Category Archives: Publishing
Frank Herman (RIP)
I was really saddened today to hear that Frank Herman passed away on March 30th 2009. “Big Frank”, as he was affectionately known, was a major figure in the early days of the video games industry. As one of the founders of Mastertronic (with Martin Alper and Alan Sharam) he pioneered budget video game sales in the UK and the company also became the exclusive European distributor for little known Japanese gaming systems the Sega Master System and Sega Megadrive (Genesis to you Yanks).
Mastertronic (and its Sega distribution rights) were sold to Virgin in a deal which saw the founders of Mastertronic continue their involvement and it was while Frank Herman was working with Virgn Games that I was fortunate enough to first encounter him. I was Development Manager at the then fledgling SCi whose games were being distributed by Virgin Games. Over lunch and in meetings I got to know Frank who was not just a hard-nosed & savvy business man but also a man whose hand-shake was his bond. He was a real pleasure to do business with and a font of wonderful industry stories relating to the early days of the games industry.
Sega eventually sought to take control of their own destiny by buying back the distribution rights to their consoles from Virgin Games. Again Frank was integral to the deal and part of the package for the new Sega operation, taking on the role of Managing Director of Sega Europe. In later years he moved on to head up GT Interactive’s European operation and, despite retiring several times, continued his involvement in the industry by assisting various start-up companies as well as consulting for the big players.
Frank was an inspiration to work with and a wonderful person to be around. He was a deal-maker of the highest order and I am sure he will be missed by many.
No port in a (financial) storm
It used to be the case that selling your studio to a multi-national publisher was a great way to secure the future of your company. Massive financial resources would be available to a develop to create those great games you had always wanted to make, which would in-turn get major marketing support as the publisher owned the studio and the brand and thus stood to benefit fully from its success.
Unfortunately it seems that publishers are no longer a safe harbour due to the economic tornado that is sweeping the world. Gone are the days when a cash strapped publisher would cancel a few 3rd party games to reduce outgoings and shore up their cash-flow. Today’s multi-national publishers are listed companies with major shareholders to keep sweet and the only way to do that is via sweeping cost reductions. A few project cancellations are no longer enough – now they are required to shed staff in their thousands and close/sell off their own studios in order to reassure their shareholders that strong action is being take to cut costs. THQ have just announced that several studios will be offloaded.
Quote from Develop online article Another studio shake-down at THQ.
“Big Huge Games is the studio that might potentially get the chop, unless a buyer is found, while Heavy Iron and Incinerator are to be turned into independents.”
At least the studios in question haven’t been locked and the staff given their marching orders. But it does take serious planning, considerable finance and a hat full of luck to succeed when an entire studio finds themselves suddenly independent.
Other recent example include Microsoft’s closure of Ensemble Studios (Gamasutra: – Ensemble Studios To Close) and Aces Game Studio (GI.biz: – Microsoft closes Aces Game Studio). However, despite the difficulties caused to staff by sudden redundancies there is a small hint of a silver lining that goes along with the storm, which is the birth of new studios springing up after the storm has passed. Three new studios have been born from the remnants of Ensemble Studios – Robot Entertainment, Windstorm Studios and Bonfire Studios. Hopefully they will all be successful enough to grow and flourish until they become a suitable acquisitions target for a big publisher.
More useless information on Digital Downloads
In a recent piece on Gamesindustry.biz (Sony claims 14 million active PSN accounts // News) Sony announced that there are now 14 million active PSN accounts and that between them they have downloaded over 273 million pieces of content.
“pieces of content” could of course refer to paid for content such as games, themes etc or free content such as demos or videos or any other give-aways. Much like the press releases from Microsoft which talk about the “average number of game downloads” – but don’t tell you how many of those downloads were converted into sales – this latest piece of information can be filed under U.
“Geon” launches on PSN (US)
The PSN version of Strawdog Studios’ game “Geon” just launched on the US PSN network and is coming to PAL territories on 2nd October.
The team have spent several months reworking/enhancing the game as a result of feedback on the original XBLA version. The new features in the PSN version include:
- New goal scoring system which encourages player interaction (its essential to stop your opponent scoring),
- Redesigned single player maps,
- Introduction of a new League mode,
- Players have attack and shield as standard (instead of only via a power-up) allowing for greater interaction with (thumping the hell out of) your opponent,
- Redesigned Power-ups with the introduction of new ones such as Bliss’ ghost cubes (which collect pellets for you) and Rage’s extra attack – it’s one angry cube,
- Dramatically improved AI to handle the new game-play,
- 1080p High Definition visuals,
Oh yea, and I think it features PSN trophies too.
A tutorial video is up at http://www.strawdogstudios.com/geon/ and more should follow in the coming days.
Well done to the team who can now relax for ten minutes. Then it is back to work on the Wii version.
Poker vs Blackjack
While catching up on my reading I came upon a post entitled Bluff on Pierre-Alexandre Garneau’s blog. The topic was the concept of bluffing in games with a mention of one of my favorite games of the moment, Texas Hold ‘em Poker. Now oddly I used to hate Poker, almost as much as I hated negotiating Publishing contracts. In Texas Hold ‘em Poker you can’t see all the cards the other players have in their hand. I always preferred Blackjack because you got to see the cards you were playing against.
Then one day something strange happened. I suddenly started to enjoy negotiating contracts and playing Poker, exactly because I couldn’t see all the cards. I realised that when negotiating a contract you aren’t the only person who can’t see all the cards and, just as in Poker, it’s far easier to negotiate on a set of weak cards if people can’t see them. Of course that isn’t much use to you unless you also realise that Publishers actually want developers to negotiate. Sure, the first draft contract that a publisher sends out come from the draw marker “for idiots” – but that only applies if you actually sign it. Publishers are in business to grow their business and if that means taking advantage of a developer that doesn’t know better then that is what they will do. It’s nothing personal, just business. However Publishers are also smart enough to know that their business will do better in the long run if they don’t work with too many idiots.
