Monthly Archives: April 2007
“I have a great idea for a film….
…and I think it would make a great game”
I have had quite a large number of meetings over the years that started with that line, both as a publisher and as a developer. My reaction has always been the same; I feel used. From talking to other game people they seem to say the same things. Their thoughts go along the lines of:
1. If it’s so great why doesn’t a film company pick it up.
2. Seems to me that you want to make a game just so that (when it is successful) the film companies will see what a good idea it was and buy it – in other words you want use us to get to your real goal.
3. If this isn’t what the project was originated for then it most likely won’t be your main focus – and as a result the game will suffer.
4. You think that games are in some way an easy touch. That we will buy a “reject film idea” that no film company has taken up or that we are incapable of coming up with enough great ideas of our own.
Passion is vital in the success of creative projects. It is this passion that gets a film crew through a miserable nights filming or the 100th retake of (what should have been) a simple scene. Likewise it is passion that gets a programmer to rewrite working code for the third time because it now needs to work with something someone else is adding. You don’t actually need everyone to be passionate – but you do need the person leading the project, the person whose idea it is to focus and drive the project forward.
I think part of the reason why film/TV people believe they may be able to sell their idea to a game company is because we produce so many film licenses. The point they are missing is that game publishers buy licenses because they have proven value – either the film is already a success or it is coming from a top director/has big stars. They know how much of a marketing budget the film will have and that they can ride on the coat-tails of this when selling their game version. Just because it was originated as an idea for a film that doesn’t give it any value as a game idea.
Design Objectives
In a recent blog post (Pag on Games » Designer’s Intent) Pierre-Alexandre Garneau talks about something he calls Design Intent, which I have always referred to as design objectives. In essence the designer sets objectives for the project and for each section/module of the project that the team can clearly understand.
When setting objectives I find it is best to be clear and concise about what you want to achieve. For example, if you have a specific performance target such as a minimum frame rate it can be set in your objectives (at a time when cool heads are making calm decisions). These can then be used as a reference during the heat of battle – do you really need the graphics programmer to rework the renderer to implement a cool new feature? If it already does what is needed and the new features will reduce frame rate below your target level then the answer is no.
Of course there is one problem with setting objectives. As in the movie Memento, (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/) where a man wakes up every morning to find that he can’t remember what happened the day before, there is a risk that you will find yourself deep in the heat of battle, with programmers and artist disagreeing about what needs to be done and, when you look at your objectives, you don’t remember the reasons why you set them – in fact you don’t believe you even wrote them. Now I’m not talking about those times when a game feature doesn’t work and needs to be redesigned. I am talking about the times when deadlines are short, pressure is on and tempers are frayed. That is the time when good designers prove themselves by holding firm to their original intent – doing so can often be helped by having your own copy of the design with one special addition. Each of the objectives has an explanation of why you made the decision, which you can refer to during development.
Design objectives are also useful not just for technical objectives but also for maintaining an overall creative flow throughout a project. In a story based first person shooter the lead designer may need to control the pacing for each level as part of the overall game, even when the levels are being created by several separate designers. Setting objectives for the pacing helps the level designers to understand if they should be creating a fast paced level (lots of open areas and multiple easy to kill enemies) or a slow grinding slog (minimal ammo pick-ups with fewer but tougher enemies) while still leaving them to make the creative choice of how to actually achieve the objective.
Grand Theft Auto Syndrome
Grand Theft Auto Syndome is a disorder which afflicts small start-up developers and causes them to believe that their small team is actually five or six times its actual size. As a result they decide that their first project will be a Grand Theft Auto beater, requiring three years development and a $15 million development budget. This is fine if the founders happen to by Microsoft Millionaires in their own right and they can afford to go out an hire the staff necessary. However for a small developer this is a very dangerous route to take.
Firstly, creating a demo of such a title is a massive job in itself. Publishers will expect the developer to show something pretty impressive to clinch a deal. It is likely that this will burn up all of a small start-ups resources so they will, in effect, be risking everything on one roll of the dice.
Secondly, most publishers that can afford to fund this type of project won’t work with a small start-up on such a project. They don’t view it as sensible to sign a deal of that size with a team that doesn’t have enough staff to do the project. They also don’t see any reason why they should be funding someone to build a company that they (the publisher) don’t own.
Thirdly, if a publisher does agree to fund such a project the developer is automatically at a massive disadvantage when it comes time to negotiate the deal. With such a large investment and the additional risk that the publisher it taking, they will certainly want to own the intellectual property, probably prevent the developer from working on competing projects in future and possible even have the option to buy the developer. – In short, in order to get funding to make their dream project, the developer will have to give up all rights to it.
