As many of you may already know, the Commonwealth Games take place in Manchester this year, between 25 July and 4 August. The Web site for the Games is quite informative and well worth a look (www.commonwealthgames.com), but what caught my eye was the story about the Welsh software company which had won the exclusive licence to produce the official interactive game to accompany the rest of the Games merchandising this year.
The Commonwealth Games organisers appear to have limited vision for this particular aspect of the merchandising.
Basheera Khan, UK correspondent, ITWeb
I`m not sure how long this has been a feature of the Commonwealth Games. That said, the tender process for this project had been virtually the same as any tender process anywhere in the world, in that notice of the project was placed in the national press late last year, some companies were specifically targeted as potential project managers, and once all the eligible licensees had been assessed, a successful candidate was decided upon and given the go-ahead to proceed.
The Cardiff-based Productive Play Company developed and produced the game, which is essentially educational software aimed at the 6 - 11 year old segment within the children`s software market.
Players get the chance to assist Kit, the Commonwealth Games mascot, as he competes in a number of sporting disciplines, from synchronised swimming to cycling, from hockey to judo and many others besides. The child playing the game has to rely on keyboard skills, hand-eye co-ordination, logic, spatial awareness skills, memory and general knowledge.
Depending on the performance in each pursuit, a child may win a gold, bronze, silver or runner-up medals. It`s all quite fun, and surprisingly challenging for a decrepit grown-up like myself.
However, it did set me wondering how much richer the project could have been if all (or at least some of) the Commonwealth nations had been invited to contribute something relevant to the package.
I don`t think it would be that difficult to organise, either. There must already be an infrastructure in place on the ground in each Commonwealth country, communicating with the central organisers.
A side project could easily be laid atop that infrastructure to replicate the tender process in each country, and the successful companies in that respect could go through to a last round in which each country`s potential contribution could be assessed, and a final handful of contenders picked to broaden the primary offering which a company in the host country would already be working on.
Collaboration and application sharing software could be deployed to great effect in a situation like this, and the end product itself would then really be worthy of aggressive international marketing and distribution.
As it stands, with only one country and company being involved in the development of this game, and with only one choice of language for the software, I think the game would have limited appeal among the target market.
It`s not like it can`t be done - after all, The Productive Play Company has significant experience in localising products for international markets - it`s just that the Commonwealth Games organisers appear to have limited vision for this particular aspect of the merchandising.
However, while I`m certain that my idea will materialise at some point in the future, I have no great expectation that it will happen by the time the next Commonwealth Games swings around.
Blow by blow
In case any regular readers of this column are interested, the Web site which sent out spam mails flogging a McAfee product at ridiculously low prices was in fact acting without the permission of McAfee.com or the McAfee parent company, Network Associates (NAI).
After much to-ing and fro-ing between the individual organisations which handle public relations for McAfee`s online, consumer and corporate arms, I was eventually informed that the legal department at McAfee.com had served a 'cease and desist` to the Web site in question. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I haven`t yet managed to get anyone at NAI to comment on this event. As they say in the classics, watch this space.
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