Plan for Andy Schatz
by Andy Schatz · 11/09/2005 (10:13 pm) · 12 comments
I shipped Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa (download now!) and took it easy for a couple of weeks. I knew I would have work to do after that, but I figured I'd reached the end of the road, in many ways.
I've only reached the beginning of the road.
I don't usually like .plans that just enumerate tasks, but I figure it might be enlightening to some to think about what needs to be done AFTER the title is gold.
PR - How do I reach people that might be interested in the game that don't know about it? I posted on a Zoo Tycoon 2 fan site, and it didn't work out very well. I might have gotten a few sales from it, but in general, I pissed off the moderator (who wasn't very friendly, I must say), and most of the posters on the site thought it measured up poorly to Zoo Tycoon 2. Well, it IS a fan site for ZT2, so I should have expected that. I'm also looking into partnering with the San Diego Zoo and the WWF for some PR. I really need to find ways to reach customers that don't just troll game sites.
Submission for reviews - My strategy for this has been to send the game out to a couple of smaller review sites first, patch any issues, and improve any easy criticisms before I send it out for wider review. We'll see if this works.
Patches - I need to decide upon how often and how significantly I want to patch the game. How far do I continue to improve the product until I decide I am happy with the results?
Improving the conversion rate - Conversion Rate is probably the most important stat you can track on your game. How many people download it vs. how many people buy it. Conversion rate on the PC for a good game is usually about 1.5 to 2 percent (On the Mac, it's double that, though the download traffic is generally lower). I'm looking into ways in which I can improve my conversion rate: adding a BUY NOW link on my web page, so people can buy it without having to download the trial first, communicating better what's cool about the game, better nag screens, etc.
Porting - I am behind on the Mac port, so I'm outsourcing some of the work. This should eat up a lot of my time in the next few weeks.
Legal Issues - I had some problems with a site illegally distributing my game. Because they are a major portal, though, I ended up having to roll over on this one, since I didn't want to piss them off too badly. I'm still getting royalties from those sales, but they deflated my upcoming wide-launch PR effort a fair amount. My legal counsil suggested I send a cease & desist, but I ended up deciding to let it be.
Accounting - I haven't had to deal with this yet but I will very soon -- I am deducting taxes from the royalty shares to the contractors. I need to hire an accountant to get my books in order for this first year of business.
Retail deal, online distribution deals - I spend a significant amount of time working on the putting together stuff for Trymedia and other online distributors. MumboJumbo has generally been staying out of my hair while I finish up the online version, but I have a deadline in a month and a half for the retail deal as well.
In conclusion - I hope to get started on the next couple of games in January. I have tons of ideas running laps inside my head, but I can't give them any time at the moment... there's just too much to do on the title that I thought was "done".
I've only reached the beginning of the road.
I don't usually like .plans that just enumerate tasks, but I figure it might be enlightening to some to think about what needs to be done AFTER the title is gold.
PR - How do I reach people that might be interested in the game that don't know about it? I posted on a Zoo Tycoon 2 fan site, and it didn't work out very well. I might have gotten a few sales from it, but in general, I pissed off the moderator (who wasn't very friendly, I must say), and most of the posters on the site thought it measured up poorly to Zoo Tycoon 2. Well, it IS a fan site for ZT2, so I should have expected that. I'm also looking into partnering with the San Diego Zoo and the WWF for some PR. I really need to find ways to reach customers that don't just troll game sites.
Submission for reviews - My strategy for this has been to send the game out to a couple of smaller review sites first, patch any issues, and improve any easy criticisms before I send it out for wider review. We'll see if this works.
Patches - I need to decide upon how often and how significantly I want to patch the game. How far do I continue to improve the product until I decide I am happy with the results?
Improving the conversion rate - Conversion Rate is probably the most important stat you can track on your game. How many people download it vs. how many people buy it. Conversion rate on the PC for a good game is usually about 1.5 to 2 percent (On the Mac, it's double that, though the download traffic is generally lower). I'm looking into ways in which I can improve my conversion rate: adding a BUY NOW link on my web page, so people can buy it without having to download the trial first, communicating better what's cool about the game, better nag screens, etc.
Porting - I am behind on the Mac port, so I'm outsourcing some of the work. This should eat up a lot of my time in the next few weeks.
