Category: General Game Development

$ of your assests? – Developer Poll

I was actually requested this topic by a reader named Robert: “I’ve always been very interested in exact figures developers have paid for art, sound assets. Maybe if you could ask some developers and post the info. The name of the artist or composer doesn’t have to be included…”

So I do ask you fellow developers – how much do you normally pay for all of these assets?

With my current game, The Divine, I’ve actually avoided paying any of my staff upfront. I’ve worked out a royalty system so basically they all have an incentive to make this game awesome.

In the commercial game industry you can see from the 2003 Developer Salary Survey (it’s the most current online edition, offline is already 2006) that paying your workers can cost a serious amount of money!

So as I asked above if you are a developer please post (comments section) some information to help Robert out.

Thanks! 🙂

So what’s next – Malathedra Marketing Analysis

I’m still asking this question to myself. After the sense of purpose and meaning the week of Malathedra gave me, I now have to go on and figure out what I’m doing next. it’s amazing how the marketing business is like being in a traveling circus. It takes planning, it’s hela-fun when you finally perform, and then you’re depressed when it’s all over. Right now I’m at that stage of depression and boredom.

Well that’s why I have this blog. I can now show the constant cycle of one side to my life. Doesn’t that sound fun? 😉

Anyway you’re all starving for my reaction to how exactly the week of Malathedra went, right? Comparing the visitor count data from the first week that the Announcement PR was sent out to the week of Malathedra PR, lets just say it didn’t work out as well as we had hoped or did it?

For those of you who don’t know, Raymond Jacobs (head of EDI Games) and I planned out a week of marketing for Malathedra. We discussed what would be released each day and then I would send out a press release about it on the day of its release.
I would say that we did accomplish what we originally set out to achieve, regain the interest in potential buyers. When you’ve read multiple comments saying “I want to pre-order this game” there is a warm feeling that comes to the heart.

The Week of Malathedra Website Statistics:
Day 1 – 86 visits – Screenshots
Day 2 – 118 visits – Music Clips
Day 3 – 199 visits – Gameplay Videos
Day 4 – 179 visits – Wallpaper and Avatars
Day 5 – 115 visits – Trailer

Day 1 – Can we say screw up? From what I can judge not all websites that I expected posted this first PR initially. Why I have no idea. But it was on the next couple of days that the screenshots finally appeared.

Day 2 – When users listened to these clips they understood that Malathedra is first a true adventure game. Having a track that sounds similar to Monkey Island, allows gamers to hear that we know what good adventure games are.

Day 3 – The gameplay videos allowed us to build off of the sense that the players got from hearing the music. Visually they saw the comedic elements that have been developed throughout Malathedra. Comedy next to story is the reason why anyone plays adventure games.

Day 4 – Well we had to stretch things out a little bit here. Obviously after getting gamers excited we had to give them something to take back with them. What better way is there than wallpapers and avatars?

Day 5 – For the last day we found it appropriate to save the best for last. A trailer would be the ultimate thing (mainly because it’s too early to release a public demo).

So why were the stats not as stellar as theywere with the first Announcement PR? There are a couple of reasons for this. For the majority of the updates, users did not have to go directly to Malathedra.com in order to view them. Most websites published the materials on their own websites. Only the gamers with an actual interest in the game visited the homepage. The only day where users had to visit the homepage to see the update was on day 5 with the trailer, but I believe that the image quality of the trailer hurt potential coverage from these exact game sites that covered Malathedra for all the previous days. Why would anyone recommend their users to view a pixalatted video?

Even with all of this in mind, I commend EDI Games for being one of the few indie game development companies to think and execute a marketing strategy from development day 1. EDI is several months from releasing any sort of demo and already thousands of people know about the game. With EDI’s first game Morning’s Wrath, marketing campaign didn’t actually start until after the game was released! I’m 100% sure that this impacted sales to some extent. The question that has yet to be answered is: will marketing Malathedra this early in development improve sales? It almost seems as if gamers might forget about Malathedra and EDI will have to spend extra time reminding gamers over and over again when the game is coming out. Is this wasted time that could be used for developing the game or is this actually creating buzz? We’ll just have to wait till 2007 when the game is finally released! Sorry, I don’t know the ending to this story.

Indie Developers need to stick together… yeah right!

I’ve always been an advocate for indie developers helping their collegues out in any form. But seriously there comes a point when things can be blown out of proportions and obviously that does not help anyone. As is the case with a post made on IndieGamer.com about Malathedra. So I do recommend that you take a time to read this thread and analize what happened and how to avoid conversations like this in the future.

(Hint: There is no way to avoid this type of conversation. They will always happen.)

The week of Malathedra

I’ve been working with EDI Games in order to pull off a rather interesting marketing plot. This entire week we’re releasing new materials (screenshots, videos, trailers, etc). Our goal is to build up even more hype than the original Announcment of the game. Hopefully all types of gamers will take a look at the game once they see it in the headlines for 5 days straight.

Later this week I’ll report the before and after statistics.

Portals Are Your Best and Worst Friend

After working with so many games and trying to get all of them on as many portals as possible, I’ve learned a thing or two about portals. They can be the kiss of death but sometimes they can be the savior you’ve been waiting for.

Lets face it dealing with portals takes a ton of time. Time that you might not be willing to spend. But portals can bring a hundreds of thousands of sales to your game! Of course this is the rare occassion, it mainly occurs when you have developed a great game, something that is even more rare. 

Think of portals as FREE advertising! Seriously who wouldn’t want that?! If a user buys your game on a portal, they are likely to Google your company’s name and see if you have any more games for sale. That’s why it is important to always have a homepage for your game: a place where fans can come together and talk about YOUR awesome game.

Another great positive to portals is that it makes your game seem legitamate. You don’t need a publisher to get your game onto portals. You can find a marketplace of millions of users without a publisher! Thank you internet!

Again though, you must be willing to spend the time to fill out the paper work. If you’re not, find a publishing company who will! Heck why not use mine Packom Interactive!

The worst part about portals is that they take a lot of money out of the sale. Most deals go for 60/40% in favor of the portal. That’s not really the best deal but if you’re not a proven developer why would any portal take a risk on your game? Portals are selling games to make money, just like you!

Another thing is that they could careless about your game unless it is a proven success. Don’t think your game will appear on the front page of their website just because they’ve added it to their catalogue.

I don’t suggest that you waste the time to send your game to portals if you have a mediocore game. Sure some portals are more forgiving than others, but the likelihood is that none will accept your game. So seriously don’t bother.

Most importantly, research into the portal before you send your game to them! Make sure that it reaches their audience.

I wish you all luck! You’re going to need it. 😉