Category Archives: Start-up
Steve “Snowy” White and the Seven Directors
Deep in the Enchanted Forest stands a lovely little cottage; home to Steve White and the Seven Directors. Steve, known as “Snowy” to his pals, is the sole employee of a game development company Enchantia Software. He’s the sole employee because all seven of the other people working there are Company Directors.
The Seven Directors previously worked for the evil Baron of Manchester but two years ago they ran off into the Enchanted Forest and set up their own game development studio, Enchantia Software, where they could make games without being told what to do by the big boss. Steve is pals with one of the Directors and recently joined the company as a game tester. Unfortunately he isn’t getting to do much testing as the game seems to be spending rather a long time in development (far longer than their Publisher was led to believe) and hasn’t even reached Alpha test yet.
Obviously Steve is only a tester so he is not really qualified to judge but it seems that the Directors spend an endless amount of time arguing over various game features and seldom actually come to a decision. Currently the management team is made up of three programmers who are Joint Technical Directors and four artists – one Art Director, one Animation Director, one Creative Director and a Modelling Director. Unfortunately the one Director they don’t seem to have is a Managing Director (because they are all equal and couldn’t actually agree on who should be the MD – or if they even needed one). In addition they don’t have a properly defined decision pipeline – a process to ensure that decisions actually get made in a reasonable time frame. This is because they all want to be able to make decisions, but none of them want anyone else to be able to make a decision they don’t agree with. As a result all the Directors need to be involved in every decision, even if it doesn’t relate to their job. So, even when a decision does get made, it takes many more person hours than it should and stops people from doing their actual jobs.
Poor management structure means slow or non-existent decision making which will damage your company and your game. There are several possible causes:
1. Trust – put simply partners don’t trust each other enough to let someone (other than themselves) be “in charge”. Instead of focusing on the importance of making decisions they focus on keeping control. You don’t get the best out of an artist or programmer by standing over them and telling them how you would do their job. The same applies to management. You need to let someone do their job, trust them that they will make the best decision they can then have regular but focused meetings to update each other on status and, if necessary, discuss how and why a decision was made.
2. Your management team is missing the necessary skills – there is no one with an obvious management ability and the whole management team know this. In a case like this it is perfectly acceptable to hire someone to be a manager so that everyone else can focus on what they are good at.
3. The founders don’t understand the difference between management and ownership. Management is a job just like artist or programmer. A good manager’s job is to enable the team to get their work done – to decide what is really needed to achieve the companies aims and what they can do without. Ownership is just that. You own a share of the company in return for the investment you put in, when the company started, and the risk you took. For that you (hopefully) get a financial reward in the future if the company is successful and is sold to a publisher. Just because you own the company that doesn’t mean you need to be a Manager/Director. In fact your shares may be worth a lot more in the future if you let someone else do the managing while you get on with what you are good at/enjoy.
Image used in this post courtesy of Kelly Hamilton at junglestudio.com
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.
Stupid reason #4 – “Most of the games today are rubbish – I’m sure I can do better”
Of all the stupid reasons to set up a development company (or even to just try and get a job in the industry) #4 is one which crops up far too often. The logic behind it seems to be that a huge percentage of games that reach the market are badly made, unoriginal, poorly tuned rubbish and so there is a space in the market for a start-up dedicated to making good games. The assumption seems to be that there are a huge number of developers out there who make games based on bad ideas or simply don’t care if their game is good and thus it will be easy for a new team to come in and do well.
In my experience that is almost never the case. I have worked with a many, many different teams on a wide variety of product types including original games, conversions and licensed games and in almost every case the developers care deeply about the game they are making. So, if developers start out with the best intentions for the games they make, how come so many games end up being lackluster? Could it be that making great games is actually rather hard? Could there be a reason for all the poor games out there beyond just “the design was poor”? Actually I can think of 10 reasons just for starters….
The following are all problems I have seen first hand:
- The publisher doesn’t pay on time. This results in the developer being unable to hire/buy on time. If this happens once you can usually get away with it but all to often it can be a repeating problem. The resulting delays from this mean that the final product isn’t as good as it should be. – The usual solution to this is to make the team crunch to catch up but crunch doesn’t actually improve the game as fatigue and low morale just create new problems. The correct solution (which is seldom if ever done) is to negotiate for more time/money on the project in order to undo the damage.
- Business dictates deadlines. If you are making a game in your spare time (or you are a multi-millionaire) you don’t need to worry about deadlines. If you are expecting an investor/publisher to pay you to develop a game then it is a business and there will be deadlines. Being creative on a deadline is difficult because something that seems like a great idea, once implemented, may not turn out to be as good as expected. If you are fixed to a deadline (either due to limited financial resources or a publishers need for a 4th quarter release) then you have just “wasted” a chunk of your limited time that you will never get back. This is actually one of the most common reasons for less than stellar games. When too many ideas fail to pan out the games quality drops significantly. Unfortunately in the harsh world of business it is actually better for a publisher to ship a bad product, rather than not ship one at all, so the game goes out rather than being held back for improvement.
