Entries Tagged 'Practical information' ↓
November 20th, 2009 — News analysis and background, Opinion, Practical information
This makes absolute complete and utter sense. People buy perceptions, not reality. And people are far more concerned about peer pressure than they are concerned about their own judgement.
There is a make of car that is distinctly average. In fact some of the smaller models are not very good at all. Yet it manages to sell extremely well despite selling at a premium price. Because people want to be seen behind the badge. They will pay thousands of dollars in premium to buy just a few dollars worth of chrome and enamel badge. And most people buy silver and grey ones, because that is what everyone else does. All due to the power of marketing. The brand is presented as sporty which is just the image every housewife wants when she does the school run. Customers just don’t realise when they are victims.
If you are a game developer and you tell your mum about the game you are working on then that is marketing. Marketing is any communication. So it is a fact that a game with zero marketing will have zero sales.
Over the years I have never seen a game get the sales that it deserved just for its quality. Yet I have many times seen a game get far more sales than it deserves because of its marketing. And I have also seen many good games fail because of bad marketing.
Just look at the five games I was writing about yesterday. They are virtually identical yet they have massively different numbers of players. The difference is just the marketing. Marketing is more important than the game, this is a self evident truth.
Yet still there are very many game publishers who do not understand this. Many self and small publishers on the iPhone App Store, for instance. There you can see that marketed games sell well, non marketed games sell badly. It has precious little to do with the quality of the game. (Unless it is a total dog).
Now EEDAR has done research in the game marketplace from which they say “Marketing influences game revenue three times more than quality scores”. And actually the difference is even bigger than that, because the scores form part of the marketing!
So there you have it. If you want to sell more games and make more money then send me an email and I will come and sort it out for you!
November 18th, 2009 — Anecdotal musing, Practical information
30 years ago commercial videogames for home computers arrived in Liverpool when I brought a pile of Apple 2 games to Microdigital that I had bought at Computer Components of Orange County in California. A couple of years later, in Liverpool, Bug Byte software was set up, one of the very first British video game publishers. From this, also in Liverpool, there came Imagine, Software Projects, Psygnosis, Denton Design, Jester Interactive, Bizarre Creations, Rusty Nutz etc
Then in the mid 80s I worked at Codemasters, just outside Leamington Spa in the centre of England. From this there are now has a whole pile of gaming companies in the area. This is not something unique to the gaming industry. It happened with shoes in Northampton, with bicycles in Coventry and with pottery at Stoke on Trent.
There are now lots of game development clusters around the world, usually created in the fallout from just one pioneer. In the UK we have cluster in Dundee, Guildford, Brighton and several more. In China there is one in Shanghai of at least 20 companies as a result of Ubisoft being there. In America there are lots of clusters, Austin, Texas has very many game companies as do Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston. In Canada Toronto and Montreal have grown quickly as the locations for many companies. And Seoul, Korea has around 60 companies.
From the point of view of a developer there are many advantages doing business in a cluster. The human resources and services are all there, geared up just right for running a gaming business.
From the point of view of an employee there are many advantages to working in a cluster. Job mobility without moving house and security of employment being significant advantages to anyone.
But a further advantage of clusters can be found in the pages of Adam Smith’s 1776 book, The Wealth of Nations. A cluster will support the division of labour with specialist companies forming to service the industry. For gaming this could be sound, QA, translation, motion capture, marketing and other technical services which make doing business in the cluster more flexible and effective.
And then there are the politicians. Political attitude has a huge bearing on the success of a company. So it is vital for a game business to nurture local and national politicians as well as the civil servants who do their bidding. When an industry employs several thousand people in one location it can exert considerable political power to its advantage.
This is just one reason why companies within a cluster should co-operate, even if, as is often the case, there is previous bad blood arising from business dynamics. The businesses have many areas in common that can be addressed more effectively jointly. There should be CEO level meetings of every company within a cluster every month.
And, of course, government can leverage these clusters to generate national wealth, something we have seen the Canadians do with startling success and something the British government has failed abjectly at. The game industry is already worth many tens of billions of pounds in economic activity and will grow to be a lot bigger still so this is of critical national importance.
So there we have it, if you want to start a game company then do it in a cluster, if you want to work in the games industry then you are best off in a cluster and, if you are already part of a cluster, ensure that you leverage it for your maximum advantage.
November 12th, 2009 — Opinion, Practical information
There are now many hundreds of millions of people playing video games. It is inevitable that many millions of these are great gaming enthusiasts and that many of these want to work in the video game industry. My advice, based on 30 years in and around it, is don’t. And here’s why:
- Playing video games is fun, it is entertainment. So you might think that making video games is fun. It isn’t. Not more or less than other jobs. Because that is what it is, just another job.
