The IP Game -- Part Two

Following is part two of William Latham's column that appeared in the United Kingdom's game industry publication, Develop.

Publishers profit from developers' IP

Independent game developers without their own IP are service
companies, not creative ones, argues William Latham...

In my August column, I outlined the typical path taken to exploit an
original IP by an independent developer. We saw how the developer -
after funding and delivering the expensive 'Vertical Slice' demanded by
the publisher and under huge cash flow pressure - gave all its IP
rights to the publisher just to finally get the contract signed.

In that moment, the developer's role has changed from being the next
potential JK Rowling to being no different to Pronto Print. It is now a
service company. Following the traditional celebratory booze-up down
the pub, the studio's CEO looks more closely at the contract that they
have just signed and realizes that three milestone rejections under the
subjective 'marketing sign off clause' means in essence that the
project can be moved in-house by the publisher, and the developer
cannot do anything about it. (This clause is standard, incidentally,
and it instantly bypasses any publisher obligation to respect the
contractual game specification and milestone schedule.)

Soon the developer also notices that its publisher's producer has
become a little Hitler, mucking around with the game based on their own
half baked ideas. And then the publisher says it wants complete
monthly source code builds, and then publisher's press department
stalls on getting the product announcement press release through the
door...

Three months go on and the CEO at the publisher says they don't like
the direction the game has taken, unaware that it's the publisher's
producer that taken it in this direction. And the developer cannot
'blow out' the publisher's producer, because as a personal favor he is
getting the milestone payments through the system as quickly as
possible.

And so the descent continues, milestones fail and eventually the
product is canned.

Now here are some nasty additions: in a scenario where the development
is actually going well (and set to lead to success for the developer),
it may actually be in the larger publisher's best interests to move
this important IP to its in-house factory as quickly as possible, to
reduce risk and significantly increase confidence in hitting the
release date. In any event, the developer's risk remains very high,
because it is still carrying a lot of debt from funding the Vertical
Slice and funding the large team during the lengthy negotiation period.
On top of all this, in handing over its IP, the developer has
significantly reduced its chances of getting any investment from VCs or
external investors - the one thing that might reduce risk in the
publisher's eyes and justify the developer keeping the product!

Where will this end? Big publisher's internal development teams need
good IP. Publishers could start to look at independent developers
merely as a source of original IP to feed their internal teams, and use
full publishing contracts merely to extract the IP and then dump the
developer. A pessimistic line, sure, but we must be getting close to
this. Some publishers already kill healthy titles in external
development to free up extra money to spend marketing a hit title, and
some financial directors will save hundreds of thousands of dollars by
deliberately rejecting milestones (irrelevant of quality) just prior to
the company year-end to boost the year-end position.

The point is that even if the extraction of an IP from a developer is
not deliberately used (it would, after all, probably viewed as
unethical), the 'subjective marketing sign off clause' mentioned at the
start of the column gives the publisher huge flexibility, and does not
really encourage it to make the business relationship work with the
developer. With this Sword of Damocles hanging over it, on top of its
risky financial situation, the developer is unlikely to give its best.

To conclude, the developer/publisher business model is broken,
publisher 'over-negotiation' is common, and management of its external
producers is often very poor. Finally, independent developers continue
to be very commercially naive as to just how far the odds are stacked
against them, and how much risk they take on. Risk which in the end can
finish them off.

Owning/controlling IP is the ultimate road to success in this industry, which is why the publishers have gotten so good at it. But, for the health of the industry, we need more financially strong independent studios, capable of following their own creative whims, and willing to make original games. Our industry benefits tremendous from originality and building our own identity. It's no coincidence that most of the industry's strongest non-sports brands were invented here, and are not Hollywood hand-me-downs. Games like Halo, The Sims, Diablo, Metal Gear Sold, Final Fantasy, Warcraft, Doom, Metroid, Max Payne, Age of Empires, Tomb Raider, Zelda, Tetris, EverQuest, Command & Conquer, Ratchet & Clank, Fable, Resident Evil, Mario, Half-Life and Grand Theft Auto.

We'd see more original games, I'm positive, if we had more financially successful studios, who, unlike publishers, do not have shareholders and Wall Street to kneel to, demanding every quarter to bring in more revenue that the previous year's same quarter. This system results in games that are rushed out to meet arbitrary end-of-quarter dates.

