Steve Meretzky and Dave Rohrl at Casual Connect Seattle 2012

The combined industry knowledge residing in the heads of veterans like Steve Meretzky, Dave Rohrl, and Juan Gril is impressive, but at GDC’s Free-to-Play Summit, Steve put a big question mark over the value of it all with the repeated message: “Nobody knows anything!”

Meretzky used the quote from Screenwriter William Goldman’s book Adventures in the Screen Trade to summarize why conventional wisdom is frequently proven wrong, and conclusions derived from past experience are not necessarily predictive. He pointed towards industry pundits’ flip-flopping on the viability of Hidden Object Games (“HOG”s) in Free-to-Play as proof and asked the audience, “Were the experts right before they were wrong, or wrong before they were right?”

Criminal Case on Facebook is an example of the viability of Hidden Object Games in Free-to-Play

Joined onstage by Dave Rohrl, his partner in crime for the popular and evergreen “Social Games Year in Review” presentation, Steve and Dave mixed up the program in a few other ways as well. Instead of focusing tightly on the Social Games market (e.g. – Facebook), which Dave compared to Donald Trump: “Older, established, and there’s definitely some money there, but every so often behaves…well…odd.”, the duo expanded their subject matter to include Free-to-Play game services generally, with a focus on Facebook, iOS, and Android. Further, explained Rohrl, “Like the Thompson Twins and the Ben Folds Five…our group now has THREE members.”  For the first time, the established duo invited another speaker to join the fun; Online game industry veteran Juan Gril, Founder & CEO of Joju Games.

Juan Gril

Even fully warned that “nobody knows anything,” it’s hard to discount the trends and observations presented by three long-time game industry veterans, supported by hard data from the Casual Games Sector Reports on Social, Mobile, Fremium, and Casino games (presented by the Casual Games Association and Superdata).  Some key observations included the relatively low success rate for Free-to-Play “sequels” (Meretzky), the power of collection and crafting game mechanics contributing to the success of the online CCG (Gril), and an interesting analysis of the relative stagnation of the Facebook top developers list vs. the iOS and Android lists, with a warning to devs that the mobile game market is congealing, so it’s time to get in or out (Rohrl). Rohrl also pointed out that success in Free-to-Play is neither easy nor fast, and often is as much about perseverance as any other factor, citing multiple early failures by both King.com and Supercell before they finally achieved substantial success.

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As always, Steve and Dave, and now Juan, presented a well-reasoned, well-supported, and insightful look into the evolution of Free-to-Play games in 2013.  Steve may believe that “Nobody Knows Anything”, but checking out their past “Year in Review” presentations from Casual Connect you’ll see that for guys who don’t know anything – they get it right more often than not.

Steve and Dave presented their 2012 Social Games Year in Review at Casual Connect Seattle 2012:

From the perspective of console manufacturers, it must seem the largest threat to their primordial dominance of the Console Age are the tiniest of devices spreading faster than the “Harlem Shake”. Research from PlayScience being published by the Casual Games Association later this month (sign up to get your free copy) indicates children are fast adopting parent’s handheld devices as their preferred play device, and now the OUYA (and it’s competitor, GameStick – see a charming lecture from PlayJam CEO Jasper Smith) potentially takes another bite from the overall console games market. Even the mainstream press is picking up on the potential demise of “Big Console” despite millions spent each year on PR to suggest otherwise.

Even before launch, we’ve seen developers loving the OUYA platform. At the Indie Showcase at Casual Connect Europe this year, we happened upon a glowing OUYA box complete with a fun game named STALAGFLIGHT developed at the Nordic Game Jam.

Ready, set, go!

The long 9 month wait is over with Julie Uhrman’s announcement that games uploaded to OUYA, starting today, will be available on OUYA when consoles start to ship out on March 28th.

OUYA will select from the top games, uploaded before March 28th, to feature in a series of short documentaries about the game, the developer, and the story about making the game. These videos will be part of OUYA launch marketing campaigns starting in June. Since free promotion and distribution is pretty hard to come by these days, you better get going if you want to take advantage of a considerable head start in the mini-console market.

