游戏邦在:
杂志专栏:
gamerboom.com订阅到鲜果订阅到抓虾google reader订阅到有道订阅到QQ邮箱订阅到帮看

赢利潜力比良好的游戏设计更重要吗?

发布时间:2013-08-05 14:51:34 Tags:,,,

作者:Keith Andrew

在今年的布赖顿开发大会上,获奖作品《The Room》的开发工作室Fireproof首席执行官Barry Meade在主题演讲中,指出开发者没有必要关注游戏开发的商业方面。

根据Meade,他发现太多工作室把精力放在研究如何让游戏赢利而不是首先设计出好玩法,然而,他认为开发者应该坚守他们熟悉的领域。

他补充道,Fireproof之所以没有采用免费模式,就是因为工作室里没有人了解免费模式。

the room(from indiegamemag.com)

the room(from indiegamemag.com)

所以,我们要询问相关专家:

开发者是不是错误地把时间放在研究赢利策略上,进而威胁到好玩法的设计?或者相反地,忽略开发的商业方面导致工作室面财政困难的风险?

Brian Baglow(顾问)

无论是音乐、电影还是其他创作行业,这个争论一直存在着。

如果你正在创作什么东西或以创作谋生,总是会有那么一天,你觉得你必须获得回报。

我认识某些演员被要求无偿演出(但工作人员是有报酬的),也有音乐家放弃作品因为哀叹叫好不叫座,还有编剧免费创作,但作品还是被拒,只好转手给别人。

创意行业里有的是为梦想而挥洒激情的人。为什么你那么容易投身于表演、写作、拍电影、做游戏并发表成果?因为你想让别人看到。

如果你是出于爱而从事创作,那很好,但你算不上一个专业的独立游戏开发者。你只是爱好者。不过,我们不要假装清高了,要钱付房租不是什么让人羞耻的事。

Thomas Nielsen(Progressive Media)

我们这行业的从业者,就是艺术家和商人的混合体。

当你把对艺术有热情的人和对挣钱有热情的人汇集起来时,你就能创造奇迹了。这就是让我一直干这一行的原因。

艺术家有时候会习惯于认为他们比商人更高尚,因为他们做的是创意、是艺术。你懂的,那是一些值得仰视的东西。有时候吧。

又有时候,艺术家太执著于创作,以至于忽略了创作的价值。然后你就遇到大麻烦了——除了钱,其他一切都是扯淡。

作为一家受雇工作的工作室,我们做了许多游戏,但未必就是我们自己喜欢做的东西。

我们做过一些我们一开始并不了解也没做过的游戏类型。我们在许多方面与客户产生分歧。我们经历了成功也遭受过失败。但最重要的是,我们与许多客户有过愉快的合作,为他们制作了许多受万千玩家追捧的游戏。

每一次,我们都会学到新东西、尝试超越自己、改进自己喜欢的工作:做游戏。

如果你坚持只做你自己认为是好的东西,那好吧。你为你自己做游戏,那么你可能也就到这个程度了。但如果你可以理解市场,然后制作玩家喜欢玩、愿意花钱的作品——那你才算得上是专业的创作者。

任何严肃的、有商业头脑的开发者都应该花大量时间研究市场——包括用户开发、赢利策略和留存率等。如果你不能在商业和艺术之间取得平衡,那说明你还不够擅长你的工作。

Dave Castelnuovo(Bolt Creative)

Barry Meade所说的是一个典型的“生存偏差”案例。Fireproof活下来了,所以他可以事后诸葛亮般地告诉所有人,他做了什么、他所做的就等于成功。

同样地,有些成功的公司告诉别人,免费模式就是成功之道、分析数据是关键或者即兴发挥才能成功。这些都是自以为是的废话。

总之,我很怀疑Barry是受邀演讲,所以他得想出一些东西告诉别人。我的意思是,如果他告诉所有人他只是在正确的时间做了正确的事,那么他的演讲篇幅就太短了。

不过我还要指出一点:许多人低估了免费模式的挑战。我会让我的团队更靠近Fireproof的立场,因为专注于游戏而不是处理平衡赢利之类的额外压力,对我们来说似乎简单一些。

那种平衡需要时间、资源和不同的技能,不是单纯地考虑游戏设计就有做到的。

你不可能在游戏中放一个计时器,就指望游戏挣钱。你不可能添加一个自动在Facebook和Twitter上“吹嘘”玩家的成就的按钮,就指望你的用户开发策略生效。

有些人擅长计算。有些人只会设计游戏。没有正确的答案。

Scott Foe(Big Head Mode)

