How to get a relationship with the publisher?

Start with the Business Development person at the Publisher

• Communicate product position to publisher
• Use Prototypes/Demos
• Core engine – If you have one, great! Does it feel good? Is it fun?
• The more you have the better. It can be difficult as it may not be in final fidelity, but beauty does matter.

Visuals:

You need to convince the publisher that you can do it. “Concept videos” are good. Gray box – be able to play it (rough draft at least).

Show a “vertical slice” - pick a place in the game and make it pretty

Make sure you have the talent you need lined up so you are ready to go for execution. They will ask!

Events to go to!

DICE , GDC, and E3

Selling your stuff to publishers:

• Practice your pitch!
• You will get asked about your business at a high level – be ready for it!
• How many people do you have to do the work – be realistic!
• Can you execute on it?
• Execution, polish, finish

Next Meeting: Due diligence!

• They will look at your team and your process (Scheduling, have you shipped a game before, etc.
• They will look at your tools – what is your engine? How fast can you iterate?
• Source Control – bug tracker – what you are using? Testing (Bug fix & Chart) what is your “find and fix rate”
• Money – what is your burn rate?
• Ramp of people: what does ramp of hires look like? Be realistic?
• 40 people in 2 months? How do you compete with Valve and Microsoft for hires?

The entire team needs to be on “constant sell mode” – always need to be selling to everyone, everyday at the publisher. Share the great news, new concept art, be ready to demo at anytime. If you scope the game properly, it will work.

If you need to drop a level of your game (most likely you will need to) the game still needs to make sense.

Mitigate Risk!

Transparency is important, don’t bug publisher about everything but don’t hid it either – they may be able to help you out.

Keep people informed

The “honeymoon” phase is short – during that time, spend lots of time with publisher at this early phase. It will get rough and that relationship may be what you fall back on to when it does.

Have more than one contact at a publisher. What if they left? You’ll need to maintain contact at different levels.

Be nice to everyone as relationships are everything!

Publishing with Microsoft for example:

• Microsoft likes games that benefit the hardware. Showcase to products that feature their strengths
• Pitfall: Unrealistic expectations – Microsoft wants games for them not for the Wii.
• Product lifecycle – Usually games will trail off after 6 weeks, however there is a “long tail” as it will always be there.
• Indie developers who are proactive about marketing their game do 10 times better.
• Know all the bloggers – go to PAX and promote your game.
• Do a “dev blog” for promotion
• Marketing – don’t use all your “ammo” at once. Try to manage how you leak out info to the public. Learn the ways you can give info without violating the NDA you signed– Don’t’ give away your internal processes
• Trailers are a good way to sell a demo as well.
• Microsoft is always looking for a good partner – not just a good game.
• Develop a relationship. If you have ducks in a row, the decision makers can see if you have talent. If it’s a good idea and a good team, Great!
• Be passionate, not pompus!
• Develop the partnerships – Prove yourself to be a good partner.
• Publishers – there will always be shifts in management which will change the ideas of the target market they choose to hold in their portfolio

Range of Models:

1. Developer will fund a game – Publisher will test, do localization, ratings, marketing, etc.
2. 3^rd party to 1^st party is 60:40

Good advice:

You have to be at GDC – try to get to them before the event if you can., if during or after GDC, you have the highest threshold of competition. Be prepared: the quality of products get higher and higher every year.