Another issue is that the industry is better off when the accumulation of wealth doesn't always flow toward the publishers. When it flows in the other direction, then creative mavericks are more likely to develop games that explore more risky terrain. We need more Pixar's in the game industry.

My major frustration with most publishers is that they do not take more chances (though Ubisoft has impressed me in the last year). But the reason is clear: Publishers haven't a clue how to develop successful brands, and thus their failure rate is so high they believe it's near impossible, and mostly dumb luck when it happens.

While I know that in many situations publishers can do an excellent job with existing IP, and occasionally even inventing new IP, the industry is better off if independent studios have a lot of say in the matter, too. And currently, the power shift has swung too far in the publisher's direction, and too many studios are pawns, rather than kings.

Bottom-line: Owning IP is the single most important factor in determining who's a king.

Comments

[Justin]

The conlusion of the article paints a bleak picture of publishers. I can thankfully say that my dealings with Activision were nothing like this, and the same for our current publisher (which is sadly under NDA).

The external producers in both cases are realistic but also moving the game in a direction which seems to be a good one.

[Scott Miller]

Justin, lots of developers have a pretty good relationship with their publisher. But who is the king?

Just as importantly, who came up with the IP? Is your company merely a work-for-hire for Activision? There's nothing wrong with that, per se, but it will do little to change your company's future prospects.

King's own IP, pawns do the king's work.

[Robert Howarth]

Well the obvious question is how can aspiring developers protect their IP but still get their games published?

[Tadhg]

"To conclude, the developer/publisher business model is broken,
publisher 'over-negotiation' is common, and management of its external
producers is often very poor."

Nope.
The developer/publisher model is not broken. It works perfectly well - for publishers. These companies have grown, the competently managed ones have done well, and ultimately they are doing what it is that they do, which is sell large numbers of games off their own and others' IPs and make a lot of profit.

What's broken in the assumption that the industry still needs independent developers. It doesn't. That's the harshest of harsh truths, but it is the only inevitable conclusion.

It's an industry, not a social structure, and in that industry where chart hits and cetralised retail power effectively create a few-titles-prominently-displayed effect which generates a lot of profit, then the independents and even the small publishers are just not necessary any more.

Does the industry need good new IP? Yes. But independent developers have no more of a lock on that than anyone else, and even the most successful of independent developers are now all playing very safe in style, content and sequels/tie-ins, in the hopes of getting bought.

The next step in the evolution of the industry will be total publisher power, followed by IP-creating tiny production houses. That is inevitable. Even the larger developers will struggle in an environment of 15 million dollar games and simply no longer be able to compete. What they have to do is build a middle layer for themselves, as I said with the Miramax analogy, and realise that independence means just that: Getting away from the bright lights big city approach and find a way to get games to gamers, the equivalent of indie cinema fans, without staring down the barrel of ten million bucks to do it.

[Aaron]

Is this as common of a picture as it is painted to be? How many independent developers have had their projects cancelled solely to fund in-house projects, or had milestones deliberately missed so that the publisher's financial records look better? How is that even legal in this day and age? Certainly William Latham makes the industry sound very unappealing. (Granted, I don't have any experience in the industry yet, so he might not be that negative afterall)

Something that's been on my mind for a short while is game shelf-life. Recently some folks from EA Vancouver gave a presentation at my school, in it, they stated that a game has three weeks with which to earn enough money to pay off all of the expenses incurred during development; with this time period essentially doubling if the game is released in october/november. It's a common occurence, too; often you hear of a relatively unknown game that is garnering a lot of underground press just a few months after it's release, but when you go to find a copy, the publisher has already stopped providing copies to retail outlets. I know the industry can't go back to the old days when it was expected that a game would sit for several months before selling, but since when did pulling a game in the face of growing acclaim ever make sense?

[PaG]

So, what makes a good game IP anyway? We're talking about how publishers and developers don't know how to create it, but what is the secret? What factors count in creating a good IP? Are there books about the subject (perhaps about other creative industries)? (I have some ideas on the matter, but I'd like some outside input before telling them -- I want outside ideas, not criticism on mine)

Aaron, I've said it before and I'll say it again: game shops are horribly badly set up to sell many games. You go to EB (here in Québec anyway) and it uses the most awful arrangement imaginable: the walls are covered with games, each taking its full box in size. Space is used so badly that there is no room for older games at all.