你只关心乐趣?或者你对商业感兴趣?又是一场“独立”VS“创业”的论战。

独立工作室是由专注于娱乐价值而不必担心资金的个人或团体组成的。总之,独立工作室可以做它想做的任何游戏,然后让一帮独立迷们傻傻地信奉他们所谓的“对的”东西。

有许多工作室都因为项目失败而失败了,至于什么才是真正的原因,从消费者的心和钱包中找吧。

商业游戏项目(无论大小、规模、组织)是创业者的实践,是“把资源从低产出活动转移到高产出活动中”。

每一个新的商业游戏项目都是对可重复、可拓展的商业的一次探索;每一个新的商业游戏项目都是一个新生的商业。忽视这个现实无异于违反诚信义务。

如果说游戏是一道菜,为了把菜端上桌面,这两种调味料—-乐趣和商业你都得加上。

你是“独立”开发者?或者你是“创业者”?大多数游戏失败了,是因为没有赢利策略;无论这个策略是不是带有一个足以让世界上最傲慢的基金经理躲到他妈妈怀里找安慰的风险,你仍然需要采取一个赢利策略……

如果你没有赢利策略,你不可能失败,因为你首先就没有成功的打算。

Dave Castelnuovo(Bolt Creative)

只根据自己的想法设计游戏是错的。

这就好像说,Quentin Tarantino(游戏邦注:他是美国后现代主义电影导演,被誉为“电影鬼才”)本不可能获得成功,因为他只做自己觉得好的电影。类似地,因为Uwe Boll只做别人付钱让他做的电影,他的作品应该像创意沙漠中的绿洲。

说到游戏、音乐、电影、电视和书籍,脱颖而出的作品总是首先以艺术的核心价值和想象力为基础的。

如果你是根据其他价值设计作品的话,你的作品可能不错,但它永远不会成为文明史上的杰作。

那是这场论战的另一个方面。我们做这行只是为了挣钱吗?我们只是想创造一种收入比投入多的商业吗?或者我们正在创造一种能在文化史上留名的作品?如果你们是一支乐队,你是打算成为另一支“甲壳虫”还是只想成为一家音乐工作室?

我认为绝大多数开发者进入游戏行业是因为他们想成为游戏界的“甲壳虫”、“天堂”、John Carmack(游戏邦注:他被誉为“第一人称射击游戏之父”)、 Will Wright(游戏邦注:他是《虚拟人生》的总设计师)或者Tim Schafer(游戏邦注:他是《Psychonauts》和《Brutal Legend》的开发者)。如果你的长期目标是名垂青史、书写传奇,那么游戏设计必须是你的主要动力来源。

为了克服困难和坚持长期目标,必须考虑游戏的赢利策略。但这个行业不会惦记你的银行存款余额,它只会记住你的游戏。

Jared Steffes(Furywing)

Dave,我很高兴你搬出“幸存偏差”的经典案例。当我阅读相关文章或听相关演讲时,我就一直想着这个问题。

Scott,你说的太对了,简直就是标准。“如果你没有赢利策略,你不可能失败,因为你首先就没有成功的打算。”

芝加哥的国际游戏开发者协会曾经邀请不少工作室总监探讨下一季度的安排。

那些独立开发者好像迷途的羊羔,因为他们往往没有什么明确的目标。我记得有一个问题:“你做游戏的目标是什么?”

回答是:“但愿我们能支付房租、伙食,再买一些好东西吧。”我想,供得起房租和伙食大概就是他们的成功标准吧。

Jani Kahrama(Secret Exit)

我像所有人一样理解挣钱养家糊口的必要性,但我不能认同这个说法,很多人忽略了免费商业模式对游戏设计的影响。

我仍然等着看被这种商业模式真正改良的第一款游戏是什么。我们是否把它们当成这20年内的经典?