Legal Issues - I had some problems with a site illegally distributing my game. Because they are a major portal, though, I ended up having to roll over on this one, since I didn't want to piss them off too badly. I'm still getting royalties from those sales, but they deflated my upcoming wide-launch PR effort a fair amount. My legal counsil suggested I send a cease & desist, but I ended up deciding to let it be.
Accounting - I haven't had to deal with this yet but I will very soon -- I am deducting taxes from the royalty shares to the contractors. I need to hire an accountant to get my books in order for this first year of business.
Retail deal, online distribution deals - I spend a significant amount of time working on the putting together stuff for Trymedia and other online distributors. MumboJumbo has generally been staying out of my hair while I finish up the online version, but I have a deadline in a month and a half for the retail deal as well.
In conclusion - I hope to get started on the next couple of games in January. I have tons of ideas running laps inside my head, but I can't give them any time at the moment... there's just too much to do on the title that I thought was "done".
About the author
#2
11/09/2005 (10:38 pm)
It's not that they aren't selling at my terms. It's that they are selling it before I gave them permission to. Considering that I will be granting permission in a week, no need to rock the boat. 
#3
11/09/2005 (10:40 pm)
you are at a place many of us haven't ever gotten to see. Thanks for posting this, definitely interesting. It's interesting about the illegal distribution of your game, sounds like you made a wise decision. Are you saying that by them having it out now, then you aren't going to get the super wide coverage by them having it at the time you are ready to release it. I hope when my game is done, I can be as lucky to have people grab my demo and illegaly distribute it :)
#4
11/09/2005 (10:43 pm)
I don't want to make too big a deal out of the ilegal distribution. If it were REALLY bad, I would have put a stop to it. I just listed it because it took a day of work communicating with various parties trying to figure out what to do about the situation... and then a few hours exercising to burn off all the rage(!!!) 
#5
11/10/2005 (7:52 am)
Fun stuff eh Andy? Don't forget localization... 
#6
Best of luck with your marketing though Andy, it sounds to me that you are on the right track with regards to getting the word out there to sites and magazines. Another suggestion that I have, which I am not sure if it works well in your case, would be to slowly add new content (ie. animals, missions, etc.) every couple of weeks and pound the game news sites with it, casual readers of the site might see all the news and activity and take enough interest to check it out.
11/10/2005 (8:10 am)
I found that the PR & Support issues are probably the most time consuming aspect of it all. Generally I found that it took up 80% of my time while the other 20% was spent working on the tasks that I actually needed to work on. Its kinda sad and depressing in some ways, but that's the price you pay if you want to release a commercial game.Best of luck with your marketing though Andy, it sounds to me that you are on the right track with regards to getting the word out there to sites and magazines. Another suggestion that I have, which I am not sure if it works well in your case, would be to slowly add new content (ie. animals, missions, etc.) every couple of weeks and pound the game news sites with it, casual readers of the site might see all the news and activity and take enough interest to check it out.
#7
Most portals nowadays say they will do the wrapping (DRM) for you. Well, not if you want to track stats for each portal separately which is key to figuring out how to optimize conversion rates (which are different on each portal).
Some changes to the demo, for example, improve conversion rates on one portal vs the other because of the differring audiences each portal has. If you want to optimize conversion rates then it can come down to different demo features/restrictions for each portal.
I also didn't see you mention tech support. Even though our games are all great, they are buggy in the beggining (or even later on when Apple releases a new OS named after an animal). There is just no way to test the games on the myriad of PC's out there from our little indie studios. Even with a soft launch, you are only touching a portion of the gamers out there. I still have to field support emails from Orbz - three years after it was released.
Casual games seem to generate more tech support questions too because the audience isn't as computer savvy and often have older computers with out-of-date drivers.
If you have servers as part of your gaming experience (like Orbz does for stats tracking) then you can add that to your post-launch list as well. Again, I'm still dealing with server outages and maintenance for a 3 year old game.
Some comments on porting (which you mentioned) along these lines are the many unexpected porting opportunities that a game will get during its life. Orbz started on Windows only and is now on Windows, Mac, Linux, Zodiac hand-held, Coin-Op Arcade, and Xbox. Each of those ports required significant effort that we never originally planned on doing but were required to build exposure for the IP and generate decent revenue. With Xbox 360, PS2/PS3, PSP, and mobile devices all prime targets for casual games, porting work could be a major effort if the game has legs.
