作者：Craig Chapple

就像我们之前关于独立开发者的未来的文章所写的那样，如今“独立”游戏开发领域发生着巨大的改变，并且会以极快的速度继续变化着。所以提高游戏的曝光度变得越来越困难（游戏邦注：尽管并不是不可能的事）—-也许你需要投入更多时间于游戏的市场营销和推广工作中。

在过去几年里许多独立发行商开始意识到了这一点。英国开发商Team17便增添了发行部去帮助发行像《逃脱者》和《Light》等游戏。数字零售商Green Man Gaming也凭借Green Man Loaded向发行领域扩展，并带来了《IdolHands》和《Keebles》等游戏。

发展

包括Versus Evil和Devolver Digital在内的许多发行商同时也在向独立开发者推广自己的服务，并声称将助他们一臂之力，且不会要求开发者放弃IP。在我们所接触的三大发行商中，他们都表示并未打算获取游戏IP。

Team17的总经理Debbie Bestwick说道：“传统零售业务/发行模式已经过时了。”

“传统的发行商和零售商已经因为不能承担足够的风险并接受单方面的利益/版税交易而变成了失败的内容创造者。一夜间我们便看到大量选择对象的出现，Valve甚至面向第三方开通了Steam销售网，突然间内容创造者都拥有了自己的选择。”

TheEscapists(from develop-online)

“发行是优秀游戏所需要拥有的一种技巧。为了造福所有人，我们看到了一大波真正理解敏捷发行本质的全新发行商涌现了出来。”

《旗帜的传说》的发行商Versus Evil的总经理Steve Escalante说道，对于独立开发者来说，曝光度是最复杂的挑战之一，不管他们的游戏是面向手机，PC还是主机平台。他解释道，发行商的工作并不只是创造PR口碑，同时也要为所有发行前和发行后的市场营销领域创造更多价值，并且通过各种方式提供给开发者支持。这可能是独立开发者在寻求合作伙伴时会考虑的内容。

Escalante说道：“真正可靠的发行商不只会创造PR口碑，同时也会利用更多活动和社区去赋予广告和品牌更多价值，使用产品策略去明确最佳发行月份，了解竞争对手，并判断何时销量能够得到提升等等。”

“所有的这些都对独立开发者进入拥挤的零售领域具有帮助。”

进入市场

为了克服曝光度的问题，开发者需要考虑许多事—-决定是否选择发行搭档。在创造游戏的同时，创造者也需要决定发行游戏的最佳时间，以及更复杂的Steam的“抢先体验”。尽管能够获得一些反馈，但是开发者也很容易掉进过早发行游戏的陷阱并会因此破坏游戏的成功机会。Escalante说道，此外还有一些值得开发者考虑的元素。

他解释道：“着眼于你的竞争对手并理解产业中正在出现什么内容。”

“你是否在准备大促销？你是否投入足够的时间去实现第一方认证？当前有什么样的活动？了解并掌握这些活动能够帮助你明确战术策略去决定最佳发行时间，并着眼于未来的发展。什么时候进行促销最合适？是在假期吗？还是预购期间？”

Green Man Loaded的执行副总裁Gary Rowe说道，他与开发商的首次交谈便是关于他们将如何推广游戏。他表示他们的主要任务便是在有限时间和预算内创造出最优秀的游戏。他同时强调开发商必须在一开始便着手计划游戏的发行。

“考虑在适当的时间去创造辅助性美术资产（如预告片之类）非常重要，他们同时也需要在开发过程中的每个阶段安排时间，通过博客，Twitter，Twitch等等社交渠道去宣传游戏，如此才能在发行前获得一定的用户基础。”

Bestwick指出独立开发者在发行一款新游戏时需要知晓“一切事宜”。

她说道：“虽然他们是独立开发者，但这并不意味着消费者便会接受一切缺少商业专业性的游戏。”

“所以他们应该进行可用性，QA，本土化，兼容性等测试以及年龄评级；并设法满足平台所有者所设定的任何条件。确保游戏不会坍塌或出现任何漏洞非常重要。”

放眼未来

Bestwick说道，这是较容易的一环；开发者需要重视的是游戏的生命周期管理。她解释道，尽管独立开发者需要专注于游戏的“保质期”，但他们也需要确保游戏能够维持长期利益并获得最大的收益。