Jonny Koo(Swarm Media)

免费模式是若干商业模式中的一个选择。它没那么简单,因为需要大量投资。

它是我们迫不得以的选择,是因为我们没有占领手机市场——它是Apple和Google的地盘,而两大巨头是不可能为了迎合所有人的需要而培养这个市场。

我的意思是,作为开发者和发行商,我们不可能改变市场的环境——我们没有钥匙。因此,我们只能根据我们自己所处的环境做决定:付费、免费+IAP、付费+IAP或完全免费。

说到底就是根据你熟悉的商业模式做一款游戏或者为一款游戏寻找一种合适的商业模式。正如Barry Meade所说的,如果你不知道怎么做免费游戏,那么就坚持你自己有信心的商业模式。

Oscar Clark(Applifier倡导者)

我为这个论题感到有点儿愧疚——在Barry的主题演讲的末尾,我提的就是这个问题。

事实上,后来Barry在tweetter上说,我的“问题”更像是在为保持游戏中的艺术和商业模式之间的平衡而做辩护。

但事后我和Barry有过一次简短的交谈,发现我们双方的观点者存在“幸存偏差”问题。我认为他的观点基本上过分强调商业模式,而对游戏体验还不够重视。

我没有想到他会那么说,不过我猜他也像许多人一样,对过分强调商业方面感到厌烦了。

有一个我们探讨了许多次的问题,也就是免费模式的欺骗性。它让玩家觉得自己被利用了、被操纵了。难怪有人会害怕游戏向免费模式进行革命性转移,因为他们觉得这是一个随时会崩溃的泡沫。

他们持有这种想法是正常的。如果我们继续用炸药(免费模式)捕鱼(玩家),要么是招来更多捕鱼的人,要么是我们杀光/吓走所有鱼!

甚至把玩家类比为“鱼”也是一种误读。

这不是一场新论战。它发生在各个领域。销售和真正的市场营销之间存在矛盾。真正的市场营销是策略、长期目标和品牌价值的综合体,是“寻找和满足消费的需求。”

销售是战术的,是关于这个季度的收益和红利。销售是以最少的努力得到最大的回报。而市场营销要求你维持商业3-5年。如果你要的是市场营销,那么你就必须考虑玩家。

我们似乎形成了这样一种观念:只要你获得消费者,尽可能压榨他们,你就很容易挣到钱。而事实是,免费模式加社交元素再加移动设备的组合一直是很有有破坏性的。

设计师和玩家正在发现这对游戏意味着什么,并且不断地根据上一次反馈调整他们的行为。做出正确反应的人就生存下来,否则就灭亡。这也体现了达尔文进化理论。

Jon Hare( Tower Studios

现实是,游戏已经成为心理战场,我们的战斗目的是从玩家手中夺取金钱。同时,玩家在掏钱时始终保持谨慎的态度。

但清楚地说来,被利用的首先是游戏制作者。我们要求挣钱的声讨只是反击。

Jani Kahrama(Secret Exit)

我想指出的是,真正引人入胜的游戏和利用心理学使人上瘾的游戏之间,是有区别的。游戏行业专注于后者,因为后者更有利于赢利。

毫无疑问,根据那些不断提炼的设计模板制作出来的游戏会更好,因为用于评估的指标升级了。

Mark Cochrane(PopCap)

又是一场伟大的论战。赢利是基础,但有一非常大的挑战就是,你要想出应该拿出多少内容以及什么时候、如何收费才是有效的、合理的?

只要玩家觉得自己从体验中得到价值,那么我们做的就是对的。

我认为我们都说《Candy Crush》的赢利策略太激进,但无论我们怎么想,不可否认的是玩家就是乐意买King的帐。如果在列家感知价值方面,游戏达不到玩家满意的程度,那么我当然认为King的策略是失败的。

candy_crush_saga(from applenapps.com)

candy_crush_saga(from applenapps.com)

Brian Baglow(行业顾问)

看了今年的开发者大会,我的一个总体印象就是,再也没有以不变应万变的解决方案了。你必须找一种商业模式,一条收益流和一种适用的营销策略。

抨击免费模式是恶魔,是无济于事的,因为它确实让某些游戏赚钱了——而且是没有把玩家压榨到骨髓的情况下。付费模式显然对某些游戏是不适用的,但对另一些游戏却非常管用。

随着市场变化、玩家增多、市场拥紧,我们现在居然要采用案例对案例、游戏对游戏的方法。

这个问题似乎是,从开发周期中腾出任何时间去思考或尝试某些开发者看到的东西,是浪费宝贵的开发时间。

把你宝贵的好游戏丢到应用市场/网络中,十指相扣祈求成功找上门,我觉得这不是一种可行的商业模式。

因为我提供服务给开发者,我可以直接看到有许多公司忽视市场营销、坚持走阻力最小的路,结果当然是发现自己的游戏并没有变成另一款《愤怒的小鸟》。

为什么会这么快失败?原因总是在其他方面。周末过得不好、天气太好、题材太热门、媒体不关注、预告片还没做好、苹果/谷歌不支持……

原因永远不是它是一款糟糕的游戏,或者是一款冷门的游戏,又或者是没人有知道它的发布。

我几乎只跟游戏开发者合作。最近四年我一直在思考制作一款有影响力且长期维持它这个难题。越来越多工作室选择把100%的资源放在开发上。

在布赖顿,我与所有PR公司有过对话。他们发现独立市场因为且不只是因为预算,而变得越来越难开发。

问题是,虽然像《The Room》这样创造了奇迹的游戏已经被视作抛开商业、专注设计的成功典范,但这种忽视商业还能屡获成功的公司,实在是屈指可数。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Is monetisation more important than good game design?