OUYA was created in 2012 by Julie Uhrman, a video game industry veteran who saw an opportunity to open up the last closed game platform — the TV. Julie and an initial team of game developers and advisors brought the concept to life, with the help of Yves Behar and fuseproject, and took OUYA to Kickstarter in July of 2012. It became one of the most successful Kickstarter projects ever, with tens of thousands of backers pledging to help bring OUYA to life. OUYA’s first consoles are planned to ship March 28th.

In case you missed it, more about the beginnings of OUYA directly from Julie this past summer at the IGDA Summit at Casual Connect:

The GameStick easily meets the goal of portability by combining neatly with the controller, making a single convenient unit that can fit into a pocket.  When it is plugged into the TV, the excitement of big screen play is immediately available.

The GameStick runs Android’s Jellybean OS and is powered by Amlogic’s 8726-MX processor.  The GameStick team’s testing showed this processor is fully capable of running any  Android game, however demanding.  The processor was chosen for its energy efficient dual-core cortex A9 CPU with dual-core Mali 400 GPU.  Jasper Smith, the CEO of PlayJam, says, “We wanted to push the boundaries of what has been achieved up to now in terms of packing sufficient power into the most portable of devices, enabling users to carry that experience with them wherever they go.”

Smith says that PlayJam hopes to see an industry-wide collaborative approach to developing an open ecosystem for TV games, and sees GameStick as an important step toward this goal of accessibility.  PlayJam is offering its underlying platform, UI, content and expertise to hardware manufacturers in order to accelerate the development of this open ecosystem.

Currently, the GameStick team is at closed Beta stage of development, with working prototypes being tested.  The product is almost ready and preferred manufacturers are in place.  The product will be feature a game store where users can browse and download content, and will be powered by PlayJam’s existing Games Network for Smart TV.  GameStick has already gained support from other games developers and will be launching with many outstanding titles.

PlayJam is now reaching out to others who are also passionate about the changes they see coming to the industry, through using Kickstarter as the funding platform to take GameStick in to full production.  They hope to raise a minimum of $100,000, but supporters can become involved by pledging as little as $10.

Smith emphasizes that PlayJam wants to shake up the usual route to TV gaming through the traditional console.  He says, “GameStick gives thousands of Android developers out there the chance to bring an affordable big-screen gaming experience to their fans.  What’s more, we wanted to do this via a unique, highly portable device that will enable pure social gaming – by that we mean people sharing a great experience in the same room!”

PlayJam is the premier global platform for casual and social games on TV.  They partner with all major TV brands to create the largest games network for players around the world.  The PlayJam platform provides developers with a fast way to enhance and monetize games on Smart TV.  The PlayJam Network is a global games publishing platform for Smart TV games and is integrated with all leading Smart TV brands.  PlayJam has offices in San Francisco, London, Seoul and Krakow.

Gamestick Update

Playjam launched the Kickstarter program January 2.  They reached their funding goal in only 30 hours!  However, there are still opportunities to pledge and become a backer.

Playjam has been working on this project for a little over a year, and the excitement mounts, as the final pre-production sample is 90% completed.  The Gamestick now works with any Bluetooth controller that supports HD.  Their own Bluetooth controller is in the final design stage, with PCB development taking place with their Chinese engineering and manufacturing partners.

Prototype testing begins January 13.  Pre-production planning will begin with the Korean hardware R & D partner, and the initial production run of 100 is planned to begin, using the Chinese production partners, February 13.  March 13 is when the first commercial production run is planned, with fulfilment to the customer expected April 13.

Current Issues

Throughout her time in the industry, Edwards has noticed several challenges the community has faced, from within the community as well as outside it. It is a lot to manage, but Edwards believes the rapid evolution of the industry is a particular issue which needs attention. The tricky economics of game development can be difficult to deal with, having a direct impact on the community. Mercurial audience demands also make it difficult to keep ahead. When a company does not evolve fast enough, this can lead to cutbacks, or in the worst case, layoffs. “The dynamic nature of the consumer market and the industry demands that both development companies and individual employees remain very agile,” says Edwards. She doesn’t see a short-term resolution to this problem, but she also feels that this constant change is part of the excitement.

