IDEA Colombia 3.0 Games Industry Keynote - September 2015

Tips and Tricks for Game Developers

A horrible title for a firehose of information

Sean Kauppinen - CEO– 20+ years experience in the

games industry• Sony Online, Ubisoft, 3dfx, bleem!,

Frogster, PlayFast, others• Advisor and Board Member• Angel Investor• 570+ titles

Obi-Wan Kenobi

The Studio

Focus, Quality, Reputation

Focus

Pick a genre and be the best you can be at it.

Focus

Make one game at a time if you can, but no more than your resources can handle.

It’s better to deliver quality on time than multiple titles that don’t represent your best work.

QUALITY

Quality

"If it isn't fun, get rid of it!" - Bruce Shelley

Quality

You are your own best critic.

If it doesn't look good to you, it probably won't look good to your publisher or client.

Quality

Play your game and know how it compares to the most popular games in the same genre and platform in the marketplace.

Does it stack up and play better or equal to competitors?

REPUTATION

Reputation

Try not to make enemies.

This industry is smaller than you think and everyone talks. If you get a reputation for being a jerk, nobody wants to deal with you, even if you have great ideas.

Reputation

You are your brand and you need to represent it how you want to be perceived.

Reputation

If you deliver quality games on time and on budget, there is a lot of work available.

OPERATIONS

Operations and Company Culture

Hire the best department leads you can find and ensure they are continually trained.


Strong, empowered middle management is a cornerstone of a mature, well-run studio.


Take time each month (or each week) for the team to talk about their successes and challenges.


Companies where the management listens to the staff and helps solve issues, while praising great work, tends to have much, much lower employee turnover.

DESIGN

Design

Be mindful of the scope of your game.

Design

Every additional character, archetype, level, world, weapon, spell, etc. adds additional time and cost for playtesting, balancing and QA.

Design

Build the game to the prototype and test the fun. If it isn’t fun, adjust the depth of the gameplay (deeper, lighter, harder, easier).

Design

If the game still isn’t fun, either kill it, or revisit your design assumptions.

Design

The team should be playing the game constantly to ensure it has the right feel. Remove any superfluous crap and polish the features that make it fun!

Design

My trick is playing every game in a genre and taking screenshots of systems I like as well as detailed notes on how things work. What works well, what doesn’t, etc.

Art

The internal Art Director is a key role. You want someone with flexibility in their style, but a strong sense of what players consider appealing.

Art

Find a great art outsourcing partner - if you can use the resources of another studio, they aren't on your payroll and this provides flexibility.

Art

A studio focused 100 percent on art is likely to have more depth and art talent than your studio.

Art

Sometimes art studios are willing to co-develop games where they handle that entire aspect on a revenue share, or manage by the lead production studio.

TECHNOLOGY

Technology

Don't build your own engine, it's a waste of time.

Technology

Have someone in charge of taking systems from each game and modularize them so they can be reused.

Technology

My Buy vs. Build Philosophy - the general rule is if some technology is the core focus of another company's business, they are probably going to have something better than you can build, and at a fraction of the cost.

Technology

The exception is in systems that charge per call, or per action (i.e Analytics).

Use these as long as they make business sense, but once you understand how they work and what customization you need, build your own if you have the resources!

PRODUCTION

Production

Estimating production tends to be done by the most senior developer. Pad the time they think a task takes by 50-60 percent in order to get a real estimate for a less experienced programmer.

Production

Track your team's hours and who builds what on each project (Marco may be the fastest at building achievements next time, because he did it last time).

Production

Understand release dates and production schedules are important to both your partners and your audience.

Production

(Unless you are an indie with another source of income) you don't have unlimited time to make your game. You are not Blizzard!

Production

The market will always change from when you start production to when you launch or ship.

Be prepared by building in an extra couple weeks or months from the start to add features that the market expects at launch.

Production

This could be the ability to capture video and live stream from your game or app, or some new mechanic that everyone is now in love with.

