Category: Game Business

Free your clutter

Going off of the last post – because I thought about how to bring the reviews/articles over to the blog, I also thought how can I improve the Our Picks page on the website. Previously this page contained tons of subpages going from – Our Picks – Liked/DisLiked Reviews – Game Reviews – Video Game Consoles – Reviews, geez!

Page after page after page! Well I cut out all of those pages and put all the reviews on the Our Picks page. At first glance it looks slopy. But then when you start to use it, it’s very fast, easy, and overall efficient. Instead of annoying the reader by forcing them to visit this page then that page it’s very simple.

I’d say mission accomplished.

Games need to be simple, especially indie games. If you don’t have tens of millions of dollars why are you wasting years on developing one game that will only sell x amount, when you could be developing smaller games that take less time to create and each sell x amount. 

Which do you think is more efficient 2 years for x amount or 6 months for x amount? Indie developers sometime spend years creating games that only sell hundreds of copies! Don’t bother creating these titles unless you really want to waste time.

You have no way of competing with commercial games so why do you bother to play on their league? Until you’re ready stay small and grow fast.

Businesses that aren’t looking to the future

Netflix and Gamefly

Both are good companies. Both are worthless companies.

In the near future you will not have to rent movies or games on disks, so what will these two companies do? Offer downloadable titles? But how will they compete amongst the giants who will offer similar services? Amazon, Apple, Sony, etc.

Both Netflix and Gamefly will become worthless but nostalgic nonetheless. This is the company model that you want to avoid. Why would you ever think about short-term!?

Would we have Amazon, XM Radio, Microsoft, etc if they all thought about the short-term? No, I don’t think so…

Website Presentation

Your pitch is your website. Whether you are looking for a publisher or a distributor, the first thing they’ll see is your website. When you release your game your website will be the first thing a player interacts with. You must at all costs make the presentation of your website as simple and professional as possible, while maintaining the game’s atmosphere.

If your game is a horror game, the website should be dark and graphically run-down. If you have a puzzle game, the website should be bright and colorful.

No matter what the layout looks like it doesn’t matter if the visitor can’t find what they are looking for. Any page besides News, Forum, Screenshots (Media/Downloads), Purchase, Contact could be pointless. You want to keep things organized and clutterless. If your visitor cannot find what they want in 5 seconds your website layout sucks.

Why do you need a Publisher?

Publishers are important in many respects, but that was back in the 90s when the government started to crack down on the game industry and dealing with retailers became a nightmare, right?

There are 3 things that a Publisher can do for you:

1) Make tons of copies of your game
2) Distribute those copies at retail outlets
3) Make your game known to the world

These are all very important things but since the dawn of the internet and digital distribution, you have a fighting chance if you go on your own. You have to be willing to spend the time to contact hundreds of people telling them about your game. This means that you’ll lose possibly months of development time on your next project unless you hire a third party.

If you don’t want to worry about all of this hand your game over to a Publisher. There’s no shame in it. As long as your game is good and creative it is likely that your Publisher will actually push your title more so than its other projects. That’s the worst part about a Publisher is that they have at least 50 on going projects at once so your game might not get the spotlight that you think it deserves. Oh and of course you’ll probably get a 60/40 cut, in favor of the publisher…

Licenses Are Sweet Deals

Pirates of the Caribbean 2: The Legend of Jack Sparrow currently has a 66% average rating on GameRankings.com. The game is horrible but what’s worse is that the game could easily sell 1 million units over its lifetime. 

A few weeks ago Majesco reported that Jaws Unleashed sold over 100,000 copies! Consumers buy what they know. It’s a smart business if we are able to obtain a license deal to make a video game. You pore in a couple million in development roughly 18 months and you’ve made a profit. It doesn’t really matter the quality of the game. What really matters is whether or not the IP has a large fan base in which some are gamers. 

Will the quality of movie titles ever increase? The Lucky 8-Ball says No. Why? Why should developers take their time on a product that will sell no matter the quality? That’s the answer. No consumers will never learn. They will think twice if the game costs more then $50, but usually games with 18month development cycles can be spared from the high-end price point.   

If you really want to own a licensed game, particularly from movies, wait until the game is in the bargain bin for $10-$20 unless the game is actually good. Save yourself some money and screw the developer that put out this title. 

Movie licensed games usually have less time on store shelves because the games themselves are created to coincide with the movie’s release. So you are likely to see the price lowered in a few months after its launch.