GreatBritishProducer

Where you buy games

Being involved in making games does not exclude me as a consumer of others. I've been catching up on some business blogs and one issue struck a cord. The question posed was 'Does The World Need Independent Retailers?'

I considered the yearly plight of independent game retailers ... yearly because its only in-vogue pre or post the Christmas rush when profit projections and facts are stifled through via the press. Anyway the blog illustrates:

                    Never before have small retailers so needed to be different, to be close to their
                    customers, to be an experience, to be about quality not quantity ... to be blogging.
                    The only other option is to sell up their high rent, high overhead, high street
                    stores and move online.

This reminded me of the experiences I have of independent retailers; unfortunately, it was not pleasant and did not mirror anything stated in the business blog.
My memories are of obnoxious sales teams. Sales teams are too high of an accolade in retrospect, as would considering any member of staff in these shops as capable of making a sale. Evident is an odd braggart attitude to customers, not an open, helpful, guiding reverie which should be a requirement.

So independent retailers, in my experience fail on these counts:

• To be different (in a good way)
• Build relationships with their customers
• Define quality and support it

The experience is negative, there is no differentiation in design, layout, point-of-sale, one-to-one sales. The likes of HMV, Virgin or Game are still missing something. The only reason they see traffic is because they offer familiarity and expectation to consumers.

If an independent retailer can prove otherwise, I'm waiting.

I support independent retail due to the pre-owned market, I'd like to support them more. I'd like to see our game being 'SOLD'; there is only so much that can be done with box art, posters, TV ads, product placement, event promotions and retail space. I'd like to see game retail become 'cool', in the same way an Apple store, Muji, Early Learning Centre, dedicated running shop or SPACE.NK is 'cool'.

Material Games

Is there an alternate business or revenue model in 'games for marketing'?

What am I talking about? It is a concept derived from two sources; one is MCV, which reports Supersonic plan to release games alongside its movies. The other is an article written by Mark McCluskey where he postulates that comics are no more than 'marketing material', based on the fact Marvel had net sales of $513 million, of which only 16 percent cam from comics. The rest was from character licensing as toys, TV or film. Mark's article focuses on how comic publishers need to wake up to digital distribution.

These articles led me to consider whether or not games could or should be heading in the same direction; specifically but not exclusively mobile, web, handheld and PC games; you could also add Xbox 360 LIVE Arcade game to the list. 
In turn, does this provide a revenue model for small independent studio's? Or maybe large studios looking to diversify but unwilling to take on the risk with medium to large scale development costs?

Are there examples already? Maybe. Many remember GTA on the PC - a top down gang based driving and shooting game. DMA created a stir but it was somewhat of a cult despite selling in excess of 1million units globally by the end of 1998. Consider both GTA, GTA2 and GTA London as precursors to the phenomenon that was GTA3 and its subsequent recording breaking iterations. The story here is that in 2D form, the gameplay was always there and setup future development. I have heard it argued that GTA is far from perfect in execution, but the cocktail it does provide is so far unrivalled in our industry.
I'm not sure what the economics are today, but I imagine it would incur less cost to develop GTA today and if a developer was to develop its equivalent in terms of game design, would it not be easier to seek funding for its 3D, current or next gen iteration? I am reminded of Introversion, creators of Up-link and Darwinia and soon to be released Defcon.

Finally, what of The Da Vinci Code, a game developed by Travellers Tales ... is this a marketing material of a product in its own right? Interestingly, TT also developed the Lego Star Wars for consoles ... I'm confident in assuming the video game had a positive effect on brand awareness of Lego and its construction based product line-up.