On the other hand, if you go to any record store -- even small ones -- you can find hundreds of old CDs. Why is that? Because the boxes are arranged in a sensible manner: in long rows of boxes, one behind another. Such a layout can easilly fit 300 CDs in a single display and all stores I've seen have many such displays. Sure most CD stores have the major titles on display in the front on a layout similar to that of EB -- it's less space-efficient but it shows the CDs better -- but they have the smarts to have those displays full of older or less popular titles.

I'm honestly baffled by the horrible layout of game stores. I guess the huge size of old PC games boxes have something to do with it, but I can't begin to understand why console and smaller-boxed PC games share that awful layout. If stores were layed out more sensibly, there would be some room for indie titles so reliance on publishers would be less important...

[Scott Miller]

-- "What factors count in creating a good IP?"

This sounds like an exceptional blog topic.

Actually, this is the very topic that my intended book was going to cover, before I realized I didn't have time to write it. And hence this blog was born to cover this very issue, but over a several year span.

There are current no game industry books that cover this topic. IMO, it's perhaps the most important unanswered question in the industry. I'll take a short version stab at it ASAP. But it's a massive topic, overall.

[Walter]

Something that's been on my mind for a short while is game shelf-life. Recently some folks from EA Vancouver gave a presentation at my school, in it, they stated that a game has three weeks with which to earn enough money to pay off all of the expenses incurred during development; with this time period essentially doubling if the game is released in october/november.

Lucky for them, they only make games that are relevant for about three weeks.

Always, always, always remember that if a marketing rule isn't total B.S. to begin with, there are always exceptions to the rule. Blizzard knows damn well that the three-week rule doesn't apply to them in the least. The rule that they subscribe to is: make a damn fine quality product, and the money will keep rolling in for years and years.

The EA approach to games is the typical slash-and-burn mentality of most businesses run by men who think the ultimate goal is to make money. These people develop such a narrow-minded view of the world that they're forced into coming up with all these silly rules. And the rules, to some extent, work, but they're merely the best strategies within an ideologically limited and stunted range. Look to Google and Blizzard for inspiration and business sense if you want to be successful AND retain your humanity.

[Walter]

Actually, this is the very topic that my intended book was going to cover, before I realized I didn't have time to write it.

Oh really? Lately I've begun to notice that you read more books in a month than I do in a year (well, sort of). Somehow I bet you could manage it. :)

[Dan Schwartz]

Tadhg about that mirmax system you speak of would it be like this site...http://www.garagegames.com/
and Scott wasn't Apogee a publisher? or am I out of my league/don't know what I'm talking about.

[Scott Miller]

Dan, Apogee was sort of a publisher from 1990 until around 1996, in that we worked with external teams, helped them design games, funded their games (going back to the original Commander Keen, by Id, in 1990), marketed games, and handled inventory, distribution, sales and technical support. So yeah, we were a lot like a publisher, EXCEPT, we *always* put the game first.

We abandoned this because as the industry grew, only the hit projects were making enough money to support our company, and the lesser games, even though they were generally high quality, weren't capturing the public attention.

Walter, here's the funny thing... I only list about half the books I actually read. I forget to post a lot of them, and many of them are just too obscure or specialized to bother listing. For example, I've been on a health kick lately, and most of the 60+ books I've read on this subject in the last year I've not listed--I've only put up the best of them, which is why my ratings are generally four- or-five stars.

I *always* have an audio book playing in my car. I can knock out one book a week just doing that, while I read one or two print books a week. Abridged audio books are usually superbly produced, and contain all of the important information of the full book. I'm currently listening to Lost City, by Clive Cussler & Paul Kemprecos.

[AdamW]

@aaron: just go to Superstore, they keep stuff on the shelves forever. best place to buy games in town, and they're the only place I could find that has Katamari Damashi...

[James]

"We need more Pixar's in the game industry."

