Publishing Solutions and Affiliated Developers
by Jeff Tunnell · 09/21/2006 (3:14 pm) · 7 comments
I just updated our aging Publishing Solitions and Publishing FAQ to reflect the ever changing state of the Indie games business. In addition, the Publishing page now reflects our current thinking for our Affiliated Developer program where we team up with a few developers to help them create games that can be effective across the entire range of opportunities now present in the marketplace.
As background, when we first started GarageGames we were "raging against the box channel machine". At the time Indie games were called shareware and that was the only method of bringing your game to market without signing away all of your rights with a box publisher. We didn't think "shareware" was a good term for the developers, so we started calling them Indie games and it stuck. I'm sure the name would have happened without GG, but we made it happen sooner.
When GG started in 1999, people thought we were crazy. Downloadable games? On 56K modems. Get outta here! Well, of course, it did work. For a little more history, at about that same time, the first "dot com" bubble was starting to burst, and some of the left over venture capital and shareholder money was able to fund some other forward thinking companies such as Real Arcade and Shockwave. Developer/publishers like Gamehouse and PopCap were also just starting to emerge, and suddenly the downloadable market was real.
It took us a while to get TGE launched and the developer community web stuff going, so we didn't actually launch our store until December 2001 with Marble Blast, Orbz, Chain Reaction, and Robot Battle. In the following few months, Think Tanks and Tennis Critters came aboard, and we were on a roll. We were counting on getting a lot of games, but they were slow in coming, and we were being too picky on the submission side of things, so our supply of games dwindled. A steady supply of games is needed in order to keep customers interested in coming back to a game store, so while the developer side of the house was rocking, our game store sales were languishing in the 2002-2004 time frame.
During this time, we were concentrating on making the developer tools and making the developer community the best in the world (successfully, IMHO:), so the Game store took a back seat. We continued to push on the Indie game opportunity front, however, exploring good ideas and bad. Examples of bad include the Phantom. Examples of good things are book deals, consoles on XBLA, next generation on consoles for XB360 and others, cell phone deals, hand held deals, OEM deals, international partnerships, portal partnerships, etc.
Finally some really nice Torque games started coming through, plus we released TGB which is really picking up the pace for game releases. In addition, all of the press we received for our console efforts have brought thousands of gamers to the site, and the results have been a huge pick up in game sales. Marble Blast Gold is selling better today than at any time in its history, and we are having some really nice hits with games like Tube Twist.
Our game store will continue to grow, and we should pick up the pace with the number of games in the store. Meanwhile, in the background, we are working with a few great developers to make games that are exclusive to GarageGames and that we help bring to every market (consoles, cell phones, PC portals), not just our Game Store. We call this our "Affiliated Developer" partnership program. I first started talking about this last year at IGC, and you will soon see some nice results from these partnerships. The first example of this is Kevin Ryan's Puzzle Poker game. This one is cheating a little because Kevin and I have worked together for so long, but it still counts. There are more coming, and we still have some capacity to help a few more developers. If you have the talent and are interested, please let me know at jefft at garagegames dot com. (Please don't send me an email asking me about the program. Read the publishing page and follow the directions there. I will simply disregard any email that does not follow directions)
In related news, look for a new GarageGames service that will help all developers get their games out there as well as create a lot more traffic for selling your game. I don't want to hype it up too much, but we are just about to go out to a friends and family release, so I hope we can see this service before the end of the year. Stay tuned.
Lastly, I just posted a new article in my Make It Big In Games blog about how much money an XBLA360 downloadable next generation console game can make. It ended up getting picked up by a lot of on-line news outlets, so my little blog has had record traffic for the past few days. Check it out.
-Jeff Tunnell, GG
As background, when we first started GarageGames we were "raging against the box channel machine". At the time Indie games were called shareware and that was the only method of bringing your game to market without signing away all of your rights with a box publisher. We didn't think "shareware" was a good term for the developers, so we started calling them Indie games and it stuck. I'm sure the name would have happened without GG, but we made it happen sooner.
When GG started in 1999, people thought we were crazy. Downloadable games? On 56K modems. Get outta here! Well, of course, it did work. For a little more history, at about that same time, the first "dot com" bubble was starting to burst, and some of the left over venture capital and shareholder money was able to fund some other forward thinking companies such as Real Arcade and Shockwave. Developer/publishers like Gamehouse and PopCap were also just starting to emerge, and suddenly the downloadable market was real.
