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#60:
Originally written: February, 2006. Most recent update: September, 2011
Note: Up until now, these articles have always been monthly. But no longer. From this point forward, new articles will be written as I perceive the need. My IGDA column, The Games Game, will continue as a monthly feature as long as the IGDA permits me to keep on keepin' on. And you're always welcome to email me your questions and comments. All questions and responses are posted on the Game Design Q&A bulletin board.
Disclaimer. I have not done the thing you are trying to do. I've never created an electronic game by coding it independently myself. But I have produced dozens of electronic games, and designed a few as well. I've worked in game publishing companies, development companies, and even toy development companies, for many many years. So I do know a thing or two about this topic. But like I say, you're trying to go somewhere I haven't gone myself. More power to you. Don't get discouraged by the next several paragraphs - at the end of this article I offer some new ideas that should help you look at your creation from an entirely different light than you've probably got shining on it now.
Whether you've created a video game, a computer game, or a mobile game, or even a board game or a card game, making the game itself is the easy part.
So many people ask, "I made a game, now how do I get it published, manufactured, marketed, and distributed?" As I write this, the subject of publishing your brainchild (with the end goal being to make money from it) has come up no less than three times in the past week.
No matter how hard it was to create the game, if you intend to try to make money from it, get prepared now for learning a whole new set of skills. And prepare yourself for even harder work than what it took you to make that game.
I discussed the publishing options for non-electronic games in article 20. Most of them, anyway. Paper games, games that the end user (the customer) can print on their home computer system and assemble themselves, can be published as PDFs on the 'web. And that model wasn't discussed in article 20. I'll go into that a little bit below. But before I forget, I just discovered another GREAT article, "So you've invented a board game. Now what?" It's at http://www.amherstlodge.com/games/reference/gameinvented.htm
(thanks to a guy who decided to go with an abstract moniker rather than a real name).
But for the most part this article examines the typical schemes that the creator of an independent electronic game (video, computer, web, or mobile) usually considers - and some that they don't.
The publishing problem varies depending on the platform you create your game for. (Don't know what a "platform" is, in the context of games? Use the Game Biz Glossary, article 28, to look up any terms in this article that are new to you.)
So first let's look at some different platforms, and their concomitant different possible publishing models.
1. Video game (console, including Game Boy & PSP) or large PC game (large enough to require a DVD or one or more CDs)
a. Get it published by an established big publisher (see section A below)
2. Small PC game (of downloadable size) - or web game (playable in a browser)
d. Get it hosted on an established game portal where they'll promote it and earn you money (see section D below)
3. MMOG
g. Get it published, hosted, and supported by an established big publisher (see section G below)
4. Mobile game (game for cell phones)
i. Get your mobile game published by a mobile publisher (see section I below)
5. Paper games, as downloadable PDFs.
l. Get it hosted on an established site where other paper games are also made available (see section L below)
So those are the typical solutions you've probably already thought of - and maybe some you hadn't. Let's look at each of those for a moment, then I'll finish by offering even better ideas.
A. Get your video game or mainstream PC game published by an established big mainstream publisher
B. Become a video game or computer game publisher yourself
If you've made one game, and if you want to try to get your one game into Best Buy or CompUSA, Office Depot or even Radio Shack, you're going to find it really difficult.
You can't become a publisher with just one game. Besides, if you thought it was fun to be a computer game developer, do you think it'll also be fun to be a salesman? Probably not. It's a completely different lifestyle, requiring an entirely different personality and set of skills.
You cannot become a publisher, if you do not have several years of work experience in the publishing field. But let's say you do have several years experience in publishing. OK, then that's fine. But if so, why would you even be reading this? You'd already know exactly what you're dealing with, a lot more than I do.
If you thought I was going to tell you how to become a video game publisher, well, I'm sorry. I can't. My only suggestion is that you get a job at a video game publishing company, rise to become an executive, then resign and start your own company. Or at least work several years in Sales, Marketing, or Operations. Or heck, you could even work it from the other side - retail. Become the manager of a Best Buy or a Circuit City or Blockbuster - a big chain store that sells games. You can't start a business unless you've lived in that business. C. Get your video/computer game distributed by a company that takes liquidated and closeout merchandise
If a big publisher won't take your game, you could try those smaller distributors who sell software to smaller outlets, and non-standard outlets. They'll probably be able to help you get your product into stores - but you'd probably have to get your product manufactured yourself (including the package design and printing). What you could do is go to a trade show, like E3 or CES or ASD/AMD, maybe even Toy Fair. Find out who these distribution companies are by walking the show floor. Hand out samples and business cards. Prepare to wheel and deal, and to learn whole new kinds of terms like "return reserve" and who knows what all.