- People who are industry wannabes always say that they want to be game designers. This is because they don’t know how a game is made. In fact there are very few game designers involved. On any development team the main sort of people are artists (of different sorts) and programmers (of different sorts).
- Being keen about video games is no qualification whatsoever for working in the industry. Being a good computer programmer or artist is a much better basis. Even better is to be very good at maths. Game companies want people with the skills to make games and being an enthusiast isn’t a skill.
- The competition to get into the game industry is fierce because there are so many wannabes. So the industry can be very, very choosy. When I was at Codemasters the minimum degree to get in was a 2.1 and you had to score over 130 in an IQ test.
- Because so many people want in the wages are terrible. Similarly qualified graduates going into other industries will typically earn a lot more.
- If the wages are bad then the working conditions are worse. Crunch is a widespread practice in the industry. Huge numbers of hours of unpaid overtime.
- Career advancement is typically very, very slow. This is because most of the jobs are at a similar level, programming and creating art.
- The work itself is often tedious, repetitive and boring. It is a hard slog to create all the dots that you see on the screen. There really are lots of better and more interesting jobs in the world.
- Job security is awful. Companies routinely get rid of people as the work flow fluctuates. No matter how good you are it is ridiculously easy to find yourself out of a job.
- The training industry has jumped onto exploiting the wannabe. Lots of colleges and universities have jumped on the bandwagon. There are now hundreds of supposed game industry courses in the UK. Yet amazingly only 6 of these are accredited by Skillset! There are now more people in training for the video game industry than there are in the industry. The vast majority of these people are wasting their time and money.
- Game companies are mainly not very well run. This is because it is an immature industry and the management skills and practices are just not there. It is much, much nicer working in an organisation that is run properly. Which you are far more likely to find outside gaming.
- The industry is firing, not hiring. Lots of game studios have closed, many have shed jobs. Electronic Arts alone is shedding 1,500 people. There are lots of very good, very experienced game developers who can’t get a job. Against that newbies don’t stand a chance.
The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. And over the years I have seen lots and lots of people leave the video game industry. They move to other industries where the work is better, they earn more money, they get promotions and they have job security.
If after all this you are still determined then I have some advice. Don’t train for the video game industry. Instead train to get a very good qualification that the game industry needs but which you could use in other industries. Maths and physics are the prime examples. There is a huge shortage of graduates in these subjects, so you would be far more attractive to a game company. Good artists and C++ programmers are more common, so less valued. But they are still both qualifications that can be used in many industries.
November 4th, 2009 — Practical information
Someone is running an online hate campaign against me. Obviously he has never met me and has too much time on his hands.
But he has found an interesting way to market his campaign. He has set up a bogus Twitter account called bruceongames2 and made tweets to it pointing to websites that support his hate campaign. Then comes the clever bit. From this account he then followed the followers of my legitimate account. Each one then gets the follow notice, and then if they click through to find out why I’ve apparently started another account they get to see all his hate tweets.
My legitimate Twitter account is Bruciebabe.
October 21st, 2009 — Practical information
Feel free to join and add your thoughts: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=295181985789&
October 21st, 2009 — Practical information
Next week is the fourth London Game Festival. A collection of 12 events during the week, a format that seems to be working nicely. Here is a list of all the events:
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Wednesday October 21
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Saturday October 24
London MCM Expo 2009 Saturday 24th – Sunday 25th October 2009 09:00 Excel London, E16 1XL, Adult Ticket (15 years old & above): £10 l Child Ticket (11 to 14): £5 l ‘EARLY ENTRY’ Tickets £13 Per Day
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Sunday October 25
London MCM Expo 2009 Saturday 24th – Sunday 25th October 2009 10:00 Excel London, E16 1XL, Adult Ticket (15 years old & above): £10 l Child Ticket (11 to 14): £5 l ‘EARLY ENTRY’ Tickets £13 Per Day
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Tuesday October 27
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Wednesday October 28
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Friday October 30
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Playful Friday 30th October 2009 Conway Hall, WC1R 4RL, £40
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Saturday October 31
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I will be going to two of these. The Best of British on Wednesday 28 October has a very promising programme of speakers:
| 10.00 – 11.00 |
Registration and networking |
|
Host (Gareth Edmondson, Reflections studio introduces the event). |
| 11.00 – 11.30 |
Ed Vaizey, discussing the games industry and its importance to the UK economy. |
| 11.30 – 12.15 |