- Design is overly ambitious and there is no editing. It’s a designers job to make the best game possible and that often means that the design has to be overly ambitious. That is fine if you have unlimited resources but, as per point 2 above, that is seldom the case. This means that in order to get the game done within time/budget something must be chopped from the game. Editing out features is a tough process and it takes a disciplined team to do it well. Features need to be prioritised and progress needs to be tracked so that the team know when the remaining work exceeds the remaining time/budget. This normally requires a good producer with a strong relationship with the designer/team. Failure to properly prioritise means that features which should be lower priority get implemented and then time runs out before features that would make the game better (thus should be higher priority) can be implemented.
- Changing hardware platforms. The birth of a new console platform or the poor performance of an existing platform can mean that a publisher/developer needs to change horses mid-stream. Jumping from one hardware platform to another will result in at least some work being wasted. If the jump isn’t properly managed (schedule and budget adjusted) then the wasted time will impact on eventual product quality. Worse still….
- Unstable/unfinished hardware and tools. New console hardware platforms are often released to developers before the hardware/development tools are final. The on-going changes and instability make development less efficient. The resulting mistakes/problems during early development often snowball to cause more severe problems at the tail end of development and quality suffers.
- Learning curve for new console platforms. Regardless of the stability of a hardware platform there is always a learning curve when a developer starts their first project on a new platform. The team need to learn the best way to use the hardware and often need to develop/redevelop tools and technology. This means they will be running at reduced efficiency for part of the development schedule. Unless this delay is balanced by more time/resources it will impact on final quality.
- Late delivery of hardware/software. Essential hardware or middleware may be complete but isn’t delivered on time (see point 1 for reasons why)
- Lack of ability in critical areas of the dev team. Taking code and art and level design and audio and combining them into a whole is a complex balancing act. A great game needs great code, art, design, audio and production. Finding staff who excel in each of these areas can be tough and if one area of the team isn’t up to the job the end product will suffer
- Lack of publisher support for the developers vision. Creativity is a subjective issue and if a publisher doesn’t support a developers vision it can lead to delays in approvals, changed decisions, design U-turns etc. There are a host of reasons why a publisher may not support a developers vision but the results are the same. Indecision and delay, which impact the quality of the final project.
- Poor management at the developer. Many developers are started by talented and creative individuals with little or no management ability or business experience. It would be nice if just being good at development was enough to succeed in business but it isn’t the case. When faced with tough decisions it isn’t unheard of for inexperienced managers to make the wrong choice and that can seriously impact on the smooth functioning of the team and the eventual quality of the game.
Conclusion
The above are just the first 10 reasons that I could think of. I know there are many others and many of the above can be broken down into sub-sets (there are many different reasons why a publisher might not pay on time). So, if you are an individual looking to break into the games industry in order to “make a difference” you will find that few, if any, of the causes of poor quality games are solvable by just one person. Likewise, if you are a team of developers looking to strike out on your own and start a company dedicated to great game play; be warned that a large percentage of the problems you will face can’t be solved by writing code or creating great art. Their solutions lie in the fields of person management, contract negotiation, publisher liaison, business planning etc. If your not equally strong in those areas as you are in actual development then chances are you will be one of the many, not one of the few.
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).
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.
Stupid reason #2 – “I have just been sacked”
A sudden change of circumstances isn’t a good reason to start a business (unless you have spent the previous few months planning to do so). Being made redundant can be a stressful event and for that reason isn’t ideal for planning a company. There is a lot of planning and research that should be undertaken before pressing the launch button on any new business venture and computer game development is no different. This research should be done in your spare time, while earning a salary (but not in your employer’s time), because once you press the launch button you will start burning your own money and you will need every penny of that to get from zero to break-even as a start-up.
Of course there are exceptions to every rule 
Sometimes redundancy can be the spur that makes you finally do something you have been thinking about for a long time – just make sure that this is the reason for pressing the red button and that you are not doing so just because you don’t know what else to do.
Stupid reason #1 – “My boss is stupid”
The supposed stupidity of others is never a good reason to start a business.
I get quite a few start-up developers contacting me for advise. When asked why they are setting up their own business one of the (many) reasons quoted is often “the management of the team we work for are stupid. We know that we can do better.” There are several reasons why this is a bad reason to start a business… here are just some of them:
1. Development staff are seldom privy to the management decision making process and only see the results. A management team that cancels a game you think will be great and makes the team redundant isn’t stupid, if the current publisher has informed them that they are cancelling the project and no alternative publisher can be found. Carrying a team that aren’t earning money is the fastest way to kill an entire company so if management don’t act quickly to reduce costs everyone will be out of a job. Unless you are privy to all the facts it is stupid to pass judgement on a decision.
2. Just because someone else is stupid, it doesn’t automatically mean you are smart. Or to put it another way; just because someone else doesn’t understand the business, it doesn’t mean that you do. Game development is a creative endeavour and it requires particular skills to succeed. Those skills are not the same ones that are needed to succeed in business. If you expect a publisher (or any other investor) to give you money then you need to understand business side of game development.
3. Your stupid boss isn’t the only person you need to be smarter than. There are a lot of other companies out there that you have to compete with.
Conclusion
Don’t start a game development studio because your current boss is stupid. You need to have (several) great ideas for games and a solid plan as to how you will profit from them. If you don’t have a solid grasp of the business of game development you can be sure that someone smarter than you will be profiting from all your hard work.