Another issue Edwards feels needs addressing is workplace diversity. Management and HR circles will mention it, and the media highlights it on occasion, but Edwards feels it is important that this be decided by the individuals of a company. They have to choose for themselves what type of industry they want to work in. “As the global gamer population continues to become very richly diverse across geographies cultures, languages, genders, ethnicities, and so on, those who create games need to accept the fact that this is the world in which we live,” says Edwards. “When embraced, such differences can be leveraged as a powerful creative and economic force.” She believes resolving this issue is going to be a long-term cultural change. It may not go away completely, but it can lessen through a developer’s individual actions.

Importance of IGDA

Having been involved with the IGDA for a number of years, Edwards has been in a position to see what IGDA has been able to do for developers. Completely dedicated to game developers and their needs, IGDA has volunteer-run chapters around the world and expands the global effort of game development. While involved in the Localization SIG, Edwards witness the connection of like-minded professionals in localization and globalization issues. It broadened her understanding of those issues as well as her connection to professionals outside her expertise. One of her greatest memories of IGDA was the first time the Localization SIG conducted its annual meeting at GDC in San Francisco. “We had an awesome turnout and people were so eager and ready to engage, and the meeting lasted far longer than expected because of all the networking and collaboration discussions,” she recalls. The eagerness to be involved was astounding to Edwards. As the creator of the Localization SIG, she was amazed to witness the enthusiasm in the group. Throughout her time at IGDA, Edwards found IGDA to be indispensable for making connections in the game development community.

Kate Edwards at Game Developers Conference 2012

According to Edwards, IGDA initiatives take place on two levels: key organization initiatives and the pursuit of advocacy on a wide range of issues. However, there are three key initiatives she is most passionate about currently:

• Employment Contract Review process (currently in development) – IGDA identified 10 key areas for evaluation in an employment contract so a developer can understand the document they are signing. This process will also provide information to the company in the form of an assessment of their contracts through a game developer’s perspective.

• Changing the perception that IGDA is a mostly-US entity – Due to the large US membership, many non-members are under the misguided perception that the IGDA is a largely-US entity. Edwards wants to change that idea, since the organization is a global entity.

• Changing the perception that IGDA is meant for large studio-based developers – There has been a recent rise of successful indie developers, but many non-members believe that the IGDA is not available to any developers other than studio-based developers. Edwards wants to emphasize the face that the IGDA exists for all developers.

Moving Forward

Kate at IGDA Summit 2012

As enthusiastic as Edwards is about her work as a geographer and culturalization consultant, she is just as enthusiastic about the IGDA. Because of this, she has stepped into the role of Executive Director. “As my involvement in the organization expanded over the years, I came to know so many outstanding, brilliant people who give so much of their time and effort to push things forward for the greater good of all developers,” says Edwards.

“That level of dedication is something I not only wanted to be a part of as a member, but compelled me to do more to help to cause. “ She believes her experience working side by side with every function on a game will help her in her new role. When asked what she now hopes to accomplish, she provided the following four goals:

“1. Reemphasize the “I” in IGDA: The perception of the organization needs to change. The IGDA is not a U.S.-based organization that happens to be in other countries; we are an international organization that happens to have a large U.S. membership. I’d like to improve our inclusion of people, best practices and creativity from all chapters worldwide by better managing the communication and execution of ideas to and from IGDA leadership. This starts with providing better access between my role and the membership.

2. Reassert the IGDA’s relevance: The IGDA will be more proactive and visionary as a force in our industry. We will reassert a thought leadership position for issues affecting game developers and to achieve this, I will rely on our vast SIG-based expertise on key topics.

3. Reiterate the IGDA’s value proposition: I hope to demonstrate the value of our membership through stronger partnerships and incentives internationally, nationally and locally; an IGDA membership should benefit members at any level, from those in major studios to indie developers.

4. Reinforce the IGDA as a professional collaboration: I’d like to see a membership of incredible volunteers being even more proactive to engage and feeling empowered to act on their initiatives. Our mutual respect for one another – regardless of our genders, ages, nationalities and so forth – needs to be an example to those who play our games.”

As developers jump ship from jobs as game designers, producers, and developers at large game and film companies to start their own gaming startups, the competition for funding, partnerships and publishing deals are fierce. Accelerators, such as YetiZen’s Get-In-The-Game Competition are one way for developers to get their foot in the door.