The point of the story I guess is that this stuff never goes away. If the game is truly "ever green" and has a long life, you can plan on doing PR, patches, conversion rate optimization, porting, legal issues, accounting, publishing deals, build preparation (for different pubs), translation/localization, tech support, and potentially server maintenance as long as the game is alive and kicking.
After doing all of that for ourselves over the last few years on just one game, I can't imagine what it would be like when we have 2, 3, or even more games out (which we will soon). It makes me respect the role of a publisher in the whole scheme of things. Our indie studios should be focused on making new intellectual property - thats what we are the best at - not all this other stuff.
/rambling complete
11/10/2005 (8:38 am)
Oh yeah, another item for that list is integrating DRM's for each portal. We have at least 10 different builds of Orbz out there and each one required additional effort integrating DRM technology and testing the game to make sure it didn't break the game (and often they did!). That was all unexpected work for us the first time around.Most portals nowadays say they will do the wrapping (DRM) for you. Well, not if you want to track stats for each portal separately which is key to figuring out how to optimize conversion rates (which are different on each portal).
Some changes to the demo, for example, improve conversion rates on one portal vs the other because of the differring audiences each portal has. If you want to optimize conversion rates then it can come down to different demo features/restrictions for each portal.
I also didn't see you mention tech support. Even though our games are all great, they are buggy in the beggining (or even later on when Apple releases a new OS named after an animal). There is just no way to test the games on the myriad of PC's out there from our little indie studios. Even with a soft launch, you are only touching a portion of the gamers out there. I still have to field support emails from Orbz - three years after it was released.
Casual games seem to generate more tech support questions too because the audience isn't as computer savvy and often have older computers with out-of-date drivers.
If you have servers as part of your gaming experience (like Orbz does for stats tracking) then you can add that to your post-launch list as well. Again, I'm still dealing with server outages and maintenance for a 3 year old game.
Some comments on porting (which you mentioned) along these lines are the many unexpected porting opportunities that a game will get during its life. Orbz started on Windows only and is now on Windows, Mac, Linux, Zodiac hand-held, Coin-Op Arcade, and Xbox. Each of those ports required significant effort that we never originally planned on doing but were required to build exposure for the IP and generate decent revenue. With Xbox 360, PS2/PS3, PSP, and mobile devices all prime targets for casual games, porting work could be a major effort if the game has legs.
The point of the story I guess is that this stuff never goes away. If the game is truly "ever green" and has a long life, you can plan on doing PR, patches, conversion rate optimization, porting, legal issues, accounting, publishing deals, build preparation (for different pubs), translation/localization, tech support, and potentially server maintenance as long as the game is alive and kicking.
After doing all of that for ourselves over the last few years on just one game, I can't imagine what it would be like when we have 2, 3, or even more games out (which we will soon). It makes me respect the role of a publisher in the whole scheme of things. Our indie studios should be focused on making new intellectual property - thats what we are the best at - not all this other stuff.
/rambling complete
#8
Then there's also the problem of supporting patches for all your versions with different DRM solutions. This is a lot more of a pain (I've found) with multiplayer games - where the games MUST be the same version to play together - than in single-player games. But it's still a pain.
11/10/2005 (8:55 am)
Oh, man, this all sounds too painfully familiar.Then there's also the problem of supporting patches for all your versions with different DRM solutions. This is a lot more of a pain (I've found) with multiplayer games - where the games MUST be the same version to play together - than in single-player games. But it's still a pain.
#9
11/10/2005 (9:01 am)
Oh yeah! That's such a pain. We had to put up dedicated servers for each version of the game out across all portals during patch distributions (which takes a month or longer on some portals).
#10
11/10/2005 (10:08 am)
Yeah the Support issue is one I haven't encountered yet, but you are right, I will have to do it. Man, I really hope I will have the time to make a second game, but at the same time, I hope that this game has enough traffic that all these things actually DO become issues for me ;)
#11
11/10/2005 (12:30 pm)
Quote:Man, I really hope I will have the time to make a second game, but at the same time, I hope that this game has enough traffic that all these things actually DO become issues for me ;)that's a great attitude to have Andy, I hope it becomes a big issue for you too, big enough you can afford to pay someone else to do it if you have to. From the looks of the demo, and initial response here, It seems hard to believe that it won't.
#12
-B
11/10/2005 (4:27 pm)
I paid taxes once and I decided I didn't like it. I think I will stop doing it. Who's with me?-B
Torque Owner Vashner