The movie industry needs more Pixars too :)

[Walter]

Scott: That's pretty incredible. I'm, uh, going to take a page from your book and start looking into audio books more, as well as manage my time more efficiently (I literally have several boxes full of books I've been meaning to read, but never seem to get around to them).

[Hamilton Jones]

Alternate Business Models
Publishers have control becuase they offer (in overly simplistic terms)

+ Marketing/PR
+ Funding
+ Distribution

Each of these areas carry massive costs and an independant developer offering fresh IP is going to have little or no chance (even with sufficient business accumen) of creating a studio with deep enough pockets to compete in these areas.

The reason that publishers exist is because game development is such a high risk (albeit high return) proposition.Publishers by their very nature are designed to mitigate risk as effectively as possible and increase efficiencies in development, IP management, distribution, marketing and so on. The net result is the continued 'washing' of IP and titles till they come out as lower risk but also at the cost of creativity.

The only way you could see this balance switch is to see a rise in successful (powerful) studios that can compete in the three mentioned areas. Valve for example are eating into the publishers artery by controlling a significant portion of distribution.

I understand the 'steam' model has limitations and works in the HL2 instance because there is such desire for the title and such a massive, active userbase which already exists but it shows positive signs of what may come.

Games will only grow in multiplayer/online areas and this will increse a studios opportunity for direct release to the public via the internet. The more this happens and the more studios that self liquidate their developemnt costs through sales the more it sets a precedent for other studios to create an appealing low risk investment opportunity.

If studios can better control their revenew (or even have consistent revenue) then they lower their risk and open up doors for larger funding.

[Justin]

>>Justin, lots of developers have a pretty good relationship with their publisher. But who is the king?Just as importantly, who came up with the IP? Is your company merely a work-for-hire for Activision? There's nothing wrong with that, per se, but it will do little to change your company's future prospects.

Well in the case I'm talking about we were work for hire for Activision using Marvel's IP (XMen2 Wolverine's Revenge). I did want to make the point that not all external producers are as bad as the article made out. I know William Lathums company recently folded after a rough ride with a publisher so he is probably more negative than most.

I think you're right. Whoever owns the IP is the King, or at least has more power than those without IP.

But it's not the whole story. IP can come down to us from movies and comics and boost sales. I can only think of a couple of cases in recent years where IP from a developer has become mass market.

[PaG]

A problem with creating new IP is that they have to be properly marketed, and I have to say our industry's marketing is really bad. I just read a copy of Electronic Gaming Monthly -- the first gaming magazine I check in months, I usually just get info online -- and was amazed at how bad gaming ads are.

There's a two-page spread about Second Sight (a game we talked about a bit), its tag-line is "There is nothing I can't do. No truth I can't find. No evil I can't stop". Can you think of a tagline any more bland? I mean you could slap this on a ad for Serious Sam or Deus Ex and it would fit -- it just doesn't say anything. The picture is a mix of random screenshots that could fit with two dozen different games, with only a single one having any kind of hint at what makes the game possibly cool (psi powers) and badly at that. With ads like that, no wonder the game didn't sell.

There's also an ad for "Cabela's Deer Hunt" which claims "100% action". Who's going to believe that? Anybody who's seen a hunting game know they're as slow-paced as a game can be. Anyway, does somebody looking for a hunting simulation really wants action?

Then there's the ad for "Shadow Hearts Covenant" (what does that even mean?) with a kinda-medieval hot chick on it and the tagline "Wield the power of the Judgment Ring to fufllfill your destiny" (wow, I've never played a game in which I use a powerful magic item before, that's for sure). The very short description (written in small caps to make sure it's harder to read than necessary) starts with "Amidst the chaos of World War 1" -- the whole thing reeks of medieval fantasy and it starts talking about the first world war. Was their intention to make you have no clear idea what the game is about?

And that's just a tiny selection, there's a lot of awful ads in there. Why can I, a game designer who's read but a half-dozen marketing books, find major flaws at a glance in ads created by "professionals"? I'm really worried that even if I came up with the world's greatest gaming IP it would get handled by one of those market-droids who would ruin it all.