Having five minutes to pitch their concept (followed by four minutes of Q&A), this year’s winning startup was determined by a team of four judges.  Joining Sana Choudary, YetiZen’s CEO, at the judging table was Michael Chang, the current Senior Director of Corporate Development at Electronic Arts; Suleman Ali, the cofounder of TinyCo; and Harry Liu, the current head of three incredibly successful games at Kabam – The Godfather: Five Families, EdgeWorld, and Final Eden.

The five competitors were Press Start Studios, Stomp, Popover, RunWilder, and Strange Loop. Each of five finalist startups were judged on the innovation, the clarity of their business model, their businesses exit plans, and the potential for success (such as current revenues, installs, or industry acclaim).

Scalable gaming startups

An important aspect that all the judges were looking for is what Choudary describes as “scalable gaming startups rather than lifestyle gaming businesses.”

The reason for this is that, as Choudary illuminates, a “lifestyle gaming business would be a team that wants to keep making games perpetually. They just love making games, they want to keep making games forever and ever as a cash flow and revenue business, without any interest in ever exiting for a higher than revenue multiple through being bought out by another larger company or in some cases an IPO. Lifestyle gaming businesses are not the ones investors or YetiZen Accelerator works with as there is no opportunity a return on the investment.”

Though all of the competitors presented carefully planned and executed startups, RunWilder was the winner of the third Get-in-the-Game Competition.

Characters Born on Mobile

With the conceptual foundation of RunWilder’s company being “Characters Born on Mobile,” it was committed to establishing a franchise that would not only do well on casual gaming platforms, but could also easily expand to other forms of media.  Additionally, due to RunWilder already having found success with a beer-drinking and burger-eating character named Ozgood, Choudary observed that RunWilder had established “a character-driven IP, a lovable gaming character that you interact with as he goes about his world. Ozgood easily lends himself to many fascinating and interesting story narratives and is different from anything else we’ve seen out there.”

“Ozgood easily lends himself to many fascinating and interesting story narratives and is different from anything else we’ve seen out there.”

Choudary notes that despite the judges not seeing all of RunWilder’s ideas as potentially viable, it was obvious that the “the team itself was very committed and sharp” and had definitely thought about “building a social mobile brand rather than just a stand-alone game.”

In addition to having solid business plans for their games, they had a clearly distinct visual style that could easily draw and keep an audience’s attention.  As Choudary stated, “when you look at [RunWilder’s] artwork and design, they actually have [a] very high level of motion graphics integration that intertwines illusion and reality seamlessly, so when you give Ozgood beer and he starts going crazy, he looks very lifelike and hilarious at the same time.”

RunWilder’s victory in this year’s competition is a significant step forward, but it is important to highlight that in the competitive field of casual gaming, there is always more work to do.  As Choudary made clear, “RunWilder was chosen as they have the most unique IP from all the finalists and applicants. The animations and story line are unparalleled to those of avatar-based startup IPs we have seen.”

Winning Is Just The Beginning

However, this opportunity does not mean they’ve won the lottery, they still have a little bit of a way to go. As Choudary explains, Runwilder has entered “YetiZen’s due diligence process and are being assessed for their business and strategy viability. If they pass our due diligence phase they will be admitted into the March 2013 round. Do wish them luck!”

For RunWilder, this “due diligence process” means that they will be more closely examined on multiple areas such as team, overall execution and progress post to gauge the company’s future prospects.  If YetiZen’s previous success stories are any indication, it seems that they have a great future ahead of them if they pass YetiZen’s due diligence and are accepted in the March 2013 round.

About Yetizen’s Get-in-the-Game Competition

The Get-in-the-Game Competition is a life-changing opportunity for gaming entrepreneurs because it gives up-and-coming game creators the chance to present their ideas to notable game industry CEOs and investors to help fundraising and business development efforts.

The only games-focused accelerator in existence, YetiZen focuses on helping post-product and traction gaming startups strengthen their marketing, distribution, monetization and overall company strategy while connecting them with the largest network early stage investors, Venture Capitalists and strategic investors and acquirers committed to games.