她说到：“这是关于产品更新，巧妙的市场营销和促销计划的有效结合。”

Amikrog – Versus Evil(from develop-online)

ROwe表示，通过修改漏洞并基于用户回馈做出完善能够确保长期的成功，而添加额外的内容也能够推动推广意识以及之后的发行。

他说道：“保持曝光度和活跃性非常重要，这也是像Green Man Loaded等发行商所提供的有价值的额外支持。”

确保游戏发行后能够创造长期收益的一种方法便是进行促销和捆绑销售。尽管对于许多独立开发者来说这是非常有效的，但是Escalante仍建议开发者不要总是进行游戏促销，他们应该为自己的游戏明确应有的价值。

Escalante说道：“确保游戏的价值，在需要的时候才进行促销，并在游戏生命周期的适当使其进行捆绑销售，保持你对消费者所承诺的游戏价值。最后，与零售和平台合作搭档保持联系以确保你始终是他们的计划的一份子。”

“这是你所面对的现代零售店面，即既拥有促销，活动，假期，也拥有各种收益。你应该努力推动其中的每一部分，并且避免将自己陷于不利之处。”

发行商是否适合你

考虑到种种因素，开发者总是很难决定自己的游戏是否需要发行商的帮忙。Rowe表示，优秀的发行搭档总是清楚如何管理从预购到发行以及短期推广等等阶段产品的不同价格周期。

开发商同时也拥有开发者们很难接触到的更广泛的渠道，如YouTube，社交社区，联盟营销搭档等等。

Rowe说道：“获得这一权利能够有效提高销售收益。更重要的是，优秀的发行商能够清楚地告诉你他们知道如何提高一款新游戏的曝光度并将其带到商店中。”

“这包括可靠的PR策略以及市场营销计划去创造游戏的认知度，这需要来自专家的帮助，这也是为何许多开发者选择与拥有这些资源和技能的发行商合作的原因。优秀的发行商总是能够接近并影响较大的玩家和媒体社区。”

Bestwick承认有些独立开发者可以独立完成所有事宜，就像我们之前文章中提到的Simon Roth和Mike Bithell。她也说道，这也存在一定的代价，并且她相信与那些拥有自己所不具有的优势的人合作的重要性。

她表示：“我们的计划是关于发行方面的合作，并帮助对方创造出最棒的游戏。”

“你应该真正了解自己的优势并找到那些能够弥补你的弱势并帮助你获得最大成功的人。”

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Rise of the indie publishers

By Craig Chapple

As we’ve seen in our previous article on what’s next for indies, the ‘indie’ game development landscape has changed and continues to evolve at apace. Getting your game discovered is becoming increasingly difficult – though not impossible – and perhaps more time than ever needs to be dedicated to the marketing and promotion of your game.

This realisation has spawned a wide variety of indie publishers during the last couple of years. Long-time UK developer Team17 has added a publishing arm to its operations, helping release titles such as prison game The Escapists and stealth hacking title Light. Digital retailer Green Man Gaming has also expanded into publishing with Green Man Loaded, and is helping bring god game IdolHands and physics-based puzzle title Keebles to market.

Rising up

A myriad of other publishers, including Versus Evil and Devolver Digital, are also pledging their services to indies, claiming to offer a helping hand, but one that will not force developers into signing their IP away. Of the three publishers we spoke to, all of them said they have no intentions of owning IP rights.

“It was past time for a massive shake-up in the traditional business retail/publisher models,” says Team17 MD Debbie Bestwick.

“Traditional publishers and retailers have been failing content creators – independent developers – for years by not taking enough risks and very one-sided revenue/royalty deals. Overnight we saw an explosion of options and with Valve opening up their Steam distribution network to third-parties, all of a sudden content creators had a choice.

“Publishing is a skill that even great games need. Thankfully for everyone’s sakes, we have seen the emergence of a new wave of super smart publishers who understand the nature of agile publishing.”

Steve Escalante, GM of Banner Saga publisher Versus Evil, says discovery is one of the biggest challenges for indie developers, whether their game is coming to mobile, PC or console. He explains that a publisher’s job is not to just create a PR buzz, but add value to all areas of the marketing phase pre and post-release, as well as supporting developers in other ways. This is perhaps something indies should take careful notice of if looking for a partner.