A developer who negotiates a better deal for themselves (better than the “idiots” contract at least) will be less likely to make stupid mistakes, hopefully more financially stable and at least stay in business long enough to finish developing their game. So, if you want to do well in the development business, better break out the cards and start practicing your Poker.
Scott Miller incubates
Video Game news site Gamedaily.com has a story up here about an apparent new IP incubator company to be founded by Scott Miller of 3DRealms and Jim Perkins, a former SVP of GT Interactive. The story is based on the brief existence of a web site (now showing just a logo) for a company called Radar Group. The story states that “Radar Group is an original IP incubator that will aim to take video game projects into cross-media properties such as films, TV shows, novels and toys.” The story goes on to quote more from the site regarding the company’s plans with “We build into our original, co-created IP the hooks to make for both a great game and a great film.”
Hmmmm now Scott Miller is obviously a smart guy and thinks this is the way to go but personally I can’t remember a “cross media” project that has been a meaningful success. By that I mean a project designed to be successful across multiple media, instead of taking a success from one media and moving it to another. It takes a lot of passion, dedication and hard work to make a great creative product, be it a film, comic, game or book. Trying to make a game, which is also suitable for a film (or vice-versa) is adding an extra level of complexity to an already difficult creative process. Designing a game to include elements because they are suitable “hooks to make for both a great game and a great film” is a quick way to dilute creative vision and make the creative process harder. In the 20 years I have been in the industry I have been pitched a multitude of cross media projects designed to be a great game/comic/film. None of them ever succeeded.
Cross media products are a bad way to make creative products…. of course as business people love the media convergence concept such a business model is are a great way to attract investment.
Take-Two’s poisoned power pill.
According to a Reuters’ report here the computer games publisher Take-Two has instituted a severance plan for employees (both executive and non-executive level), which would be activated in the event of them being fired following any purchase of the company. Obviously Take-Two are a caring company with their employees best interests at heart and the fact that this “poison pill” would make the company more expensive to purchase is just a convenient bonus. The plan would give all non-executive employees the equivalent of six months salary as severance… with the executive staff getting up to 1.5 times salary and bonuses for 18 months and all at zero cost to Take-Two.
The plan is part of Take-Two’s attempt to avoid being gobbled up by the ever hungry Electronic Arts (EA) following the latter’s February 25th announcement of a $2 Billion bid for the Grand Theft Auto publisher. Further steps include an attempt to bolster share-holder confidence (and push up the share price) by publicising the companies successes, with an announcement of historical sales to date for a host of Take-Two’s top titles (see gi.biz story).
Of course no corporate take over these days would be complete without a few stockholders suing someone or other. Regardless of how the takeover plays out someone somewhere is bound to think they haven’t earned as much as they should from their shares and sue someone…. anyone… in an attempt to get more. This is more fun than any soap currently showing on TV so we can only hope it will make it to a second season.
Pimp the game – Geon: Emotions
Really pleased to say that one of the teams I am working with have just wrapped their latest XBLA game. Geon: Emotions (www.useyouremotion.com) was developed by Strawdog Studios (www.strawdogstudios.com) and will be published by Eidos on Xbox LIVE Arcade this summer/autumn.
The team are now starting work on their next original game (also for XBLA) as well as some additional outsource work.
Warm up North
I attended the inaugural Northern Exposure gaming conference yesterday, which took place at York Racecourse. The event was organised by North-based games networks GameHorizon and Game Republic and was focused on the future of games publishing and the impact of digital distribution. There were a number of interesting and lively talks given by a variety of speakers including:
Hugh Mason, (Pembridge Partners LLP) “Apocalypse? Success strategies for disruption and chaos:”,
Mark Morris, (Introversion), “Introversion Software: 6 Years, 4 Games and still playing with Pixels”
Martyn Brown, (Team 17) “Global Worming”
Ed Bartlett, (IGA Worldwide) “Generating Revenue”
George Bray, (MumboJumbo), “Go Casual or Go Home”
For me, the most interesting points were George Brays comments regarding the conversion ratio of the casual game Luxor on Live Arcade (5% of demo downloads converted to sales). Compare this to the norm for casual games, which George stated was between 0.5-1.5% and it seems that Live Arcade is a good place to sell casual games. However, if you compare it to the conversion ratio for Team 17s latest Worms outing (600,000 downloads, 200,000 sales – 33% conversion ratio) its clearly an even better place to sell non-casual games.
The one day event wrapped up with a very lively panel session in which traditional publishing went head to head with upstart indie/digital self publishing. After three rounds the fight was ajudged a draw. Standard publishing deals will continue and retail will not die any time soon, but digital distribution and indie self-publishing is on the up and will make up an increasingly important part of the business mix, especially for small indies.
Aftermath: The event itself was followed by a socialising/networking (drinking) event at the nearby Pitcher and Piano. I made the sensible choice of moving on from their to a local curry house for a civilized meal with Charles Cecil (Revolution), Darren Jobling (Eutechnyx), James North-Hearn (Sumo) and a number of the more sensible attendees. Charles Cecil’s jacket, on the other hand, went on a drinking spree with Martyn Brown (Team 17), Joe Lewis & Paul Smith (Strawdog Studios), Sean Crooks (3rd Dimension Creation), Graeme Boxall (Blast) and a number of others until three in the morning. The jacket was last seen floating off down the river Ouse (there is every chance that someone was wearing it at the time).
Quote of the morning after “[i'm] never drinking anything passed to me by Martyn Brown again!”
“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.