KEYNOTE: Charles Cecil, MD of Revolution studios will take a look at the British games industry where are its roots and what made Britain the birth place of the games industry. What are the key USPs of Britain moving forward? |
| 12.15 – 13.30 |
Lunch and Networking |
| 13.30 – 14:15 |
“Darwinia + playthrough”: Mark Morris MD of Introversion will talk about the benefits of being a British independent studio and how they have managed to transform from a small time indie to professional console developer. Mark will be talking about the influences of their latest and most exciting game Darwinia+ which is due to be released on XBLA later this year. |
| 14:15 – 15:00 |
“Marketing Browser games” Simon Seefeldt is Head of Business development at Jagex – a world-leading developer of high quality, browser-based games and the largest independent games developer and publisher in the UK creating games such as Runscape and funOrb. Simon will talk about how they build their communities and market their games and how Britain is a great place to make games |
| 15:00 – 15:30 |
Tea Break and Networking |
| 15.30 – 16.00 |
Title: “I, myself and iPhone”: Paul Farley, MD Tag games will be talking about how Tag games started and what the benfits are of being a casual games company in the UK. Paul will also be highlighting the pros and cons of iPhone versus some of the other platforms. |
| 16.15 – 17.00 |
“Give us a break”
Gareth Edmondson and a panel of leading developers and games experts will be discussing the prospects for a Games Tax Relief and the implications for the industry as a whole if the measure is implemented. Games Tax Relief could benefit developers by reducing their over-reliance on publisher funding, promote original IP development and encourage a move to more sustainable online business models. The availability of government subsidies overseas is making the UK less competitive, not only from the point of view of costs, but also of skills as government support in other countries has attracted key staff away from the UK. The panel will be looking at what the Government reaction has been so far to TIGA’s lobbying and what are the next steps in ensuring tax breaks happen. |
| 17.00 – 17.05 |
The decision – what is the best ever British game? All delegates will be asked to nominate a game at registration the top 10 nominations will then be voted on by the audience. |
Then on Friday I am going to Eurogamer Expo. A consumer event with lots of games, development sessions and a career fair. And which is sold out!
October 20th, 2009 — News analysis and background, Practical information
As regular readers will know Evony are trying to sue me for libel in an Australian court. So we have a plaintiff from country A trying to sue a defendant from country B in country C. They can do this because judgements from Australian courts are enforceable in England. And they are trying to say that because internet content is available globally they can sue me in any country they feel like. Obviously they have chosen Australia to create the maximum difficulty in my defending myself, they are misusing the Australian legal system to censor the internet.
They are going after me because I exposed Evony to the harsh light of publicity. The Guardian newspaper did the same but they are not taking the Guardian to court because the Guardian have the resources to defend themselves from such spurious claims.
Libel is incredible expensive to bring to court, some cases end up with legal costs of over a million pounds. To get my case just to the first day of court in Australia should cost me over £50,000. You can see why freedom of speech is threatened here. Because my case is setting a precedent my lawyers have agreed to act on a no win no fee basis with no win no fee. In other words they will try and extract costs from Evony for bringing a frivolous case before the courts. But in the mean time there are a lot of costs to cover in putting the case together.
Obviously I can reduce myself to penury and send every penny I have to them. This seems a little harsh for just telling the truth. I have already sent them a substantial sum, as much as I can reasonably afford. So I have created a way that you can contribute to the fighting fund with the PayPal donate button at the side of this article. Anything would help, £1 even. It all adds up. So please help with a donation. And a big thank you to those who have already donated, it is much appreciated.
For those who live in the UK, a letter to their MP may help. Here is a draft that could be used:
Dear MP,
As you know there is a significant threat to freedom of speech with lawyers practicing reputation management on the internet. They threaten libel action against the authors of content that their clients don’t like, whether it is the truth or not. Those authors are then forced to withdraw that content because of the massive costs of defending their, often truthful, position. Obviously this mechanism is used most frequently by those with the most to hide. The libel law is thus being used against the interests of your constituents.
In a further twist we now have a Chinese video game, Evony, with a recently incorporated Delaware front company, sueing a British blogger, Bruce Everiss, in an Australian court. They are indulging in this extreme libel tourism firstly because Australian libel judgements are enforceable in England and secondly in order to make it as difficult as possible for Mr Everiss to defend what he maintains to be a truthful position. If Evony succeed it will open the floodgates of undefendable action being taken against British people in Australian courts.
As your constituent I would like to know what you are doing to maintain the freedom of speech on the internet. Also I would like to know what the government are doing to prevent the total abuse of the legal system that is happening in the case of Mr Everiss and Evony,
regards, etc
So there we have two ways that you can help. Please do so because what Evony are doing is a threat to every one’s freedoms.