“A solid indie publisher is not just bringing PR that is going to create buzz, but brings access to more events, communities, a media buying team that can add value to advertising and branding, and a product strategy that works to find a good month to launch, looks at competitive windows, has a solid understanding of when sales occur and more,” says Escalante.

“All of this can roll into helping with the crowded retail space.”

Getting to market

To overcome that discoverability issue, developers – whether deciding to opt for a publishing partner or not – have a lot to consider. As well as building the game itself, creators need to determine the best time to launch their game, a factor perhaps made more complex by Early Access on Steam. While providing a great space for feedback, developers can also fall into the trap of launching their title too early and harming their game’s chances. There are also other factors to be mindful of, says Escalante.

“Look at your competitive window and understand what is occurring in the industry,” he explains.

“Are you launching on top of a big sale? Have you given yourself enough time to get through certification with first-party? What events are occurring? Knowing and understanding these events will help you build out a tactical strategy for when it is right to launch a title – but look to the future. When is the first time you might go on sale? Is that during a holiday? Is it too close to your pre-order offer?”

Green Man Loaded EVP Gary Rowe says the very first conversation he has with developers is how they’re going to talk about their game. He says often their primary task is making the best game with the time and budget they have available. He notes, however, that developers also need to start planning their launch right from the start.

“Factoring in time to build good supporting art assets – key art, trailers, and so on – is important, and they also need to allocate time to spend talking about their game via social channels, such as blogs, Twitter, Twitch, etcetera, at every stage of the dev process, so they’re building up an audience before launch.”

Bestwick pointedly states that indies need to be aware of “everything” when launching a new game.

“Just because they are an indie developer, it doesn’t mean consumers will accept anything less than a commercial professional game being released,” she says.

“So usability, QA, localisation, compatibility testing, age ratings – where applicable; with platform holders there are set conditions that must be met. It’s fundamentally important to ensure the game doesn’t go out broken and is as bug free as possible.”

Eyes on the long-term

Bestwick says, however, that this is the easy bit; what developers need to be on top of is the lifecycle management of their game. She explains that though indies who are focused on digital no longer have to worry about shelf-life, they still need to manage their title to sustain long-term revenue and achieve maximum returns.

“This is a clever combination of production updates, clever marketing and sales planning,” she says.

Rowe says long-term success can be achieved by fixing bugs and making small improvements by listening to feedback, while additional content also helps drive promotional awareness and allows the conversation to continue post-release.

“Remaining vocal, being visible, and keeping active is hugely important, and is where publishers like Green Man Loaded can provide valuable additional support,” he says.

One method of ensuring revenue comes in long after a game’s release is through sales and bundles. Though it can be extremely effective for many indies, Escalante advises that developers don’t always need to put their games on sale, and should make sure they build value for their title.

“Keep your value, go on sale when you need to, go in bundles when it’s the right time in your lifecycle, and keep that value promise you have made to your customers,” says Escalante. “Lastly, stay in contact with your retail and platform partners to make sure you are part of their plans.

“This is your modern day retail storefront that have sales, events, holidays and more that you benefit from. Push to be a part of it, but don’t sell yourself short.”

Is a publisher right for you?

With these considerations and others in mind, in can be a difficult decision for developers when considering if their game needs publishing help. Rowe says that a good publishing partner is one that will know how to manage the price lifecycle of the product from pre-orders to release through short-term promotions, offers and more.

Publishers may also have a wider network that developers may find difficult to access, such as YouTube, social communities and affiliate marketing partners.

“Getting this right can dramatically improve sales revenue,” states Rowe. “Perhaps more importantly, a good publisher should be able to show they know how to drive awareness of a new game over and above simply loading the game up on a store.

“This must include a solid PR strategy and marketing plan to generate interest and awareness in the title, which requires specialist expertise, and is why many developers consider working with a publisher who has these resources and skills. A good publisher will have access to, and influence with, a large community of gamers and press.”

Bestwick admits some indie developers can do everything themselves, as shown by developers such as Simon Roth and Mike Bithell in our ‘What’s next for indies?’ feature. She states, however, that there is still a cost to that, and believes it is important to partner up with someone that has strengths in areas they don’t.

“Our own programme is more about collaborations in publishing as well as helping them make the best game possible,” she says.

“Think smart, know your strengths and seek out people who can complement you and help you achieve maximum success.”(source:develop-online)