The Computer Games Journal 2(3) Martinmas 2013
Editorial: rise early, work hard, strike oil, maximise your opportunity Written by Tony Maude Deputy Editor-in-Chief Address: The Computer Games Journal (further details available at: www.computergamesjournal.com)
According to the Anglo-American tycoon John Paul Getty the formula for success is simple; rise early, work hard, strike oil. It certainly worked for him; at one time he was the wealthiest private individual in the world. To put Getty’s formula in more general terms, success is a matter of being ahead of the competition (rise early), staying ahead of the competition (work hard) and having the right product at the right time (strike oil). I could add that success also depends on making the most of opportunity when it arises, which is part of working hard. How might this translate into a field such as Computer Games? Let us look at each of the steps in turn: 1: Rise Early Observed from the outside – I am neither a computer games producer, nor a ‘hardcore’ games player – the computer games industry is a fascinating hybrid. On one hand it is clearly a creative industry employing artists, designers, authors, story-tellers, musicians, composers and others. On the other hand the industry is also science-dependent, requiring a higher than average understanding of mathematics and physics, together with some fairly advanced language and logic skills. Finding and assembling groups of people with such a disparate range of skills, then keeping them together and committed to a project is no easy matter, but for a games producer it is essential. Being unable to do this guarantees failure, but how is it to be done? 2: Work Hard If gaining an advantage over the competition is difficult, keeping that advantage is not easy either. It seems that in a rapidly changing technological landscape, the only constant is change. You only need to consider the proliferation of different platforms on which games are now played and the resulting fragmentation of the computer games market to see this. Commit to the wrong technology, even if it might be inherently superior to the alternatives, and you could lose everything – Betamax video recorder, anybody? Assuming that you have a product that is doing well – we’ll come to that in a moment – you need to ensure that your product is made available to the greatest possible number of potential purchasers/users. This requires huge flexibility and adaptability. Whilst steps can be taken to make this easier, particularly at the programming stage of game development, it is no simple matter to achieve this aim, especially if – as is likely – you are also trying to develop the sequel to your game. Hard work is unavoidable if a games entrepreneur is to stand any chance of success.
Copyright of the author ©2013 Reproduction rights owned by The Computer Games Journal Ltd ©2013 www.computergamesjournal.com
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The Computer Games Journal 2(3) Martinmas 2013
3: Strike Oil No matter which way you look at it, computer gaming is a leisure activity and games and games consoles are luxury items. (Whether tablets, smart-phones etc. are luxuries or essential in modern society is a debatable point.) The western world continues to suffer the consequences of the 2008 financial crash. The cost of living continues to rise faster than incomes, and those in work find their leisure time increasingly squeezed by the demands of employers. Under such an economic climate, selling computer games becomes more and more difficult. Developers must produce the right game at the right time and market it in the right way, and the rewards can still be substantial, but is there any way of knowing what the right game will be at any moment in time? Who predicted the success of either Angry Birds™ or Candy Crush™? This is not a problem unique to the Computer Games industry; all creative industries from music to publishing, from film to fashion suffer from the unpredictability of their markets. There is no guaranteed way to predict how tastes will shift from one year to the next. What is huge today may sink without trace tomorrow. It is not easy to strike metaphorical oil. One way to increase the chance of striking oil is to be incredibly creative; to take risks with no guarantees of reward. Another American tycoon, John D. Rockefeller put it like this: “If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.” In other words, don’t copy what everyone else is doing; be original. But this demand for creativity and originality lies in tension with the final step that I believe is required to succeed, and it is to this that I turn now. 4: Maximise Your Opportunity When, as a result of rising early and working hard, you have struck oil, it is essential to make the most of your opportunity; to maximise the reward that you receive for your efforts. But how is this to be done? One way is to embark on the production of a number of sequels to your game. This is the Hollywood model – and it results in Shrek IITM, Shrek IIITM and Shrek IVTM, none of which is quite as enjoyable as the original film. In Computer Games it means Tomb RaiderTM is followed by Tomb Raider 2TM, in which Lara Croft bends over; Doom is followed by numerous clones and copies, Command and ConquerTM spawns a seemingly endless series of sequels etc. This model is appropriate for titles such as the FIFA franchise; football players move from club to club, develop new skills, and eventually decline and retire, but I wonder, how many first person shoot-‘em-ups the games market can readily absorb? And while this model is viable for large, established computer games companies (maybe even essential given the demands of shareholders and banks, and the need to try to maintain employment for the workforce), is it achievable or even appropriate to the typical small games company? A further challenge to this model is the shift away from a pay-to-play model of distribution towards a play-to-pay model. Many of the most successful games today are free-to-play, or at least available as low-cost apps. With this trend in the market, how is maximum monetization achievable? It is questions like these that are addressed by the papers in this edition of the Computer Games Journal, which focuses on issues surrounding entrepreneurship in the Computer Games industry. We hope you find it helpful.
Copyright of the author ©2013 Reproduction rights owned by The Computer Games Journal Ltd ©2013 www.computergamesjournal.com
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