by Keith Andrew

The final keynote talk at this year’s Develop Conference in Brighton saw Barry Meade of Fireproof Games – the studio behind the award winning The Room – play down the need for developers to focus on the business side of games development.

According to Meade, developers should stick to what they know, noting that far too many studios get fixated with how their going to monetise their games rather than focusing on delivering good gameplay in the first place.

Similarly, he added that Fireproof hadn’t gone the free-to-play route with The Room simply because no-one at the studio knew about free-to-play.

So, we asked our Mavens:

Are developers wrong to devote time to monetisation, and does doing so risk good gameplay taking a back seat? Or conversely does ignoring the business side of development risk landing a lot of studios in financial trouble?

So fruitful were the Mavens’ replies that we split this week’s piece into two articles. You can catch up with part one here.

Brian Baglow, consultant

This debate is happening at the same time in the music industry, the film industry and the rest of the creative world.

If you’re creating something or working in a creative sector as your livelihood, then at some point you’re going to need to get paid.

I can introduce you to the actors I know who are getting asked to perform for nothing (the crew will get paid though), or the musicians who are giving their music away and lamenting the fact that Facebook likes don’t equate sales.

Or the screenwriters who are creating pitch after pitch, for free, only to have their work turned down and then given to other people.

The creative sector is full of people with passion for making something they’re passionate about. Which makes it easy to perform/act/make a film/game and give it away, because you want people to see it.

If you’re doing this for love, that’s great, but then you’re not a professional independent game developer. You’re a hobbyist. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. But let’s not pretend that it’s more noble or indier-than-thou to be above paying your rent.

Thomas Nielsen, Progressive Media

I very much like how our business is a mix of artists and business people.

When you combine people who are passionate about experiences with people passionate about driving revenue, you can make magic. That’s what keeps me working in this space.

Artists sometimes have a habit of thinking they are better than the business people, because what they do is creative, artsy, and you know, that’s something to look up to. And sometimes, it is.

Other times, they are just so caught up in the experience of creating something that they lose sight of what actually counts – has value – in what they are making. And then you run a huge risk – what you thought was gold, the rest of the world may think is worthless.

Being a work-for-hire studio, we’ve done lots of games that weren’t necessarily games we would have made on our own.

We’ve done games in genres we at first didn’t understand and would have never touched. We’ve disagreed with clients on lots of direction. We’ve seen success and failures. But we have shipped tons of games for many happy clients, that millions of gamers have enjoyed and paid money for.

Every time, we’ve learned new things, tried to outdo ourselves, and have improved at what we love to do: making games.

If you insist on only making things you think are cool, by your definition on what is good and bad, fine. You’ll be making games for your own sake, and you probably won’t move forward much. But if you can read and understand the market, and consistently produce products that gamers will find relevant and want to pay for – then you’re an artist.

Any serious, commercial developer should devote a lot of time to understanding the market – which includes user acquisition, monetisation and retention. If you can’t balance those things with gameplay, you’re not good enough at what you do.

Dave Castelnuovo, Bolt Creative

The points that Barry Meade makes is a classic case of survivorship bias. Fireproof survived, so in hindsight he can tell everyone what he did and that it equals success.

The same can be said about all those companies that pat themselves on the back and proceed to tell everyone that freemium is the way to succeed, that analytics are important or that winging it is the only true way to connect to your audience. It’s all a case of self-important bullshit.

All in all I suspect that Barry got invited to do a talk so he did it and came up with something to tell everyone. I mean, it would be a short talk if he told everyone that he was just in the right place at the right time.

I will say one thing though: many people underestimate the challenge of freemium. I would put our team more in the camp of Fireproof, in that it seems simpler for us to just focus on the game and not deal with the extra burden of balancing our monetisation.

That type of balance takes time and resources and it also takes a different skill than just straight forward game design.