Remember the discussion about becoming a publisher above? Well, if you did have a series of products and you want to get them distributed, and nobody'll publish it for you, you could buy booth space at one of those shows. Instead of walking the trade show floor to find distribution, you'd spend the show waiting for buyers to come to you. That'd definitely be a learning experience (but then, pretty much everything is). D. Get your downloadable or web or mobile game hosted by an established game portal where they'll promote it and earn you money
The big game portals, like the Facebook, MSN Game Zone (http://zone.msn.com), AOL Games (http://games.aol.com/), Yahoo Games (http://games.yahoo.com), Uproar (http://uproar.com), iWin.com (http://www.iwin.com), etc. are very picky about what new games they'll accept and feature on their sites. Your competition is some amazingly good game developers with a lot of experience creating online games, like Popcap. If you're an amateur, or someone with only a couple years in the game biz, your challenge, knocking the socks off iWin execs (and taking the wind out of Popcap's sails) is daunting to say the least. These guys all really know what they're doing. You may know what you're doing in making a game, but these portal guys are fully on top of the business aspects, the marketing aspects. It's not their job to give the little guy a chance - it's their job to make lots of money and make their product offerings' value increase. They don't do that by serving up volume, they do that by serving up quality.
But the established web game developers like Popcap don't just have quality, they also have volume. They've made dozens of games. If you aren't bringing multiple quality games to the bargaining table, you've already lost the game in regards to the big boys. The process for submitting your game to a big portal is most likely a lot like the process described in FAQ 11, FAQ 21 and FAQ 35. Have your games finished, then follow the steps in those FAQs. Each company does things differently, so don't get all upset at me if the way things work isn't what you envision reading my FAQs.
Or look into some of these online game distribution sites that you might not have found in your research:
E. Get your downloadable or web or mobile game hosted on a downloads site
You've used'em to get free or cheap utilities. Jumbo.com, Tucows.com, Downloads.com, RocketDownload.com... Well, you too can get your downloadable game hosted on these sites. It's not that hard, as far as I can tell. I've never done it myself (I'm not a programmer, remember?). You might have to host it on your own site, then these download sites just serve as a clearinghouse (you know, like a transportation center where all the buses, taxis, and trains fan out into a big metropolitan center) - a place where everybody will come to look for downloads like yours - and they put up a link to wherever your download is hosted.
But with this distribution model, your product is lost in the crowd. And you ain't gonna make a lot of money (if any at all). The usual model is to sell a handicapped version that offers just enough functionality (read: "fun") so that people will want to buy the full version from you. So to do this model, you'd need to find your own e-Commerce solution (meaning, how people pay you and how you send them the game), and make a demo and a full version. Or make your game have everything in it, and unlock the full feature set once somebody has paid and obtained a key or something. You'd have to figure out the details, including how to make it hard for anybody to hack and disable your lock.
If you want to pursue this model, go on some forums where others like you chat with one another and share ideas about good ways to solve a lot of the problems they've run across. Read, read, read. Then jump in and ask a question or two. Learn about the world of the shareware developer. F. Host your game on your own site
If you don't like the conditions the downloads sites impose on contributors, you can flip'em off and just do it yourself on your own site. Then the problem is how do you get people to come to your site. How do you let people know about the wonderful product(s) you have to offer.
Well, I can't tell you how to do that (I'm not a lone wolf myself, I like working cooperatively with developers and publishers, I've never done the thing you're trying to do). But I can tell a little tale about this website here. You found this article, so you can see my nav frame at left. You can see that this website has a lot of content. There's a list of at least 60 articles for aspiring game makers. And there are also other parts to this website - there's my business zone (where I have my resume and my portfolio), and there's a section where I share a lot of information about mah-jongg, and another about hanafuda/go-stop. And there's a personal page or two, just because it seemed like the thing to do.
Well, that content has brought a lot of people here. I don't have a lot of stuff for sale here (this site wasn't created for the intention you have for your site), but I get a lot of eyeballs. Because I have some value here, for people who are seeking the kind of information I have to offer. The game design zone is the fruit of my 25+ years in the game biz - I'm sharing my knowledge with folks who want to work in this field. I wrote an article a month for five years to build it to its current level. The mah-jongg zone is the fruit of the research I've done into mah-jongg for the past 12+ years, and has value for folks who want to learn about the game of mah-jongg. I wrote it over time to answer the most frequently asked questions about the game, and it gets updated when I get more questions and learn more things.
The reason I told you that story is to illustrate one way a site can be built that will attract traffic. If you make a site just for people to come and buy one game, that probably isn't going to work so well. But if you have, say, a dozen games, and reviews of competitive games... or you tell the story of how you made them, the learning process you went through to build your site to sell your games, with an analysis of the whole shareware scene or something... then people will come.