[Bjorn Larsson/IRIDON]

I think one of the major problems with generating new IP is that many start-ups and enthusiastic developers, at least here in Europe, tend to miss the whole point interesting concepts that are easier to relate to. I get several submissions from smaller developers, sometimes very talented in terms of programming and design but in 9 out of 10 cases they're working on a sci-fi, fantasy, WWII games, or generally quite abstract concepts that are difficult for most people to relate to. At the other end of the stick we have the developers who try more mainstream concepts - but in my experience it's usually sports, a segemt is obviously nigh on impossible to compete it in unless you're going for online only sales, which hardly pays the bills unless you're very lucky.

[Gabby Dizon]

"Why can I, a game designer who's read but a half-dozen marketing books, find major flaws at a glance in ads created by "professionals"?"

It's probably because you know a lot about games and a at least a little about marketing, while the ad agencies the publishers are paying lots of money to don't know shit about games. Or, the publishers don't know enough about their games to get the ad agencies to create good campaigns.

In my opinion, Beyond Good & Evil was a good game that was killed by an ineffective marketing campaign. I haven't played the game personally, but everyone I know who has played it, liked it. Too bad the ads and trailer couldn't tell me a thing about why I'd want to buy it.

[Tadhg]

"And that's just a tiny selection, there's a lot of awful ads in there. Why can I, a game designer who's read but a half-dozen marketing books, find major flaws at a glance in ads created by "professionals"? I'm really worried that even if I came up with the world's greatest gaming IP it would get handled by one of those market-droids who would ruin it all."

Well one of the things that I think majorly has to change is the designer role itself, and what it's for. Design should concern itself with both the outside and the inside of a project as much as possible. Designers are often way more focussed on nuts and bolts than they need to be, and way too unfocussed about the big picture.

[Tadhg]

Question for Scott,

Have yourself and the other big independent developers (Valve, Bioware etc) under threat ever seriously broached the subject of clubbing together to form your own publishing label?

[PaG]

"Design should concern itself with both the outside and the inside of a project as much as possible. Designers are often way more focussed on nuts and bolts than they need to be, and way too unfocussed about the big picture."

What do you mean? Designers should have an active role in marketing? In my (limited) experience I haven't seen a publisher talk with the designer or the development team about marketing. Even if you had a designer who's a genius at marketing, it wouldn't help if the publisher didn't consider developer involvement important. The again, perhaps things are different with other developers.

"Have yourself and the other big independent developers (Valve, Bioware etc) under threat ever seriously broached the subject of clubbing together to form your own publishing label?"

Wasn't that what God Games was basically about?

[JP]

"Wasn't that what God Games was basically about?"

Yes, but they wasted too much money, didn't market any of their games effectively and treated their developers only marginally better than the major publishers do.

They sure did have a big party at E3 2001 with midgets and strippers, though.

[Bjorn Larsson/IRIDON]

"It's probably because you know a lot about games and a at least a little about marketing, while the ad agencies the publishers are paying lots of money to don't know shit about games. Or, the publishers don't know enough about their games to get the ad agencies to create good campaigns."

I think that a lot of decision makers working in marketing don't know much about marketing to begin with, which in turns makes it difficult for them to choose a decent agency to execute their marketing campaigns. A lot of ads for games seem to focus heavily on being creative and aesthetically “trendy” rather than cementing key strengths of the product. It also seems that many publishers are too focused on building awareness for their titles, problem being that spending loads of cash on awareness and PR is in no way a guarantee your game will sell. You need to both effectively AND very quickly communicate the essence of your game – both conceptually, visually, and textually (the visual and conceptual elements of 95% of all games is the first step in making people interested, maybe even more so than movies – then you need a strong game underneath it all to make it a long-term affair).

Regarding Beyond Good & Evil, I for one suspect the problem may have been a) a generic and non-descript name that fails to stand out in a crowded market place, and b) an uninviting cover image/ad campaign featuring a non-distinct lead character, and c) a game universe that – albeit interesting in its own right - came on too quickly as being abstract, so that the mass-market probably found it hard to relate to.

[Scott Miller]

-- "I think that a lot of decision makers working in marketing don't know much about marketing to begin with..."

Bjorn, I agree with your points. 3DR has been involved with the marketing of our games, and we're overruled a lot of clueless directions that our publishers have tried to pursue. IMO, marketing is far, far too important to leave only to publishers, and so we stay involved and typically have full right of approval on everything. The problem is that they will still do a ton of stuff without our knowing, and therefore without our approval.