Be prepared for 10-12 SDKs to drop out of the sky into your lap!

Production

Understand that publishers and clients have marketing and other activities they plan around a launch.

These activities cost money and slipping can cause a lot of problems.

Business

Business

Unless you are an indie with another source of income, you should be asking: How are we going to make money?

Business

Ask this question early and often.

Business

This applies to your games…and your business!

Business

If you don't know how to yet, learn to read a P&L.

BUSINESS RISK

Mitigate Business Risk

If you are doing multiple titles, don't put all of your eggs in one basket - publishers and partners do go bankrupt too!

Mitigate Business Risk

Make sure you have an attorney look at your contracts so you have important things figured out in advance (like kill fees and breach)

Go to Patrick Sweeney’s talk tomorrow @9AM!

A Successful Work for Hire (WFH) Business

Working with Clients (WFH)

Since you likely aren’t sharing royalties and won’t own the creative IP, you should be able to make a margin of 20-30% minimum on your projects.


Successful WFH studios focus on building strong technology internally so they can build games faster and more profitably.


Treat your client like they are your only client in your communications.

Never say things like: “We can get to that feature after we finish work for our other client.”


Communicate often and send weekly or monthly sprint plans so the partner can track the status of production.


• Sometimes it’s ok to breakeven on a project and not make profit, but only if you are:

– Getting key experience that improves the studio– You are gaining knowledge from the partner that

is more valuable than the profit on the project– Trying to smooth over a tough situation with an

unhappy client. (Move on after the project)

WFH ACCOUNTING


Know your costs before you quote any rate!


Make sure you are accounting for the office, equipment, software licenses and administrative staff in your calculation.


Present multiple options or solutions to a problem, but support your recommendation or decision with as many proof points as possible.


Build in an extra 15-20 percent more time than you believe you need in order to deliver on time.

The market changes so quickly, we are always aiming for the future, and last month at the same time!

Working with Publishers and Clients

Mind the Gap

Understand the time that it takes to sign a publishing deal. It could take 4-8 months depending on when you are looking to sign something and when publishers are buying.

Mind the Gap

While you are working on your game, get ready for the next one.

Build a prototype early and iterate on it in parallel to your production.

Mind the Gap

Even indies can take a day on the weekend once a month to progress a new idea. It will likely help the creative flow with both game ideas.

PITCHING PUBLISHERS

Pitching to Publishers

You are likely going to need a vertical slice or a strong prototype if you are new to the industry, or haven't had much success yet.

Pitching to Publishers

This gets better. After about 3-4 games of sufficient quality, you can likely move to a paper pitch deck, unless the budget is over $500K USD

Pitching Costs to Partners

Don't pitch your hours or team in round numbers


An estimate divisible by 8 means you didn't really analyze the estimate and are giving days instead of hours.


An estimate divisible by 40 means you are estimating by the week. That can be taken as a sign that your production process is broken or you aren’t being honest.

The Game’s Done, Now What?

Launching Your Game

You need to plan your launch before the game is finished (preferably at the beginning of production. (I have a plan if you want it – [email protected]

Launching Your Game

Live streaming development actually gets people engaged in the game.

Launching Your Game

Build a beta test group of fans and players that give constructive feedback. (Steam, GooglePlay, HockeyApp and TestFlight are excellent platforms for this)

Launching Your Game

You can’t just stick it in the store and hope that people are going to find your game.

You actually do need to have a little money to do some kind of marketing, even if it’s for an internal resource to help post in forums and on social media.

If Indie - Build a Press Kit

• Use http://dopresskit.com/• You need:

– Some screenshots that show the game in action (preferably)

– 15 and 30 second trailers showing gameplay– Logos for the game and your company– A description and features list (if possible)

http://dopresskit.com/

IDEA Colombia 3.0 Games Industry Keynote - September 2015

Business

Transcript of IDEA Colombia 3.0 Games Industry Keynote - September 2015