Category: business

Something has changed for me in the last six months or so. A year ago, if a new game came out that piqued my interest, I would probably check out some screenshots, then read a review, (probably several), perhaps read gamers comments on forums, and maybe, if one was available, I’d try a demo of the game, before purchasing.

Now things have changed, youtube is my #1 source for evaluating the possibility of me liking a game.

I probably *hear* about the game at Rock Paper Shotgun or some other gaming site. I might hear about it first on a forum, but now I tend to not bother reading reviews until I’ve checked out a gameplay video. (reviews are good for getting a big-picture description of the entire game)

I *like* this development in the industry, because there is nowhere for the cynical marketing crap to hide…

Demos are sometimes just one slice (the best!) of a game, come out long after release, and are a huge pain to download these days, if you live in the country with a usage cap.
Screenshots are invariably bullshit. They are touched up by artists. They have zero relationship to the game you will buy. (They are called ‘target renders’ in the industry). (All my games screenshots are 100% honest simple screen dumps. This is actually rare.)

Reviews, which contrary to belief are generally not ‘bought’ or corrupt, are nevertheless seen through the prism of that reviewers opinions and experiences. A reviewer always brings their own genre tastes and personal pet peeves with them, they can’t avoid it. if I reviewed games, I’#d mark down everything with unskippable cut scenes, macho protagonists or elves with enormous breasts, but that is probably just me..

Youtube gameplay videos are wonderful. The most handy are not official trailers, or posted by big name sites. The best ones are just some random dude who played the game with fraps running and clicked on upload. That is the sort of experience I as a gamer will get, and that is exactly what I want to see. I probably know if I want to read a review within 10 seconds of video these days.

Am I alone in this?

It’s sad isn’t it, that this is probably one of the most cost-effective ways to get attention to your game. In my dreams, I’d love to  exist in a world where the only PR that was necessary was to send videos, screenshots (real ones, not ‘target renders’) and playable demo copies to journalists, and then let the public and the critics pick the best games on their merits.

But it is not.

I could get 100,000 people to come to my site tomorrow. It’s easy. You just take out your checkbook and pay the money to google adwords, or yahoo search marketing etc. It’s a done deal, it’s easy. Of course, it may not be cost effective. And this is where it gets murky.

I am currently investigating the pros and cons of flash game sponsorship as an alternative to traditional banner-ad promotion, which I have toned down a lot for the last 2 months. So far, I think I like it, even though I had one profitable sponsorship, and one relatively disastrous one.  What I’m thinking about now, is actual physical promotion at events such as trade shows. They vary widely. I’ve been looking at how many people come to these shows, the cost of hiring a booth, and a monitor and PC, the travel costs to and from for me and probably at least one other person. Overnight accommodation etc…

And rapidly it becomes very very expensive. I’ve heard quotes of $200 to ‘hire’ power cables at your booth for 2 days. Are you fucking kidding me? Yes…it costs money to rent a big hall and promote a show, but lets live in the real world for a moment. Do we really want an industry where the only games that get press attention are the ones that set aside $30,000 for trade show expenses? This is insane. That $30k doesn’t make the games any better.

I’m pretty sure a business case could be made for me going to some agency, hiring a few bikini-models with huge chests and long blonde hair, giving them ‘Gratuitous Tank Battles’ T shirts, and sticking them on a booth for 2 days to pout at journalists. The thing is, I’d feel like I was just cheapening the industry I like, and wasting money that could have gone on music, sound effects or art. Can you imagine ‘booth babes’ at a literary festival? Do they have them at Cannes? (I really have no idea).

I don’t think I’ll be hiring booth babes any time soon. I’m sure eventually there will be some cheaper, less tacky indie-focused events for me to promote my games at.

It’s great to see a game get made that could not be made because a publisher would not fund it, made real because actual real gamers, who are the whole reason for everything, stepped up and pledged the money. It’s great news.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/09/double-fine-kickstarter/

But this is not *the* new publishing model, far from it. RPS noted that the developers ‘don’t have a publisher breathing down their necks’. Really? Maybe they have 10,000 publishers now, impatient, possibly wanting contradictory stuff (almost definitely…in fact), and not restrained by the politeness of scheduled milestone meetings behind closed doors. I hope it goes well, but it could get messy.

Plus the developer is boxed into a corner, they know exactly what they have to do with that money. This is not always a good thing. I ship maybe half the games I start. Gratuitous Tank Battles was not the game I intended to make. I intended to make a life-sim game, then abandoned it to make an RTS, then it morphed into GTB.

What if kickstarter had funded subversion? the game that introversion admit ‘didn’t work’ when they actually got half way through development. Would they have had to plough ahead, and ship a game they fundamentally knew was broken? Not a good position to be in.

Yeah I know… I’m mr doom and gloom.