Tadhg, Gathering of Developers (a.k.a. GOD Games) was essentially the experiment you've suggested. It failed, though, because it lacked money and had to sell out to Take-Two, plus the games it green-lighted were of dubious value. I was on the board of directors, yet I could not overrule the pursuit of games like Blair Witch Project, K.I.S.S., or Jazz Jackrabbit.

I'm sure this experiment will one day be re-attempted, as it is often talked about among many of the "biggies."

-- "I can only think of a couple of cases in recent years where IP from a developer has become mass market."

Justin, it doesn't really matter if an original IP is successful outside the gaming industry. The Sims, GTA, Halo, Diablo, etc. do just fine within our industry, and that's enough. In ten years, as stories become more important and better executed in games, then we'll see more cross-over into other media.

[samb]

"Have yourself and the other big independent developers (Valve, Bioware etc) under threat ever seriously broached the subject of clubbing together to form your own publishing label?"

Surely publisher-considerations was a big factor when Valve decided to create Steam?

[joseph ghassan]

Scott, what criteria you guys at 3drealms are using to make DNF as near perfect as possible?

[Scott Miller]

Joseph, our overriding goal is to add a significant building block to the "franchise." This requires making a game that is innovative, fun, and executed to near perfection. We apply this same battle plan to all of the games we're involved with, including Max Payne. Basically, we refuse to release crap.

[Robert Howarth]

Scott,

What are you doing for DNF to try to appeal to some of the newer gamers who might not've been around when Duke was in fashion? A couple of generations of gamers might not have any idea how cool the Dukem Nukem IP is after all. ;)

[Tadhg]

PaG

"What do you mean? Designers should have an active role in marketing? In my (limited) experience I haven't seen a publisher talk with the designer or the development team about marketing. Even if you had a designer who's a genius at marketing, it wouldn't help if the publisher didn't consider developer involvement important. The again, perhaps things are different with other developers."

I mean, for example, starting a design project by mocking up what it's PS2 box will look like. Again and again we keep talking about IP creation being the key here. That's a viable starting point. As you design the box, then you get a sense of what your idea is. It may sound like madness, but it's an approach that can really work to help center everyone.

Start with a box. Then a poster. Then a logo. Then a tag line. Then a mock-up of the screen. Then a script segment. Then a Y-model document. Then a sample video clip. Etc.

Essentially, my view of design is that it should be a "concepts" job first because the job of a game designer is to design the vision that holds it all together. I do think that most game designers spend a lot of time doing redundant tasks that other sections of the teams are better at doing. For example, writing long-winded descriptions of character behaviour for the AI guy, or figuring out a series of balancing numbers for the technical designer.

That's not design. It's nuts and bolts, and unnecessary in most cases as the people involved in actually producing the bits of the game do know what they're doing. Designers should be all about inspiring their own teams, making them understand what it is they are making, making that idea exciting, and then acting as a steward over everything.

[Scott Miller]

-- "What are you doing for DNF to try to appeal to some of the newer gamers who might not've been around when Duke was in fashion?"

IMO, this is a red-herring. Duke 3D was basically a new game to most people when it came out, and yet we managed to build the awareness and anticipation quite effectively. Likewise with the completely unknown Max Payne. Bottom-line, once the marketing ball on DNF gets rolling, most gamers who are unaware of the prequel will still know about the new game. And most importantly, if we make a killer game, word-of-mouth (easily the most effective of all advertising methods) will do our job for us.

[Anon]

Max Payne was indeed a Killer game.

GB told us at the 3drealms forums that DNF hype will start 6 monthes prior to its release date, do you agree with him?

[JP]

If you take so long between releases in a franchise that people have entirely forgotten about the IP and a new generation of consumers have grown up not knowing about it, doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of building a franchise in the first place?

I'm not talking about something like soft drinks or SUVs here, which people use regularly or habitually for long periods of time. Videogames are consumed in a very short period of time, then forgotten. It takes a lot of know-how to even get Duke3D working on a modern PC.

