.  A prerequisite for such interaction of players using a central server is that the players have all registered an account.  The different models will be described, referencing games that are generally known as examples.

Asynchronous, Non-sequential Games
A game that can be played by one player, independent of other participants, both in terms of when the game is played, and where play does not require or depend on the play of others, is termed an asynchronous, non-sequential game.

A very simple multiplayer model leverages a stand-alone type of game such as Bejeweled.  Bejeweled is a game that may be played by one player in stand-alone mode.  The game becomes a multiplayer game when a central server tracks and communicates scores amongst the players.

The simplest form of this tracking is the leader board.   Players compete to have the top scores for a given period of time.  This might be daily, weekly, monthly, annually, and even lifetime.  The leader board is software that receives scores from players and updates the top scorers based on the rules for that leader board instance.  In this model, the most common client solution is a Flash implementation that communicates with a server using a player’s registration.

A variant on the leader board concept is possible where the server can take advantage of player relationships.  For example, games that run on Facebook can use friend information to display scores only to players who are friends of the player.  To clarify, this friend-model does not require Facebook or another general social network.  The software running on the server (a game platform) can permit registrants to befriend one another, creating sets of players who may compete amongst themselves in what can be described as private leader boards.

Synchronous, Non-sequential Games
A game that can be played multiple players, but where play is independent during the course of the game and there are no game related interactions between players is termed a synchronous, non-sequential game.

An example of this form of multiplayer game is one of the numerous Boggle derivatives.  Scramble, from Zynga, available on Facebook, is one such game.  In this model, the game rounds start on a set schedule, and players may participate in any round of the game.  Typically, each player gets the same starting point.  In Scramble, each player gets the same letters in the same layout.  In Bejeweled, each player would get the same jewel layout.  The game runs for a defined period of time.  At the end, each client sends its score to the server and in turn, the server posts the finishing order of the game to all participants.  This can be viewed as an instant leader board, which is reset at the start of the next round, although high scores may also be kept on longer-term leader boards.

Any game that can be configured to run on a schedule, where each player gets the same starting configuration, fits into this model.

Private, Timed, Non-sequential Games
A variant of the non-sequential game is where the game is private to a defined set of friends.   Typically, one player may invite or challenge one or more other players (friends) to a game round.  There can be more than one type of challenge round (e.g. best of 3, best of 5, etc.).  In some configurations, there is a time limit in which to complete the round, or the next turn.

These private non-sequential games may be completely asynchronous or partially synchronous.  For example, in a set of the best of three, the rounds may be played completely independently (one player might complete all three rounds before another starts).  Another configuration could require alternating the rounds so that each player in the challenge must complete one round before the next round can begin.

Scramble has an option where players challenge one or more friends to a defined number of rounds where the best total score wins.

Asynchronous, Sequential Games
There are a variety of multiplayer games that are not time sensitive but that do require players take turns.  Some examples are: Scrabble, checkers, Chinese checkers, and backgammon.  Some of these are limited to two players; others can support more than two players.  In general, turn-based games, especially those that are asynchronous, are limited in the number of players to prevent the time lag between turns from making the game too boring.

The game server for such games tracks whose turn it is, notifies the next player, and presents the updated state of the game to all participants.

Synchronous, Sequential Games
Poker is perhaps the quintessential synchronous, sequential game.  Every player has a turn, following well defined game rules, and each turn or action must be completed within a specified period of time.  Any card game for more than one person falls into this category. Games such as Scrabble and Backgammon could also be configured to set a time-to-act per turn.

Sequential games follow a set of turn-based rules that are implemented on the central server.  The central server is responsible for communicating game state changes, as well as tracking any time limits.  Clients for such games are often simply graphics rendering machines.  That is, the client listens for updates and instructions from the server, and then displays those changes.  When the server instructs the client to ask its player for an action, the client prompts the player with a set of choices appropriate for that point in the game.

Real-time, Synchronous Games
First person shooter type games, typical of the MMOG (massive multiplayer online game) genre, have numerous players (often huge numbers) interacting with one another in real time. These are graphically rich games and they are in the non-sequential category – each player acts independently, and not on a turn-based set of rules.  The graphics development for such games is often more complex than other types of games.

The complexity at the game level for this category stems from the need to track the movements, actions, and interactions of each of the many players without the benefit of a clear, ordered sequence of events.  From a programming perspective, this is more complex a synchronous, sequential game.

Other Forms of Complexity
Multiplayer games can take on other forms of complexity.  Virtually any multiplayer game can support a tournament model.

