October 3rd, 2008 by Arjan Olsder Posted in 1 | 3 Comments »
A little over a year ago I listened to a panel where a
Studio GM of a large mobile game publisher was asked whether or not small
publishers could survive without being part of a larger organization; the
answer was a resounding “no”, small and medium publishers either
needed to go big, or go away.
At the time I did not believe that statement, mostly because
I did not want to hear it; but, up until 4 months ago, it was becoming clear
that if you were a small or medium mobile game publisher (who didn’t have
a hit franchise) you could be in trouble, like, liquidation trouble.
And then the App Store showed up.
No, I am not going to claim that the App Store is going to
change the fate of every mobile game developer and publisher, because it
won’t. I’m not going to claim that mobile operators will all
the sudden be guided by the Adam Smith of mobile gaming (Apple) and create free
markets for mobile games by the new year, because they won’t. So,
what did the release of the App Store do?
It gave us hope.
The hope that by creating great games publishers can
generate substantial revenue and actually be profitable; the hope that innovative
game play will lead people to download your game, review it and recommend it to
their friends; and, most importantly, the hope that the success of a game will
be dependent on consumer action, not operator reaction.
Clearly, hope is not a strategy, but it will get you out of
bed in the morning to put on the gloves and keep fighting for the day when
companies who produce great mobile games will be successful. Can anyone
be sure that it is anything other than hope? No, but I have to believe
that day is closer than it once was.
So, as a small developer or publisher, what should you do
besides hope for that day to come? The only thing I can provide is a
question that we have asked ourselves: “If I started a mobile gaming
company today, what would I do?” I don’t know what the answer
is for you, but I know what it is for us: not what we have been doing.
Instead of trying to compete head to head with the big boys
by pumping out as many mobile games as quickly as possible, we’re
thinking about how we can create mobile game experiences that provide more than
a simple game mechanic. We’re thinking about how to create fewer
games, increase our production value and provide consumers with games they will
play for more than an hour or two. We’re thinking about how we can
take advantage of the inherent social nature of the mobile phone and how people
want to interact with their friends in-game. We’re thinking about
how to find brands that want to create unique mobile gaming experiences instead
of brands that want a check. We’re thinking about how we can turn
our extensive experience with mobile development and publishing into a
successful company, not a company that does whatever it needs to do in order to
get on the operator deck.
The changes in the market started by the release of the App
Store are coming, not today, and not tomorrow, but they are coming. Combining
the shifting market dynamics with truly innovative games and experiences will
give small and medium sized game publishers the chance for success that most
did not have previously.
So, if I were asked the same question as the GM on the panel
was asked, my answer would be: Yes, I hope so.
Ryan Morel is VP of Business Development at PressOK
Entertainment. PressOK was started in September 2008 after the merger of
Reaxion Corp. and Mobliss Inc. The first of PressOK’s next
generation mobile games is expected to hit the market in mid-2009.
Ryan can be contacted at ryan.morel@
What is your view about the market?
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Personally I hope not/maybe. The advent of the apple store gives more leverage to quality titles. These are achieved over the years of experience and expertise in the field. If we look back… many gaming companies collapse (indeed are too) due to the technical and quality negations in the games which makes it fail to hit the market. There is also the cause of the market getting flooded with content that arent worth the effort. The con side… the best games sometimes get lost in this huge pile up catalogue. To meet the criteria of apple (or for that matter any other store in future) I think concentrating towards showcasing only good quality games can make best contents come to focus to the end user, thus increasing revenue and saving the gaming domain from its current scenario.
I defined the Apple Store, “a new hope” tauntingly in my blog a couple of month ago.
I make mobile games since 2003 and in 2003 there were similar distribution scenarios, Apple Store is not the fist example of off-deck distribution.
Who remembers Handango? And Nokia Market? Others followed in the years, but the substance is the same: if you have not a brand/ip and an huge organization you won’t sell.
Apple Store is not the promiseland, the rules in the mobile market are still unchanged.
The real question is, will the big ones survive? Apple is not the holy land as some of us already realized. Its one gatekeeper and pure chaos!
When will the operators realize that the big 2 or 3 are not bringing them further?