And of course you still have to come up with your own e-commerce solutions. G. Get your MMOG published, hosted, and supported by a big publisher
Same principles as section A above. But check out multiverse.net. An article I read while writing this article (GameDaily Biz, March 3, 2006) seems to indicate that new MMOG developers might find some valuable tips there, and maybe even a lot more.
"A group of Netscape veterans who founded Multiverse believe that the MMO market doesn't have to be dominated by just the big players. There's plenty of room for the smaller companies too, and Multiverse hopes to make this possible by changing the economics of the virtual world." Be sure you check that out, if you wanna be in the MMOG space. H. Publish, host, and support your MMOG yourself
I don't really have much to say about this one. If you're well along in developing your MMOG, you've probably already thought about this option in a lot more detail than I have. And do make sure to check out Multiverse. Or maybe you're a multi-kazillionaire. I. Get your mobile game published by a mobile publisher
Those publishers, of course, are Nokia, Gameloft, Jamdat, Dwango, Gameplaymobile, fonearcade, Telcogames, PlayerX... go do some research, you'll find lots more. I hear that if somebody takes your game, you might get 30%-70% net. But as I understand it, margins are very thin on mobile games, so although you'd be getting a good percentage, it would be based on fairly small change. The more games you have, the more you'll make. J. Get your mobile game hosted online for folks to download
If you are making games for the iPhone, you'll need to check out the Apple Developer Connection, at http://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action.
I hear you can find some useful leads for mobile development on other platforms at handango.com, developers.nokia.com, and http://www.j2meforums.com/yabbse/index.php?board=11%3baction=display%3bthreadid=4809. Good luck! K. Offer it for sale on your own site
See section F above. L. Get your paper game hosted on an established site where other paper games are also made available.
I subscribe to a board game designers mailing list, and a recent thread told me some surprising stuff. Apparently a lot of paper game designers start by doing this. Check out guildofblades.com, rpgnow.com, drivethrurpg.com, and
http://ravensblight.com/.
Rpgnow.com also has a good article about current trends.
http://www.rpgnow.com/PDF_SotI_2005.pdf. M. Sell your paper game from your own site.
And I heard from one guy who just lets folks download his games for free from his own site. He isn't making money from his games yet, but there's always a chance that a publisher will take note and offer him a deal. Check out Interformic Games.
Another guy suggested customizing paper games for your customers, or giving away a "light" version, and sell add-ons, or offering it in a subscription format.
See? Creativity isn't just about coming up with games. It's also about how you proceed after creating the game. Marketing, too, can be (nay, is) a creative endeavor. If you're going to self-publish, you'll also need to self-publicize. The Association of Shareware Professionals would be a useful organization for you to join and learn a lot about various aspects of self-publishing. And http://gamespress.com/ offers lots of useful tips for publicizing your game. To find good info about how to write a press release, just Google "how to write a press release."
It may be just me - I enjoy designing and producing games, but I know I would not enjoy doing all the stuff involved in marketing, distributing, or publishing them. Your life may vary.
So - according to Tom Sloper, what's another way, an even better way you could look at your wonderful creation?
Whether or not you manage to make any money from your brainchild, I believe that it has tremendous value for you. It has even more value if you have multiple games (not just one measly game). The investment in time and work to make more games will prove tremendously valuable, in building your skills, your portfolio, your experience, and your perceived value to publishers.
Use your finished games as proof of what you can do. Publishers are much more interested in establishing a relationship with a talented developer who can do work for them, who can make the games they want, than they are in buying one or two measly games.
You are unlikely to get rich selling the one measly game you created. But if you follow my suggestion, your life will be all the richer.
What is my suggestion? That you leverage your creation into a career making games. Hey, you wanted to make that one, didn't you? So...? Wouldn't it be cool to make a career of it?
Or maybe it's just me.
b. Become a publisher yourself (see section B below)
c. Get it distributed by a company that takes liquidated and closeout merchandise (see section C below)
e. Get it hosted on a downloads site (see section E below)
f. Host your downloadable or web game on your own site (see section F below)
h. Publish, host, and support it yourself (see section H below)
j. Get your mobile game hosted online for folks to download (see section J below)
k. Offer it for sale on your own site (see section K below).
m. Host it on your own site (see section M below)
More great publishing tips and resources in the IGDA Indie Production Guide.
And look, I know you don't wanna spend any more money, but if you read this article all the way down to here, you gotta buy The Indie Developers' Guide to Selling Games. Go to http://www.indiegameguide.com/.
A free article on self-publishing: http://anawiki.com/sellmoregames/
If you're looking to sell your IP, there are legal things you need to know. There are good articles, including one from February 2009 on Selling IP, at http://www.underdevelopmentlaw.com.
The FAQs for the GameDev.net "Business of Game Development" forum, at http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/showfaq.asp?forum_id=5, are an additional must-read.
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