Tournaments may operate using the last player standing paradigm, where player interact with one another, using a set of rules, until only one player remains.  Tournaments may also use the NCAA and tennis style single-elimination bracket model.  Another form of a tournament is the ladder model, where competition is open-ended, and players move up and down a ladder by challenging or being challenged by another player who is within a defined range (bracket) of the other player.  And a commonly used tournament model involved sets of tournaments where one or more winners from a set of feeder tournaments move up to the next level tournament.  This last model is often called a feeder model or a satellite model.

Scalability is the capacity of the system to sustain significant numbers of players.  This can be a major undertaking in the development of large multiplayer games.  Software architects with appropriate experience in the design and implementation of scalable systems can command significant salaries.

Depending on the type of game and how scoring is managed; multiplayer games can create high transaction volumes – interactions with the database.  They can also generate huge volumes of data where there is reason to store game play history.  Such considerations are also important in the process of selecting a game play model.

Summary
In general, the more players a game must support, and the higher the degree of interaction between the players, the more complex the game server software must be.  The simplest form of multiplayer game is the asynchronous, non-sequential game. Synchronous, sequential games and MMOG’s are typically the most complex to implement and to build for scalability.

When selecting multiplayer games, it is important to match the business objective to a suitable multiplayer game model.  Selection of a game platform, and the functions it provides is an important component of the decision process when the business plan calls for games to be a part of the media mix.

D2M Consulting, LLC is a company I formed with two partners, Dave Arfine and Matt Harriton.  We provide start-up and small companies with a range of supporting consulting services including strategic financial planning, direct marketing, Internet marketing, e-commerce, business process improvements, software related advice, and project management.  You can see our full range of capabilities on the D2M web site capabilities page.

Thanks!

Change can come from any quarter. Most frequently project changes stem from new or modified requirements. With some process appropriate to the size of the project and the culture of the shop, requirements changes can be managed. But change is sneaky. It may well come from an unanticipated direction. A very limited list of possible sources of change includes: staffing change (resignation, promotion, reassignment, illness, etc.), budget change (sadly, usually downwards), corporate reorganization (mergers and acquisitions included here), competitive situations, sales (see the blog entry on chasing the next sale), loss of the key customer for this project, partner relationship changes, vendor changes, changing deadlines, and pure corporate politics.

How does a project manager deal with change? When does the project manager inform the team and when should such information be withheld? When does the project manager inform upper management of project changes as opposed to managing against them? There is no definitive answer to these questions. On highly complex projects with rigorous, published tracking metrics, change often needs to be addressed head on and openly, early. On smaller, more contained projects it may make sense to buffer a manageable change. Corporate culture and management style also play a pivotal role in how change should be handled, as do the extent and immediacy of impact of the change.

Project managers who work for me get significant latitude. My management style gives the project manager a clear objective, an understanding of the strategy the project fits within, and the charter to manage to success as she or he sees fit. I expect to be informed of problems that cannot be solved within the project and that require my support. I expect to learn about significant changes of schedule. I encourage project managers to work through problems that are addressable and to seek support where they are not. I tell both project managers and development teams who work for me that, above all, I don’t like surprises that come up too late to be addressed. Experience as a project manager, and the experience the project manager has with the current team play a large role in when a project manager needs to raise a flag.

From the other direction, I may learn of a change of priorities that impacts one or more project teams. My job, managing a team of project managers, is to ensure timely communications where appropriate. For example, a major new customer has signed an agreement. The schedule to bring that customer online requires resources currently committed to other projects. Working with other senior managers, priorities and schedules must be evaluated in order to free the appropriate resources. In some cases, resources may be needed from multiple teams … it’s rare that one lower priority project is staffed by a team appropriate to the new customer project. Senior management’s role is to support the decision process for adjusting priorities and schedules. The project / program management team must implement the changes dictated by reallocating resources, adjusting schedules, and ensuring that work in progress that is to be deferred gets properly parked. For example, code is documented and saved to a recoverable configuration, development and test systems are properly backed up before being reallocated, design and code artifacts are saved with sufficient documentation detail to recover when the project is resumed, and test plans are similarly preserved.

Of course, this kind of change leads to the inefficiencies of context switching (see the note, “Flail Leads to Fail”) and can be dispiriting for the team members affected. It is in such situations that the project / program manager must ensure the affected team(s) have sufficient information regarding the reasons for the change to understand. At such times, I remind team members of my mantra: the only constant is change.