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Non-Tech : Gambling, The Next Great Internet Industry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kidl who wrote (696)	8/28/2001 2:48:35 PM
From: kidl	Respond to of 827

A little more for the "horse lovers" amongst us: August 26 2001 BUSINESS SCOTLAND The Scottish firm hopes it is on a global winner by using hard-earned computer games skills 'track side', says Ken Symon © Frontrunners: Vis Entertainment's joint venture with Telewest plans to launch the world's first virtual horse racing television channel which seeks to cash in on new-age gamblers Vis reckons virtual horse racing is good bet Van der Kuyl: high hopes CHRIS VAN DER KUYL talks big. Often, as the Vis Entertainment chief executive admitted in a recent briefing, he talks too big. But while the computer games company has not always lived up to the hype, there are signs that things may be starting to change. Yesterday VISiTV, the Dunfermline-based company's joint venture with Telewest, the cable group, unveiled plans to launch the world's first fully computer-generated television channel. I-Race, which was previewed at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, will be a 24-hour a day racing channel with races running every 10 minutes. But unlike other races shown on television this will be digitally generated. The channel will recreate the excitement of the racetrack to allow viewers to bet and even own and train a racehorse at a fraction of the price of the real thing. I-Race, which is expected to go live in the second quarter of next year, is being offered to a variety of other European cable and satellite operators as well as global players. It has already received full Independent Television Commission and pool betting licences. It will be based in Dundee and will be the first national UK channel broadcast from Scotland. Once the computer technology is set up it will run continually with the only non-computer generated element being the voice of commentators. Digitally generated programmes are becoming more commonplace with Shrek and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within being two popular films on general release which have been developed in that way. However, as van der Kuyl points out, while films such as Shrek took about three years and a small army to produce, I-Race will be operated by just four people. "The whole channel will be operated by just two administrative staff and two commentators probably working six-hour shifts," says van der Kuyl. "That is the whole channel's output created, verified and broadcast by just four people." Van der Kuyl admits that VISiTV is entering totally uncharted territory. "It's a world first - nobody has done anything like this anywhere before," he says. "It's great to have something this revolutionary in terms of television breakthroughs coming out of Scotland." While the project itself is a first, it relies on core technologies that already exist. "It is not as if we will be working against the clock to develop some new form of technology, all the elements of it are virtually coming off the shelf; it is putting it together that is the thing that hasn't been done before." The games technology is something Vis has been developing for the past five years and the betting element is already operational in a TV channel operated for Ladbrokes. Work on the project at Vis has been carried out by one of its games development teams based at Dundee working with Chris Johnson, who was head of TV at Ladbrokes. Expert advice on the horses, their training and horse genetics has been provided by Bill Oppenheim, a horse racing author who also works as a consultant to some of the world's leading horse racing owners and breeders. Van der Kuyl believes that I-Race will draw interest from computer games enthusiasts, horse racing fans and gamblers. So its target audience is much wider than the traditional games community which tends to be dominated by younger age groups. He says betting on I-Race will be organised on a pool basis like the Tote so VISiTV will have no interest in a particular horse winning out over others. The winners of races will be worked out on a range of factors including breeding, training, feed, form and on-the-day factors such as the weather, track conditions and so on. But to mirror real life, the results are adjusted by a random variable which will be introduced by asking someone outside the company to pick one of a range of numbers. A recent report published by Mintel suggests that the pattern of gambling in the UK is changing, the average gambler is younger and looking for a more casual way of betting. As van der Kuyl says: "Gambling is moving away from the more dyed-in-the-wool, trilby-wearing bookie kind of guy." Evidence like this and the popularity of both computer gaming, specialist sports channels and the increasing popularity of interactive gaming suggest that VISiTV might be on to a winner. Van der Kuyl says that its appeal will be strengthened by the frequency of the races at any time of day. The novel nature of the venture makes it difficult to predict how popular it will be or how much revenue it could generate. The joint venture was launched for only £4m and because it is using tried and tested technologies suggests that any potential downside could be fairly limited. However, I-Race is not the only Vis prospect with a likelihood of proving successful. In June, its State of Emergency game for Sony's PlayStation2 was voted game of the show at E3, the Los Angeles-based event which is the biggest game show in the world. The company is currently working on four games projects internally plus a further two projects that have been outsourced to third party developers. Vis recorded a pre-tax loss of £2.9m on a turnover of £2.6m last year and the company has suffered from the general poor sentiment in which technology companies are regarded. However, in a recent report entitled The Next Generation: The Games Sector Strikes Back brokers Beeson Gregory concluded: "The games market is predicted to enjoy a period of unprecedented growth." PlayStation has already sold more than 8m units worldwide and, according to the report, is "expected to reach critical mass in Europe by Christmas this year". If the E3 award and the buzz in the industry it has created from State of Emergency is followed by the kind of sales you would expect, Vis could be sitting on a bestselling game. The games sector as a whole, according to industry analysts IDC, is predicted to grow by 10% in 2002 and 18% in 2003. Vis has been strongly tipped as a dead cert success in the past, but too often has been left trailing. With the prospect of a highly lucrative Christmas followed in swift order by the launch of I-Race, Chris van der Kuyl could at last end up in the winners enclosure.