Activision Publishing, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Activision Publishing worked with Optaros to develop a marketing asset management system to both automate internal workflow, and help to efficiently control the release of game assets.
The Activision MAM system offers several features to increase operational efficiency:
- Secure asset storage with different access levels
- Automated workflow management that reminds appropriate personnel when they have tasks to perform in the asset workflow, such as approving an asset
- Asset tagging capabilities in multiple categories for advanced search capabilities
The Challenge
In the world of video gaming, fans want to know everything they can about popular games, even when they are still in development. To promote highly anticipated upcoming games at Activision Publishing, the company's public relations (PR) team may send game-related assets (such as screenshots and short video clips) to video game journalists, bloggers and other media contacts. The distribution process is carefully planned, as the release of game information is often secretive, and at times exclusive asset rights are given to specific publications.
Before being approved for public release, game assets go through an extensive workflow process, spanning a variety of departments within Activision, including art services, development, marketing and legal.
Activision's asset request and approval processes could be time-consuming, and challenging to manage. Asset requests were organized within spreadsheet-based request forms in a complicated shared network folder and file system, which sometimes housed duplicate and unnecessary copies of assets.
This system made finding available assets quite inefficient at times, as there was no ability to search asset metadata (or tags) when looking for something specific, or compare search results to each other with side-by-side views without launching the files. Not to mention, storage space was being used at a higher rate than required and incurring unnecessary costs.
Needless to say, this process was not ideal, and Activision executives knew that with a well-built MAM (Marketing Asset Management) system (a software platform that allows users to easily save, organize, manage and share digital content - such as game screenshots and video clips), employees could save time, assets could be more securely managed, and interdepartmental communication and workflow could improve significantly.
Solution
Initially, Activision selected a content management platform from a leading enterprise software vendor and assessed the significant customization required to fit the necessary business requirements. The cost of this approach proved too high, and it was unlikely to be a user-friendly system in the end. Based on this analysis, Activision chose to incorporate an open source approach to help reduce costs and ease customization through open standards and open source. Activision selected Optaros, due in part to the company's reputation for assembling custom open source solutions on time and on budget, as well as the firm's deep expertise in open source content management.
"Essentially, our job was to create a system for Activision that could automate workflow, intelligently house and secure game assets, and manage requests between departments," says Bryan Spaulding, digital media lead, Optaros.
Using Alfresco 3, including its new Surf framework, Optaros built a centralized repository within Activision's Alfresco open source content management system to securely house game assets within different conditional access levels, complete with sophisticated alerts and notification systems.
"There were a few issues within the existing proprietary software we found that resulted in a burdensome process , such as sending one email per asset request - meaning that if someone needed 100 screenshots, the system would email 100 requests," says Spaulding. "This and other user experience issues showed that it was not designed to accommodate large volumes of workflow. Details like this can really make or break a system, which is why at Optaros we always think about user experience first and the corresponding software second."
Results
Activision's new MAM system offers several features that increase operational efficiency, including:
• Secure asset storage with different access levels
• Automated workflow management that reminds appropriate personnel when they have tasks to perform in the asset workflow, such as approving an asset
• Asset tagging capabilities in multiple categories for advanced search capabilities
"Open source can be a practical approach for certain parts of the organization if you have a partner like Optaros to help ensure that the end solution meets your requirements," stated Robert Schmid, Vice President of Enterprise Applications. "The MAM system assembled by Optaros not only automates our internal workflow, but also helps us to efficiently control the release of our game assets. If we want to send screenshots exclusively to one publication, or give a unique set of screenshots to different journalists, we're able to set those access levels within the MAM system. It has streamlined our processes."