Social interaction via machines is the goal

The San Francisco-based interactive entertainment company PF Magic, which has been quietly stockpiling content, creators and strategic partners, including AT&T and Sega, for the past two years, is on the verge of shipping its first product — an interactive parlor game that is different than any new media title we have seen.

With the group-oriented entertainment product — called 3rd Degree — expected to ship next month for Philips’ CD-I platform, PF Magic’s founders opened the doors of the company and let Digital Media take a look inside their bag of tricks.

Nothing up m’ sleeve. PF Magic is a privately held company, officially launched in August of 1991, and funded primarily through private investments and through a minority equity investment from AT&T Consumer Products division. The four-person management team collectively has an impressive track record in the computer, interactive gaming and consumer electronics markets.

THE PF MAGIC PLAYERS

John Scull, managing director of PF Magic and the company’s chief deal maker, was formerly CEO and president of Macromedia, a multimedia tools developer based in San Francisco. Prior to his stint running the authoring software company, Scull was with Apple Computer, where he had a leadership role in the late 1980s, helping to determine Apple’s strategy for developing multimedia technologies and for creating market opportunities for itself in that emerging marketplace.

Digital video, my dear Watson. Dave Feldman, who joined PF Magic shortly after it was launched, comes from Icom Simulations, a well-established video game company now owned by Viacom New Media. During his tenure as the vice president of product development, Icom produced award-winning cartridge and PC games, including Déjà Vu and Shadow gate. He also pioneered the use of digital video in an interactive title with the creation of Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, which includes more than 90 minutes of digital video on a CD-ROM.

The newest addition to the PF Magic management team is Jim Guerard, who was brought on about two months ago as director of finance and operations. Guerard most recently held that same position at The Walt Disney Company, where he oversaw all finance and operations activities for Disney’s publishing division and its art and licensed publishing businesses.

Game designer extraordinaire. The visionary behind PF Magic is Rob Fulop, the company’s creative director and its cofounder. Fulop has been involved in video game development since the glory days of Atari back in the late 1970s. He is the creator of some of the most successful home video games ever developed, including Missile Command, Night Driver, Demon Attack, which was voted Billboard’s Video Game of the Year in 1982, and Cosmic Ark, which sold more than 1 million copies.

As an independent producer for Hasbro between 1986–1988, Fulop engineered the design and production of three feature-length interactive movies, including the infamous Night Trap, a title that involves scantily clad women defending themselves against masked men whose intent is violent, to say the least.

Avoiding the trap. While Fulop’s and Feldman’s previous titles are pretty standard fare for the 16-year-old male gaming enthusiasts, the PF Magic team says they are committed to avoiding the trap of creating titles such as Night Trap. “I don’t think we need to do blood and guts to have fun,” says Fulop. Instead the company plans to focus on what he calls creative social action products. “We are most interested in how we can use the computer to encourage human interaction,” he says.

COMPUTERS, GAMERS: NOT A ONE-TO-ONE RELATIONSHIP

Certainly the company’s first title, 3rd Degree, is designed to generate that social interaction. It is the first interactive group-oriented title we have seen. As the name infers, the game revolves around the players — there must be at least three — putting each other in the hot seat.

Each player is presented (through a series of still images and digital audio) with a moral conundrum and then asked what he or she would do in that situation. For instance, you have just rented an X-rated movie and you run into one of your former (and quite prim) school teachers. She sees your selection. What do you do?

That’s what friends are for. You are asked to pick your answer using the CD-I joystick from four different options. Your answer is registered in the computer, but is kept secret from the other players. It is then up to the other two players, who in essence don the robes of prosecuting attorney and judge, to decide first what your answer was, and second, if they think you were being honest in how you answered. You get to find out what they think you would have done.

One can imagine that the conversations could get pretty lively as friends and family begin testing and questioning the strength of each other’s moral fiber. This is not a kid’s game; it is targeted toward adults, who still enjoy playing games, turning them into a centerpiece around which banter and conversation flows. Similar to Trivial Pursuit, the company plans to develop a series of 3rd Degree software that will include themed questions that will appeal to different age groups and types of people.

It is PF Magic’s hope that these digital parlor games will motivate people to stay home and “fire up the TV set” when looking for a little interactive fun. The product is expected to be shipped in the first week of November; it is priced at $39.98.

Of magic tricks and flicks. The second two titles to come out of PF Magic are also for the CD-I platform. Both are still in development and are expected to be shipped in early to mid-1994.

The furthest along of the two in terms of development is a children’s interactive magic kit/game that may trick some adults as well. Based on mentalist Max Maven’s actual magic act, the title offers “one-button magic, with the banter,” according to Scull.

Based on the demo we saw, MaxMagic looks promising. The main character, a digital magician, should captivate children’s attention; he looks a lot like the mystical arcade magician in the movie Big. We imagine that the kids will play with MaxMagic by themselves but then want to show off their magical prowess to family and friends, mimicking Max’s running patter as they perform the tricks they learned under his tutelage. While some of the magical tricks we saw were absolutely transparent, for instance, guessing someone’s astrological sign by a process of elimination, others were clever. (We are still trying to figure out how one of the tricks was done.)

The original cliffhanger. The third title, which the PF Magic team was reluctant to discuss in any detail, is based on vintage cliffhanger serials, such as The Crimson Ghost, featuring Clayton Moore of Lone Ranger fame and licensed (non-exclusively) from Republic Pictures Corp., the company that created the classic matinee Cliffhanger serials during the 1930s and 1940s.

Code-named Flicks, the title is an interactive movie/game in which players will be able to mix and match episodes. It includes 45 minutes of video excerpts from The Crimson Ghost.

