More GTS09 talk notes - Self Publishing

Here are my notes from listening to another talk from GTS 2009 - this one called Publishing Your Game Yourself (mp3 link here)

The speakers are from Bucephalus Games:
- Anthony Gallela
- Dan Tibbles

Here are my notes:

Opening comments

• Very difficult to sell your own game
• Design, production, manufacturing are easy
• Selling is far harder than all of these
• Important to figure out who target audience is - there's a risk that the game is unsellable
• 75% of new games are essentially unsellable, or they don't sell through their print run

Designing a marketable product

• What's the key to your game?
• Theme?  If so, then the game must pursue the theme at the expense of all other parts
• Mechanics?  If so, then nothing else can get in the way
• Listen to testers - be willing to change the game - don't be too invested
• 1st 3,000 copies are sold based on appearance and artwork - NOT on theme or gameplay
• Shelf appeal is therefore key
• The box should reveal what the game is like - no surprises, no hidden stuff
• Refining a game is key - it often involves removal of features and rules, boiling it down to the central, pure elements
• Blind playtesting - very important; creates a much better rulebook
• Should you be in the room?
• Anthony says yes; your observations will let you see what assumptions they made when there were rules gaps or problems
• Some say no; reasons cited are that the players won't be honest
• Consult retailers and distributors - they are your initial direct customers
• GAMA has free focus groups at the conferences
• Talking to others is key

Selling to a publisher

• Very unlikely to happen
• Game design is easy; everybody has one, so they're cheap and readily available - it's the marketing and selling that's harder and much more expensive
• Game companies don't want to work with you
• They'll often prefer to work with in-house designs, or they're small, and are actually publishing the owner/operator's design
• The numbers for this happening are a fraction of a percent chance - a few games are printed out of thousands of submissions
• To do this, you'll need to do all the development ahead of time - the testing, the rules, the layout, the winnowing out of rules
• Might be worth doing, but expect rejection
• If you're going to do it, look hard for submission guidelines, and then follow them
• Show them a good prototype - they can imagine it better, but you need to make it look good, and make it look how you want it to
• Royalties - no advance, probably 3-10%, average of 5%
• Make sure you retain rights, and you get the rights back after 18-24 months out of print
• 3,000 to 5,000 copies is a good run in the hobby market

Self-publishing

• Don't publish with money you can't lose all of
• Don't start with a big print run - go with 3,000 max
• You'll always find flaws
• You're probably blowing your money
• Maybe 30% of games can sell 3000 copies
• Maybe 2% of games can sell 5000 copies
• Nearly nobody sells more than that on a first game
• There are 1,000 new games published every year - most of them don't get much distribution, don't get sold
• Companies are usually willing to share their sources for production in Asia
• Designers are often blind to flaws - missing words, missing typos, etc.

[Dan Echoed a bunch of the China sourcing talk here]

Distribution

• Game stores nearly always buy from distributors - there are only a few of these
• Toy stores don't use distributors - instead, they'll order directly or from sales reps
• GAMA is a good way to meet up with distributors
• Reps might also be an option if you can interest them
• Market is multi-level
• Distributor
• Retailer
• Customer
• You should talk to each of these folks to gauge marketability
• Alliance would be a good source to talk to; building a relationship with them (and listening to their feedback) is very useful, since they're so big

Post-Talk Q&A Session

• Majority of new game companies fail - 90% of them fail
• Breaking even is success
• Art costs - can be a couple thousand dollars even for simple games
• Might be worth it, but only if you're definitely self-publishing, and even then probably not
• Art schools, commissions are ways around the costs
• Why do game companies fail? 
• It takes lots of work, and you may not be able or willing to put in that effort
• Unreasonable expectations
• Very limited return, and gets frustrating on all the work
• Lack of preparation - getting the design, production, or marketing wrong
• Patents are silly
• Game designs are very difficult to steal, and also very difficult to protect
• Stealing isn't worth it
• Ideas are duplicated

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This was also good stuff - not quite as new to me or as insider-y as the Chinese manufacturing talk, but good to hear lots of my suspicions and intuitions confirmed.