Game Geek Speak

There are many paths to success as a small development studio. One tried and true is to create games in C++ and offer them as downloads that a user installs and plays. I did that for a long time (well, about three or four years). This turns out to be a really difficult thing to do successfully.

Let me qualify that and say that running a business in any industry is not easy. But trying to get your game noticed, then downloaded to someone’s computer without problems, then installed successfully, then appreciated enough to get that person to your online sales page is really, really, really difficult without some marketing behind it.

You could go guerrilla and try to build a community around the game (but first you have to get some users to start that process), or you could throw money at it (which is what the big companies do). Some folks partner with publishers/distributors (I did that once) for their marketing muscle, but you lose a lot of control and–more importantly–you lose access to your own customers, and the publisher/distributor usually ends up dominating the branding.

Or, you could rethink how you approach things entirely. That’s what I’ve done over the last year or so.

It’s probably fairly obvious that I will be focusing on web games from now on. No more download/install games for me! Here are some major differences from the old way I was doing things:

• No download/install/uninstall barrier – play right in the browser, optionally loading/streaming assets on demand rather than in one up-front, huge download
• Much easier to get exposure – a decentralized network of small/large sites come to me and spread my game all over the place for free and without my involvement
• Plenty of lateral sales channels – ads, sponsorships, licensing, etc
• All games are becoming more web integrated and multi-platform (pc, mobile phone, set top box, console) – Flash is web-ready and is gaining or now has reach across those platforms

There are downsides, but they are minor compared to the gains, so I’m not going to labor that other than to acknowledge that there are some tradeoffs, like with anything.

Something else important to note is that the lateral sales channels either don’t exist or are far less accepted when you have a downloadable game. That’s really important, because having multiple income streams is one way to build resilience into your product and business.

I am also going to experiment with microtransaction sales as a central part of my strategy. You simply can’t make much money on ads alone, and sponsorships don’t always come through, but all of these things combined will begin to add up very quickly.

The key to getting someone to pay for a Flash game, though, is that the quality and value have to be there, just like a downloadable game that people will pay for. It simply won’t work for shovelware. So the next phase of my technology is to integrate my website backend with a game frontend which can facilitate user authentication and even an item mall right in my games.

With all this in mind, I got around to doing a redesign of the Creatrix Games website.

Here’s to a great 2009 and a new business model launch! *clinks champagne glass*

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 11th, 2009 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.