It just seems like DNF taking as long as it has is a far greater "franchise blunder" than any of the smaller factors Scott likes to harp on.

[Scott Miller]

JP, that's a fair point. All I can say is that we have not done a good job at project management (until recently, when radically positive changes were made). Also, the success of Max has bought us a lot of time to strive for something very special. Still, in the future, we are determined to release games within a more reasonable span of time, and we've already got a plan in place for this.

Delaying a game doesn't destroy the brand -- releasing bad games destroys the brand. But unquestionably, we'd like to capitalize on the Duke brand more effectively in the future.

[Mr.DJ]

A few questions, Scott! :)

Scott wrote:
most importantly, if we make a killer game, word-of-mouth (easily the most effective of all advertising methods) will do our job for us

1. Yes, but DNF being 3drealms biggest title ever, I would imagine it deserves some extra attention(=ekstra advertising), no? :)

Scott wrote:
our overriding goal is to add a significant building block to the "franchise".

2. So if I understand you correctly, you are saying 3drealms is already planning followers to DNF?

3. This raises a new question, can IP's be overused?

3a. What do you think the chances are, for the possibility of a increasing trend, where developers will keep on "milking" their franchises(eg the Tomb Raider series)?

3b. Wouldn't this also hurt innovation/creativity and thus decrease gamers interest in games, which in the end, of course, also ultimately result in poorer income for the industri? :)

[Justin]

To me milking a franchise is only a problem when you suck out all the milk without letting the cow eat grass. And subsequently you don't get any cream.

Or in other words, the Tomb Raider games did not get successively better and the franchise could die if the next in the series does not catch up ground.

[Bjorn Larsson/IRIDON]

Scott,

"Bjorn, I agree with your points. 3DR has been involved with the marketing of our games, and we're overruled a lot of clueless directions that our publishers have tried to pursue. IMO, marketing is far, far too important to leave only to publishers, and so we stay involved and typically have full right of approval on everything. The problem is that they will still do a ton of stuff without our knowing, and therefore without our approval."

I guess as a developer it would make sense to hire someone that could bear the title "Marketing Damage Control" :)

You probably need to be an established AAA outfit with a lot of experience in both marketing and signing contracts to have the same kind of clout with a publisher as 3DR does, because a lot of the power lies in negotiating the publishing contract to begin with - which in turn requires that you have a near finished game.

Many publishers like to mention how they want the developer involved in the marketing process because they know the game yadayad, but what it boils down seem to begin AND end with requesting specific pieces of artwork/screenshots etc.

On the other hand and to "defend" the publishing side, I think that in general, developers don't really know that much about marketing either - beyond basic stuff such as the importance of specialist coverage, demo release etc.

If you're a developer, it could probably be a good idea to hire one or two good marketing managers with strong publishing background. Then again I guess that might be viewed as "inviting the devil" to many!

[Robert Howarth]

>>To me milking a franchise is only a problem when you suck out all the milk without letting the cow eat grass. And subsequently you don't get any cream.

Or in other words, the Tomb Raider games did not get successively better and the franchise could die if the next in the series does not catch up ground.
<<

Ain't that the truth.

[Gestalt]

Speaking of franchise milking, it's easy to forget that the Duke Nukem franchise has been comprehensively milked over the years as well. There might not have been a new Duke game from 3D Realms since Duke Nukem 3D, but it got several add-on packs (official and unofficial) and at least one bundle re-release, there's been N64 and GBA ports of the game, a Duke Nukem pinball table in Balls of Steel, a few N64 and PSX spin-offs, a GameBoy Color Duke Nukem, and most recently The Manhattan Project for the PC.

[Scott Miller]

Gestalt, we've had dozens of additional opportunities to "milk" the Duke brand, but we try to maintain a high level of quality. We put a stop to the major console ports years ago, because they were not measuring up (even though they were making us millions). Duke on the GBA was actually very well rated and sold pretty well, but still, we haven't allowed more to be made.

Manhattan Project was a great little game, IMO, and was originally developed to be an online only game. But near the end the publisher convinced us to go retail with in because they claimed the online market wasn't panning out like they had hoped. So, reluctantly, we agreed, but we made sure the game was sold at a value price. Still, this is a game I'm proud of.