It’s strange because none of the super-studios that these start-ups are seeking to emulate started out in this way. id, Bioware, Blizzard and DMA (now Rockstar North) didn’t start out doing massive games. They all started out doing small games and built their companies up over time. In doing so they maintained control for longer – until the companies were worth selling or had the financial clout to do their own thing. Starting small and growing slowly may not be as glamorous as bursting out of the traps at full $15 million speed but it is far more likely to be succesful and by growing more slowly a developer has more chance of controlling their own destiny (and benefiting from it in the long run).
Kyoto trip
Well I took a couple of weeks holiday, packed my bags and headed off for a break from work. While I was away I went on a short walking tour of the lesser known parts of Kyoto. I guess it was too much to expect to escape entirely from video games in the home city of Nintendo because, as we rounded a corner, our guide pointed out a rather elegant art deco building, which turned out to be the original location for Nintendo, back when they were a playing card company.
When the company was founded back in 1889 there was just a wooden building on the site and, even after the new office was built in the 1930s there was no workshop there, as all the playing cards were made by hand in local homes and it was from this humble cottage industry begining that the company we know today grew. Guess I will have to go to the antarctic for my next holiday if I really want to escape from work.
Why publishers don`t buy game ideas…
The concept of selling game ideas is one that appeals to a lot of people, especially those outside the industry looking to break in. In a recent post over on Gamedev.net (Link) someone once again asked the question of how to go about getting $10 million from a publisher for a game idea (with no team and no working tech/prototype).
My question is though… I’ve been doing Pitch research and can’t seem to find the information on how to do it. I found info related to “Personal Submissions” but this would be a serious pitch from our Company. This isn’t small.. it is intended for PC first, then console. It has a very strong gameplay but also a very strong storyline to go along with it.
The poster is making several mistakes here. First they seem to think that “personal submissions” (by individuals outside the industry with no track record) doesn`t include them just because they spent a few $ registering a company. More importantly they think that having (what they believe is) a great idea would in some way make a difference to a publisher. This is a particular sub-set of the “how do I sell my game idea?” question which seems to spring from a lack of understanding of the publishers motivations and their decision making process.
The first of those is the easiest to address – publishers are in business to sell stuff. The stuff in question happens to be games because the people running the publishers have identified that there is a lot of money to be made in games. However it is the selling and the money making that motivate them and not the games.
The second part of the puzzle is the process that publishers go through when deciding to sign up/fund a game. The first department to view a game submission may well be the publisher`s development department. The staff here are usually gamers and review a submission on that basis. The quality of an idea will make it of interest to them but as they will be responsible for ensuring that the game actually gets made it won`t be enough on its own. They will want to see experienced staff and clearly defined processes (and they will undertake a due dilligence visit to check for these). What is more a publisher`s development department seldom make purchasing decisions on their own. In almost every case a game must also get sign of from Sales, Marketing/PR and (most critically) Finance/senior management. These departments are seldom if ever staffed by gamers. Sales will make their decision based solely on what other similar games have sold, while Marketing will decide based on how easy they think it will be to build a strong brand around the game. As for Senior Management they are the ones motivated by making money and they usually have little or no understanding of games or development. As such they won`t make a decision based on the quality of the idea. Instead they will make their decision based on business issues such as the projected return on investment and on the level of risk.
The level of risk that publishers look for when funding games is “as close to zero as humanly possible”. Risks include no proven technology, no team/an unproven team, company directors with no previous management experience, poorly defined development processes etc. If you are a start-up with just a game idea then you have all those risks and that is just too many for any publisher to stomach.
To get a publisher funded deal you need to get buy in from all the relevant departments, not just from the development department. This means that the quality of a game idea carries very little weight in the overal decision making process. Yes, the idea needs to be great but alone that just isn`t enough, even for the development department.
Stupid Reason #3 – “I have a great idea for a game”
Making games requires creativity and a great game idea is an important part of that. However, starting a company need more than just a great game idea. If you are looking to go the digital download/self publishing route you also need to know how to market your company and your games to customers and how to effectively seperate them from their cash.
If you are going the publisher funded start-up route then you need to understand how publishers do business, how they make purchasing decisions and the processes they go through before making the final “buy” decision and how that impacts on your buisness. Publishers don`t buy good ideas, they buy the whole package of an idea combined with a team capable of actually getting the game made. That means that before starting a game developer you need the idea, the people to create it, an understanding of the development process, an understanding of how publishers work and knowledge of who you need to be talking to.