To combat the “replayability” problem that exists with many of the digital video games that are available today, Fulop says players of Flicks will need to play the title dozens of times before they can figure the game out. He says in the final product, gamers will have a different experience each time they play. (We can’t judge, because we didn’t see the title even in development.)

Making the most of CD-I. Each of the PF Magic games discussed takes advantage of what CD-I technology does best and doesn’t bother with the rest, according the Fulop. He calls it constraint-oriented design, a rather generous way of putting it.

“CD-I is great for [still] pictures, graphics and audio,” he says. And to that end, he and the PF Magic team used a lot of high-quality still images in a montage format to give the illusion of motion and developed computer-based characters with limited movement. For example, MaxMagic is really a “Mr. Potato Head”-like character that remains immobile, except that his mouth and eyebrows move when he speaks. In addition, the company focused heavily on the audio aspects of each of the titles, hiring San Francisco Bay area talent to do voiceovers for the digital characters.

PHILIPS NEEDED TITLES, DEVELOPERS NEEDED CASH

Despite the known limitations of the player, PF Magic says it opted to support Philips CD-I because it needed funding to develop titles, and didn’t want to give away pieces of the company in order to raise that money. Instead, PF Magic agreed to give PIMA exclusive rights to both 3rd Degree and MaxMagic; PF Magic has rights to Flicks and plans to bring it out on other platforms.

While today that deal may seem one-sided in Philips’s favor, in 1991 when PF Magic signed on, Philips was the only large media company funding small new media publishers for interactive development. Today, both the size of the market and the number of moneyed media companies looking for interactive development teams has grown, putting PF Magic in a better position to negotiate its creative rights on a variety of platforms.

“We need to see the success of the CD-I player this Christmas in order to make a commitment to continue developing for CD-I,” says Scull.

Works in progress. On average, development costs for PF Magic’s titles have ranged in price between $350,000 and $500,000. In addition to its commitment to Philips, PF Magic is creating at least one original title for the 3DO Multiplayer as well as a couple of Sega games and Macintosh and MPC-based CD-ROM games.

The PF Magic team was reluctant to discuss any of these works in progress since, according to Scull, they don’t want “to drive the multimedia hype machine that so many other interactive companies get caught in.” They will talk about the titles as they move closer to final products. PF Magic is also a registered developer for Nintendo. The team says they are “platform-agnostic” and will develop content for any appropriate distribution medium, including interactive television systems.

PLAYING ON THE EDGE WITH SEGA AND AT&T

Perhaps the most exciting news at PF Magic is the upcoming release of the hardware the team is creating in conjunction with Sega and AT&T. Called The Edge 16, the communications device attaches to Sega Genesis machines and allows two Sega Genesis players in different locations to play and talk with each other over a standard phone line.

The Edge is built around a fast (9600 baud) modem that plugs directly into the top of a Sega Genesis machine. Game cartridges then slide into the top of The Edge. The design allocates half of the modem’s bandwidth to the game’s joystick and the other half for voice, a very clever device that allows a single home phone line to be used for gaming and talking simultaneously.

Both players fire up their Genesis games, then one calls the other via The Edge modem. The ingenious design tricks the Genesis system on either end into acting as though the phone input is actually a second joystick, so all actions are duplicated on each player’s screen as though they were in the same room.

Digital trading cards. In addition, The Edge will contain four slots for “custom game enhancement cards.” About the size of a credit card and containing embedded intelligence, the portable cards are unlimited in their capacity, but because of economics, PF Magic says most cards will hold the equivalent of 4K of RAM and 32K to 128K of ROM. Thus, a Genesis player can save his or her favorite team or character or game scenario on a card, or add a new character to an existing Edge-compatible game. The folks at PF Magic envision a market for wizards, for example, or warriors. According to Scull, the company is investigating ways for players to take characters they’ve created and place them in a completely new game.

The Edge 16, which was designed by PF Magic and manufactured and marketed by AT&T, is not compatible with existing Sega Genesis game software. Many of the large game developers, however, including Sega, Electronic Arts, Tengen, MicroProse and Gametek, are among the 30 companies that have publicly agreed to support the technology.

There’s no reason they shouldn’t, since the design could create a rich new revenue stream. Game developers could create new characters, new weapons and new game scenarios for existing software and then sell them separately on Edge cards.

The Edge 16 is expected to ship in the summer of 1994 for about $150. It will support any standard IBM/AT-style keyboard. A customized keyboard is in development within AT&T. The individual data cards will retail for less than $20.

By the time The Edge ships, PF Magic believes it will be ready to support and access AT&T’s ImagiNation Network, formerly known as the Sierra Network, an online gaming service. Although none of the companies involved will publicly discuss their plans in detail, there is no technical reason The Edge peripheral could not connect Sega Genesis systems to other online services, including Compuserve, America Online and Prodigy.

In addition, there’s been no public announcement on whether The Edge will work with the new Sega Channel interactive cable network. We would be surprised if it didn’t, since each of these companies — most notably AT&T — is looking for a direct pipeline into the home.

OUT OF THE HAT, AND INTO THE FRYING PAN?

PF Magic believes it is creating the original software and hardware to build a digital home arcade, where we can still interact with our peers but don’t have to face the dangers of a real urban “fun house” (not necessarily so fun in some cities) or the prospect of a road trip.

Even if PF Magic fails to fulfill its vision, the company’s initial offerings — even if they are not your idea of fun — has added a new dimension to how we perceive an interactive gaming experience. Titles such as 3rd Degree, for example, help dispel the notion that video games require a one-to-one relationship between man and machine, and we use the gendered term advisedly.

That title, as well as The Edge technology under development, encourages and even requires human interaction. Though somewhat unseemly in today’s overheated video game world, the premise of group-oriented interactive media is an idea worthy of consideration.

Janice Maloney