You can’t just stick a timer in your game and expect it to make money. You can’t just add a button that automatically ‘brags’ a player’s achievements on Facebook and Twitter and expect your user acquisition to work like a charm.

Some people are good at accounting. Others are better at traditional game design. There is no right answer.

Scott Foe, Big Head Mode
Do you focus purely on fun? Or do you temper fun with commerce? It’s the great “indie” versus “entrepreneur” debate…again.

An indie studio is a person or group of people who can focus on entertainment value without worry for paying the bills. In short, an indie studio can make whatever the hell game it wants to make, leaving a handful of indie darlings “fooled by randomness” into preaching what they did “right,”.

Then there’s a veritable elephant’s graveyard piled to the sky with the bits, bytes, and half-cooked ramen noodles from projects that failed, for whatever true reason, to find the hearts and wallets of consumers.

Commercial game projects (regardless of scope, size, organisation) are classical exercises in entrepreneurship, “moving resources from low-yield activities to high-yield activities.”

Every new commercial game project is a search for repeatable, scalable business; every new commercial game project is a startup business, and to ignore this reality is no less than a gross violation of fiduciary duty.

Yes, to put pizza on the table in the evening, fun must be tempered with commerce.

Are you an “indie?” Or are you an “entrepreneur?” Most games fail, and either strategy carries with it a risk profile that would send the world’s brashest hedge fund manager crawling under mother’s covers for solace in the silent hours of the night. Still, you need to pick a strategy…

If you don’t have a strategy, you can’t fail, because you weren’t trying to accomplish anything in the first place.

Dave Castelnuovo, Bolt Creative

It’s not correct that people who design games based only on what they think is cool will not move forward.

That’s like saying Quentin Tarantino shouldn’t have grown in success because he only makes movies based on what he thinks is cool. Likewise, because Uwe Boll only makes whatever movie someone pays him to make, his work should be like an oasis in amongst a creative desert.

When it comes to games, music, movies, television and books. The standout pieces are always based on the core sensibilities and vision of the artist first.

If you are designing to the sensibilities of another, you may very well learn lessons and end up creating a competent piece, but it will never be a culturally important work.

That’s the other dimension to this debate. Are we just in this business to make money? Do we just want to create a business that pulls in more revenue than we spend? Or are we trying to create culturally important content? If you were a band, are you trying to be the next Beatles or do you just want to be a studio musician?

I think a majority of developers get into the game industry because they want to be the next Beatles, Nirvana, John Carmack, Will Wright, or Tim Schafer. If creating a name and then a legacy is the long term goal then game design needs to be the primary driver.

Monetisation is necessary in order to weather failure and to stick around long term, but the industry won’t remember your bank balance. It will only remember your games.

Jared Steffes, Furywing

I am glad you brought up “classic case of survivorship bias”, Dave. It’s always on my mind when I read an article or hear a talk.

Scott. This is so true and becoming a standard. “If you don’t have a strategy, you can’t fail, because you weren’t trying to accomplish anything in the first place.”

The International Game Developers Association in Chicago used to invite all the studio directors once a quarter to a dinner to talk about our schedule for the next quarter.

The indie guys there looked like lost sheep because they often had no metrics to shoot for. I remember the question, “What’s your goal for your game?”

The answer was, “Hopefully we can pay rent, eat, and buy some cool stuff.” I replied, “I guess their rent and cost of food is their success metric.”

Jani Kahrama, Secret Exit

I understand the necessity of making money to pay the wages as well as everyone else here, but I can’t agree with how casually many are ignoring the effects the free-to-play business model is having on the diversity of game design.

I’m still waiting to see the first game that’s genuinely improved by the business model. Will we regard them as true classics in 20 years?

Jonny Koo, Swarm Media

F2P is a choice – among a few business models out there – that game makers make. It’s not an easy one because it requires quite an investment.

It’s a choice we have to make because we don’t own the mobile market – it’s run by Apple and Google (and a few others) who can’t possibly cultivate the market to meet everyone’s needs.

What I mean to say is, as developers and publishers, we can’t change the environment of the market – we don’t hold the keys. Thus, we can only make decisions based on the environment we find ourselves in: premium, freemium, premium with in-app purchases or totally free.

It’s all about making a game knowing what the business model will be or finding the right business model for the game. Like Barry Meade said, if you don’t know how to make a free-to-play game, just stick with whatever business model you are confident with.

Oscar Clark, Applifier

I’m feeling a bit guilty about this debate – it was the point of the question I posed to Barry at the end of his keynote.

Actually, as Barry tweeted afterwards, my ‘question’ was more of a pleading for a balance between the art and sustainable business models in games.