It took us a while to get TGE launched and the developer community web stuff going, so we didn't actually launch our store until December 2001 with Marble Blast, Orbz, Chain Reaction, and Robot Battle. In the following few months, Think Tanks and Tennis Critters came aboard, and we were on a roll. We were counting on getting a lot of games, but they were slow in coming, and we were being too picky on the submission side of things, so our supply of games dwindled. A steady supply of games is needed in order to keep customers interested in coming back to a game store, so while the developer side of the house was rocking, our game store sales were languishing in the 2002-2004 time frame.
During this time, we were concentrating on making the developer tools and making the developer community the best in the world (successfully, IMHO:), so the Game store took a back seat. We continued to push on the Indie game opportunity front, however, exploring good ideas and bad. Examples of bad include the Phantom. Examples of good things are book deals, consoles on XBLA, next generation on consoles for XB360 and others, cell phone deals, hand held deals, OEM deals, international partnerships, portal partnerships, etc.
Finally some really nice Torque games started coming through, plus we released TGB which is really picking up the pace for game releases. In addition, all of the press we received for our console efforts have brought thousands of gamers to the site, and the results have been a huge pick up in game sales. Marble Blast Gold is selling better today than at any time in its history, and we are having some really nice hits with games like Tube Twist.
Our game store will continue to grow, and we should pick up the pace with the number of games in the store. Meanwhile, in the background, we are working with a few great developers to make games that are exclusive to GarageGames and that we help bring to every market (consoles, cell phones, PC portals), not just our Game Store. We call this our "Affiliated Developer" partnership program. I first started talking about this last year at IGC, and you will soon see some nice results from these partnerships. The first example of this is Kevin Ryan's Puzzle Poker game. This one is cheating a little because Kevin and I have worked together for so long, but it still counts. There are more coming, and we still have some capacity to help a few more developers. If you have the talent and are interested, please let me know at jefft at garagegames dot com. (Please don't send me an email asking me about the program. Read the publishing page and follow the directions there. I will simply disregard any email that does not follow directions)
In related news, look for a new GarageGames service that will help all developers get their games out there as well as create a lot more traffic for selling your game. I don't want to hype it up too much, but we are just about to go out to a friends and family release, so I hope we can see this service before the end of the year. Stay tuned.
Lastly, I just posted a new article in my Make It Big In Games blog about how much money an XBLA360 downloadable next generation console game can make. It ended up getting picked up by a lot of on-line news outlets, so my little blog has had record traffic for the past few days. Check it out.
-Jeff Tunnell, GG
About the author
#2
09/21/2006 (3:35 pm)
Thanks for the update. Good to see the game side of things getting more attention.
#3
It seems like every week or two the community sees a great product featured in a snapshot, but then we never hear or see anything more about the project. Seeing a couple more games come out of the community would definitely do a lot to calm the people who cry fowl at the chances of completing a game.
One part of the affiliate program I like is the team-building possibilities. Sometimes all you need are those missing pieces of your puzzle in order to push your creation out the door. Anything that can help a stymied team get out of the trenches is good (and it certainly can't hurt).
Tools (like Torque) can only take you so far. I'm glad that the indies out there have an advocate of sorts, since god knows most of us know next to nothing about getting deals made with the parties that get money in your pocket. I just hope it's not too little, too late. Perhaps with the combination of this affiliates program and TGE 1.5, we could see some teams get re-vitalized.
Good luck, I'll definitely be watching this program down the road.
09/21/2006 (4:54 pm)
Even though I would never buy any of the current games in the game store (though I did buy MBU on XBLA), it's good to see the publishing side of Garage Games get some more attention (publicly, at least). It might push some of those developers who are "on the verge" of pushing out a product to actually get published.It seems like every week or two the community sees a great product featured in a snapshot, but then we never hear or see anything more about the project. Seeing a couple more games come out of the community would definitely do a lot to calm the people who cry fowl at the chances of completing a game.
One part of the affiliate program I like is the team-building possibilities. Sometimes all you need are those missing pieces of your puzzle in order to push your creation out the door. Anything that can help a stymied team get out of the trenches is good (and it certainly can't hurt).
Tools (like Torque) can only take you so far. I'm glad that the indies out there have an advocate of sorts, since god knows most of us know next to nothing about getting deals made with the parties that get money in your pocket. I just hope it's not too little, too late. Perhaps with the combination of this affiliates program and TGE 1.5, we could see some teams get re-vitalized.