Designed around a four-pillar system, this system has already produced a significant number of successful startups—examples include Bleacher League, a play by play sports betting app that has an exclusive partnership with Comcast Sports; Spyra Games, a mobile gaming studio that achieved top 10 in US strategy games; and Frenzoo, creator specializing in creating 3D lifestyle and fashion games for women whose last game Style Me girl had 1M downloads in 10 days after launch and reached #1 RPG in the US and over 20 countries on iOS, as well as #1 overall game on Kindle Fire.

This year, Casual Connect Seattle had the opportunity to host YetiZen’s third Get-in-the-Game Competition, and Casual Connect followed up about this year’s competition with YetiZen’s CEO, Sana Choudary.

According to Choudary, YetiZen has always enjoyed Casual Connect for the content as well as the opportunity to connect with the best developers in the industry. YetiZen had been looking for an opportunity to work with the Casual Gaming Association and observed that a competition at Casual Connect Seattle would be a great opportunity for YetiZen to streamline its efforts to look for the best gaming startups at Casual Connect. In addition to wanting to gain a better understanding of causal gamers, YetiZen also used this opportunity to have their Get-in-the-Game event at this year’s convention in Seattle.

A new way to connect with friends on your mobile game has just been launched in the beta form of Everyplay® by Applifier. This free  mobile network allows players to record, replay and share videos of your game replays. It takes community-building to a whole new level with the ability to share what you love with your friends and family. For developers, this is a powerful tool to assist in reach, engagement, and enhancement of the mobile gaming experience. The beta launch was announced at the Unite 2012 conference, hosted by Unity Technologies in Amsterdam this week by Jussi Laakkonen, CEO and Founder of Applifier.

“Word-of-mouth is the most powerful tool for mobile app discovery. Everyplay makes those ‘hey, you got to try this app’ moments shareable by letting users share their own awesome, funny and outrageous gameplay experiences through videos with friends. Mobile phones are the most personal gaming devices ever, and we want to make mobile games just as personal with action replays and video messaging between players,” said Laakkonen.

Jussi Laakkonen is always looking at new ways to experience games. At the IGDA Summit held in conjunction with Casual Connect Seattle 2012, Laakkonen spoke in a panel about ways gamers can get games. With this iOS release, Laakkonen opens the gate for small and medium developers to have a fighting chance in the market.

With Everyplay®, players can discover new games through their favorite source: friends and family. By recording, replaying, and sharing videos instantly, Everyplay’s® social video network creates a more personal gaming experience with deeper connections to other players. Players can choose to work together or get revenge based on the shared video. For developers, this can mean a free way to present their game to possible fans.

Applifier was created with the mission to rise above the user acquisition competition with new methods of cross-promotion. It operates the world’s largest cross-promotion network for social games, promoting games and applications to over 150 million monthly active users on Facebook, web, and mobile. It is also operates Impact, a video advertising platform for games. Applifier is always working on new ways to benefit developers.

To learn more or sign up for the Everyplay® beta, visit www.everyplay.com

It’s one thing to own a successful brand. It’s a different thing entirely to be able to successfully leverage that brand across multiple different products and media. I spoke with Christian Meyer, Senior Vice President and General Manager of GSN.com, about how he was able to pull it off and where he was planning to go from here.

How were you able to successfully leverage your television brands across the digital sector?

Well, a lot of time is spent in activating a brand strategy where we license a third party brand, like Wheel of Fortune or Deal or No Deal or Family Feud for example, and ideally, they have both an acquisition value and a retention value. We’ve been pretty lucky in that regard. Sometimes you’ll get a branded IP that has a great acquisition value, but the conversion value as a casual game or any kind of game experience for that matter is a bit of a long shot. You end up with an under-leveraged investment because you spend a lot in licensing.

And you don’t make anything off of it?

You potentially don’t make anything off of it, yeah. But we as a company have an understanding that if we can acquire based on the brand IP and then migrate those consumers to a higher retention experience, then that works pretty well too. But certainly the home run is when you establish a great relationship with a brand and you can unlock the acquisition value of that brand as well as the retention value. Then you have the makings of something huge.

Which of your IPs demonstrated this investment strategy most successfully?