The Balls of Steel Duke Nukem table was a very high-quality production, and again, that was years and years ago.

We've canceled many Duke projects that the public never heard about, and as I said we keep turning down offers that we make us a lot of dough. As time goes on, we're becoming more hard core about protecting the brand.

[PaG]

I think it's a testament to the Duke Nukem's brand strength that people still care about Duke Nukem Forever. Considering 3D Realms hasn't offered new screenshots or videos in a long while, it could easilly have been forgotten abou, yet people still care. Sure, it's the butt of jokes but people wouldn't joke about it if they didn't care in any way.

Look at another game that was almost as long to develop: Galleons. Years in the making, quite a bit of hype when it was first announceed yet it was released recently without much interest. People had forgotten about that game, yet they don't seem to forget about Duke.

I'm really not sure why people care so much acutally...

[julien]

A bit OT but anyway...

"We put a stop to the major console ports years ago, because they were not measuring up (even though they were making us millions)"

Scott, I find this hard to believe but I do believe it anyway and the company deserves credit for it. To many companies(publishers) go for the quick cash-in, not realizing they're slaughtering the chicken who lays the golden eggs.

Now, enough *ss-licking, onwards with the discussion :)

[Julien]

I do remember Duke Nukem: Time to Kill on PSone. It was an enjoyable game, though not very polished..

To keep the Duke-franchise up with the "Big Ones" they need to be polished, if nothing else.

[ploosh]

Won't broadband enable a new distribution model, perhaps changing the relationship between the dev and the publisher (and control over IP)? Is there something new to emerge if you distribute to either a via online portal or subscription service?

[abhay]

i'm sorry if this was addressed and i didn't understand that at the time, but if a studio follows your advice and insists on retaining its IP, which i take to be against the norm, hasn't it just given its publisher and its marketing/sales/administrative staff an incentive to market/sell/etc. the game less effectively or enthusiastically for (a) punitive reasons (i.e. "we don't want this to catch on with our other relationships") or (b) priority reasons (i.e. "why market that when we can market this game where we can profit more because we own the ip")? i understand that you believe the studio should be involved in its own marketing, but it seems the studio is at least somewhat at the publisher's mercy in this regard.

you might want to consider the music industry as well, as much as you consider the film industry, as an example of how a company/artist relationship can go horrifyingly wrong based upon an imbalance in a power relationship.

[Scott Miller]

Abhay, the truth is that most developers of games that require major funding will never be in a position to retain IP ownership. First, most studios are given a rare chance to create an original game. And second, it's a publisher biased market because they can always seem to find a developer willing to make a game and not want the IP.

I do not know of a way to battle this. I've said many times in the past five years that starting a studio nowadays is 500 times harder than it was 10 years ago. Companies like Id, Epic and my company, which all rose from the shareware system, were indeed very lucky as that system is no longer the stepping stone to financial independence that it once was. None of us would have much of a chance getting started today.

In other developer-only forums, this is a common topic, as you might imagine. I've yet to see good suggestions.

This is why developers are constantly folding, or allowing themselves to be bought at bargain prices. And we hardly ever hear about new powerhouse studios being formed, do we?

[Julien van Ingen]

There have been a lot of comparisons between movie- and game industry but in this matter (owning IP) its better to draw a paralell with the music industry.

Record Labels (at least big ones) will most often contract young unknown artist who then have to deliver "mainstream" music, often clones of succesfull predecessors (who can count all the Britney and Nsync- clones?)

These artists receive only a very small percentage of revenue while the record labels will own all the royalties (which , to me, are the equivalent of IP in the music industry.)

Then again new artists in the music industry have no choice but to accept these conditions because they want a contract, thus selling their "soul"

[Tadhg]

Actually, about the only media industry that doesn't expect complete IP copyrights is the book publishing industry.

[JP]

Curious as to what Scott has to say about this article.

"The truth is, we've always overestimated the power of branding while underestimating consumers' ability to recognize quality."

/me dreams of an impossible dream-world where informed, rational consumers take back their minds from corporations and marketing shysters.

[kik]

I don't see how that helps your cause. so, instead of simply picking up a bad ww2 clone with a good brand, the informed gamers pick up the ww2 clone with the fancy graphics and realistic physics?