Of course there is survivor bias on both sides, but in the very brief conversation I had with Barry afterwards, I felt his point was largely that there has been an undue emphasis on the business model and not enough on the game experience.

I wouldn’t dream of talking for Barry, but I suspect that he, like many others, is just fed up with this over focus on the money side.

There is a problem, which we have talked about many times, with the ‘fleecium’ approach to free-to-play. It leaves players feeling exploited and manipulated and it’s no-wonder people – who are fearful of this evolutionary shift in business model – think that its a bubble which will burst.

They are right to feel like this. If we continue to fish with dynamite, either someone will come along and ban fishing or we will kill/scare off all of the fish!

Even calling players ‘fish’ in a analogy is prone to misinterpretation.

This is not a new debate. This debate happens everywhere. There is a tension between sales and real marketing. Real marketing is about strategy, about the long term and about the brand values of your experiences. Its about ‘identifying and satisfying consumer needs’.

Sales is tactical. It’s about how much money we can get in for this quarter’s results and how much I get in my bonus. Sales want the most money with the least effort. Marketing wants you to still have a business in 3-5 years. If you want that you have to consider the player.

There is a belief out there that we have found an ‘easy’ way to make money, provided you ‘buy customers’ and squeeze them for as much as you can. The facts are that the move to free-to-play, combined with social elements and mobile devices, has been extremely disruptive.

Designers and players are learning what this means for games and constantly adjusting their behaviour in response to the last iteration. Those who change in the right way will survive, those who fail to will die. Its a Darwinian process.

Jon Hare, Tower Studios

The truth is games have become psychological battlefields where we fight to priSe money from the hands of the users. Meanwhile, the users remain wary all the time of being pick pocketed.

But lets be clear here – it’s the game makers who are the ones being exploited here in the first place. Our clamour to make money any way possible is mere retaliation.

Jani Kahrama, Secret Exit

I’d like to point out that there’s a world of difference between a genuinely captivating game, and one which utilises the latest psychological retention hooks to create addiction. The industry is focused on the latter, because it’s essential for good monetisation.

The products that come out of those continuously refined design templates will undoubtedly be better by the metrics that are used for their evaluation.

Mark Cochrane, PopCap

Some great debating. Monetisation is fundamental but it’s a big challenge to figure out how much content you give away and when and how to charge for it effectively and importantly responsibly.

As long as the consumer feels they are getting value out of the experience then I think you’ve got it right

I think we all look at Candy Crush and the aggressiveness of the monetisation and, whatever our feelings, there’s no denying a significant audience are prepared to pay what King is charging. If the game experience wasn’t up there and the consumers weren’t happy with what they got in terms of perceived value, then I’d have to believe King’s strategy would fail.

Brian Baglow, consultant

The overall message I took away from this year’s Develop is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution any more. You have to find a business model, a revenue stream and a route to market which works for you.

Writing off free-to-play as evil doesn’t work because it clearly does well for some titles – and without gouging the players to the bone. Paid is clearly not an option for some titles, but does incredibly well for others.

We’re now down to a case-by-case, game-by-game approach, as the market continues to evolve, the audience grows and the number of titles on the market increases.

The problem seems to be that devoting any time to thinking this through, or trying different things is seen by some developers as time taken away from development – and therefore without exception a waste of valuable time.

Chucking your precious, polished game over your shoulder onto the app markets/internet and crossing your fingers doesn’t seem like a repeatable business model to me.

And here’s the thing, since I provide services to developers, I can see directly the number of companies who are disregarding marketing of any kind, who are sticking to the path of least resistance and then, almost inevitably, finding that the game hasn’t gone all Angry Birds.

It’s odd – at that point, the reasons for the immediate failure are always laid elsewhere. A bad weekend, good weather, a competing title, the media weren’t behind it, the trailer video wasn’t ready, Apple/Google didn’t support it…

It’s never, ever a bad game. Or an unpopular game. Or the fact no one knew it was coming.

I work with game developers almost exclusively. I’ve spent the last four years banging on about the difficulties of making an impact and supporting your game effectively over the long-term. More and more studios are opting out and focusing 100 percent on development.

I spoke to a whole bunch of PR companies in Brighton who are finding the indie market harder and harder to work with – and not just because of budgets.

The problem is that the success stories, like The Room, are seen as proof that this development only approach works. Companies with multiple successes behind them who ignore business, however, are harder to point to.(source:pocketgamer)


上一篇:

下一篇: