Think it’s enough to just develop your game behind closed doors and then shop it around to publishers, hoping to score a deal? Here’s the truth: Those days are over. And that’s not bad news for game developers! It just means that you have to adapt to a new world of video game development and publishing.
The publishing game has changed
Before, traditional indie publishers were the saving grace, partnering with talented game makers (who almost always lacked business and marketing acumen) to turn a cool game into a great commercial success. While that kind of partnership can still happen, in the current economic climate there is a larger and larger burden placed on the developer to prove the commercial viability of their game BEFORE a publisher will sign them.
Today’s reality is that publishers receive thousands of pitches and sign less than 1% of the games they see. A cool prototype or vertical slice is rarely enough to score a deal these days. The bar is higher. Many publishers now want to see that your announcement trailer got X many views, or that you’ve already got Y many wishlists, or that you’re running private playtests and have a vibrant Discord community, etc.
Generating evidence is your new priority
In short, this requires that you rev up your marketing and community activities from day one! Put another way, you need to start self-publishing your game to generate the evidence that your game is publishable so you can convince publishers to publish it. Call it inception publishing.
This implies that you, the developer, have done your market research. You’ve selected a genre that is commercially healthy. You’ve done the homework of playing your competition’s games, developing a marketing strategy, engaging a community manager, getting player input from the earliest phases of development, and so on.
Once you’re generating real social proof and community engagement, doors start to open. Publishers and investors will take notice and start poking you. Kickstarter becomes a more viable option, as you can mobilize your growing community. Platform holders are more eager to offer support and explore opportunities. Festival and showcase curators are keen to include your game.
Everyone wants a piece of a game that’s on the path to success. And critically, that evidence/traction gives you and your team confidence and reassurance that you’re building something great.
The big question
But! Once you’ve done all that work, gotten that momentum, that confidence… Do you really need a publisher anymore?
Because if we ignore the production funding question for the moment, you are essentially using your future revenue to pay a publisher to market your game. Perhaps that’s a fair barter if you truly don’t want to touch anything on the business or marketing side of the industry.
Given all of the marketing that’s needed in order to generate evidence that your game is “publishable”, it is critical to think about the long-term strategic value of the community that you’re growing. We can endlessly debate the fairness of traditional rev share or recoup terms, but those debates are still largely framed by a paradigm of developer as a service provider.
Today’s indie studios can go direct-to-consumer and need to be greedy about finding and cultivating their fans, treating their community as an asset to be nurtured and invested in over time. The true value of a studio today comes from the combination of your talent/team, your game IP, and your community.
By the very nature of their role in marketing and selling games, publishers tend to accrue a decent share of eyeballs. You can see it in the likes/follows/subs to their social accounts, YouTube channels, newsletters, etc. It is always tricky to divide the community functions and channels between the developer and publisher; and for my money, I’d be a lot more concerned now over who gets the fans vs. who gets an extra few points of rev share.
Your fanbase can become one of your biggest assets
It can’t be overstated: moving forward, the relationship a developer has with their fans is of utmost importance and value. So as a game developer, be relentless in growing and nurturing – and ultimately delighting – your fanbase. At the end of the day, a game studio is in the entertainment business, and you are fighting for fandom alongside every other form of media and entertainment.
No matter what you decide in terms of partnership strategy, you cannot afford to not start the self-publishing process. You need to start generating evidence that you have a potential hit on your hands. If you don’t, it’s back to the drawing board (and good news: you just saved yourself a lot of time, money and heartache). If you do, then you can decide if you want to bring in a publisher or if you want to build your fan base directly for maximum long-term strategic value.
As the funding landscape evolves, your capacity to self-publish will determine your ability to succeed commercially as a game studio. So better start self-publishing now, before it’s too late.