Good luck, I'll definitely be watching this program down the road.
#4
09/21/2006 (7:15 pm)
Jeff, this is just what I needed to hear from you! I've been thinking about Puzzle Poker since it came out wondering how you handled that, this is a very nice move. 
#5
This site and your work is definately the best thing that's happened for "Indies." The investment you've made into the community and your company, developing the tools first, was necessary for you to get where you want to go. This community, with all the tools, content packs, resources, forums, TDN and encouragement from the GG staff and others is great... nobody could ask for more.
I remember anxiously waiting for Torque back in 2001 thinking "Wow, I can actually make my own game!" Although I've not actually pulled through, it's been my fault, not GG's :P. Luckily other people have been more diligent.
One thing I wish... reinforce the monthly GG employee blog requirement. I know you've all been busy the past few months with many things, but seriously, it's a great thing to see a GG employee spend a bit of time away from their busy schedules to speak with us. I've missed the blogs over the past few months... I might not always respond, but I always read them all.
I promise I'll try to be better at writing intelligent responses to the GG blogs if you promise to make 'em blog more :P
Another idea... although probably every GG employee is already overworked as it is, I'd love to see (another?) GG game published. Even if you adopt something like Google's 20% plan, everyone will benefit. The more your developers use their own tools (and what better way than creating their own game?) the more they'll see what needs to be done.
Anyways, just a few thoughts... again, thanks for GG and all that it represents. I know you were key in making it happen and we all appreciate you :P
p.s.
I will get my "Associate" tag before the end of the year.
09/21/2006 (8:15 pm)
First off, welcome back... we've missed you :PThis site and your work is definately the best thing that's happened for "Indies." The investment you've made into the community and your company, developing the tools first, was necessary for you to get where you want to go. This community, with all the tools, content packs, resources, forums, TDN and encouragement from the GG staff and others is great... nobody could ask for more.
I remember anxiously waiting for Torque back in 2001 thinking "Wow, I can actually make my own game!" Although I've not actually pulled through, it's been my fault, not GG's :P. Luckily other people have been more diligent.
One thing I wish... reinforce the monthly GG employee blog requirement. I know you've all been busy the past few months with many things, but seriously, it's a great thing to see a GG employee spend a bit of time away from their busy schedules to speak with us. I've missed the blogs over the past few months... I might not always respond, but I always read them all.
I promise I'll try to be better at writing intelligent responses to the GG blogs if you promise to make 'em blog more :P
Another idea... although probably every GG employee is already overworked as it is, I'd love to see (another?) GG game published. Even if you adopt something like Google's 20% plan, everyone will benefit. The more your developers use their own tools (and what better way than creating their own game?) the more they'll see what needs to be done.
Anyways, just a few thoughts... again, thanks for GG and all that it represents. I know you were key in making it happen and we all appreciate you :P
p.s.
I will get my "Associate" tag before the end of the year.
#6
You can count on that! Through MBU, and the as yet un-announced TGB "proof of technology" game that GG has worked on while developing technology, we feel that it's a proven mechanism for proving out engine concepts and designs, and in many cases has pointed out internal flaws in our thinking regarding the engine technology, which can then be refactored into the ongoing engine development.
09/21/2006 (9:45 pm)
Quote:
Another idea... although probably every GG employee is already overworked as it is, I'd love to see (another?) GG game published. Even if you adopt something like Google's 20% plan, everyone will benefit. The more your developers use their own tools (and what better way than creating their own game?) the more they'll see what needs to be done.
You can count on that! Through MBU, and the as yet un-announced TGB "proof of technology" game that GG has worked on while developing technology, we feel that it's a proven mechanism for proving out engine concepts and designs, and in many cases has pointed out internal flaws in our thinking regarding the engine technology, which can then be refactored into the ongoing engine development.
#7
People don't really pay attention, their loss, to these types of posts and they are forgotten.
Although, these are exactly the types of posts that everyone wants to see and read.
09/22/2006 (9:37 am)
Jeff's plan and Stephen's comment really need to be plastered all over the site.People don't really pay attention, their loss, to these types of posts and they are forgotten.
Although, these are exactly the types of posts that everyone wants to see and read.
Torque Owner Nick Zafiris
Nick