Wheel of Fortune is definitely the stand-out. It’s been the number one syndicated brand for probably thirty-five years. It amazes me still that it has such longevity, and that can be traced back to its accessibility. The brand does a lot of work. It acquires well, consumers love the game, and they can also envision themselves competing in it. You get this trifecta of properties that make it a very powerful asset.

You guys have been doing some interesting things with leaderboards in your games. Any plans to integrate them into the television show itself?

We’ve done a lot of research and development around cross platform play between the television and the web specifically. And we’re starting to do a bit more on mobile. Absolutely to your point. Consumers want to participate. Technology has been a little behind consumer desire in terms of allowing us to create something simple and compelling, but we’ll get there.

More people have played FrontierVille than all of Brian Reynolds‘ previous games combined.  The man known for his work on Civilization II, Alpha Centauri, and Rise of Nations, has been with social-game publisher Zynga for a year-and-a-half, which is a long time in social games, he jokes.

Speaking at a keynote for GDC Online, Reynolds told mused that “Probably more people have played FarmVille than any other game, at least on a computer.  And that’s kind of cool.”

Not everyone wants to work on social-network games, but Reynolds responds by citing their increasing complexity.  “The games are getting more interesting, and more fun to work on.”  The days of a one-mechanic based game, or two-mechanic based game are over, he says.

“FrontierVille was kind of an experiment,” continues Reynolds, adding that he was lucky that a game he made previously happened to be the only videogame that Zynga’s chief executive officer had ever liked.  So he took his design skills, and set to work.

The goals were simple.  “We wanted to try another farming game, because FarmVille was the largest thing ever,” Reynolds recalls.  They settled on the FrontierVille, because it has the Wild West for males, and has the Little House on the Prairie for females.  “We weren’t trying to launch out into some radical direction.”

“You’ve heard of waterfall as a way of managing people, and agile…what we use is JSIRSO,” says a smiling Reynolds.  And that means, “jamming stuff in, and ripping shit out.”

The worst example of JSIRSO, says Reynolds, was Frontier Jack.  The developers created the character who’s first appearance was just a tutorial.  But he took on a life of his own.  “We started talking like him around the office,” Reynolds says in his best Frontier Jack accent.  It got the team into the mood.  It also showed them the importance of characters. “It all came from this original idea that we jammed in, in a panic, to finish a tutorial for a user-session.”
Then came the idea of adding quests.  “This was a desperate attempt to make our tutorial not suck.”  Reynolds says you can’t put people on a rail for twenty-five clicks in a row.  “Once we put it in, we found you can make stories with quests.  Because the players want to know what happens next.  You can make them pay to find out what happens at the end of the story.  You can make them come back the next day to find out what happens.”

Suddenly, they had a mechanic best-suited to classical game developers.  “We know how to make story, we know how to write.”  Most of what the team did was taking classic gameplay mechanics and adding them to a social game.  Quests, he says, existed before FarmVille.  And they were fun. But it takes a game designer to bring them into social-network games.

According to Reynolds, here’s what game designers bring to social:

• Balance game systems
• Write good stories and text
• Deep game design that plays easily
• Know how to solve game problems
• Know the difference between fun and spam
• Ability to adapt game design patterns in new ways

“It turns out that fun monetizes well,” Reynolds declares.  Social game makers think a good game design will retail players, and keep them in a retention box — but Reynolds says it’s the parts of games that are designed by game designers that monetize well.  “The measure of a good design is revenue.”

“Game designers are able to design virtual goods people want to buy,” states Reynolds.  “If you want to get your revenues up, create virtual goods people want to buy.”  He continues by stressing: “We’re in the entertainment industry.”

In order to entertain, Reynolds advises the social network designer to start with a mass-market concept.  “If most of my friends aren’t interested in space aliens, then the social element will never roll for you.”

He also advises developers to “get it running right away.  These games are getting longer and longer to make.  We’re already seeing the ramp.  I’m sure we’ll see social games that take longer than a year.”  But, warns Reynolds, “A bad launch will kill you.”  And that’s because the first people to play are the most engaged, most likely to send viral updates, most likely to buy items.  He encourages developers to ship in top form, warning “You don’t get a second chance  — you must make sure that whatever you’re going to put out is fantastic.”

Reynolds sees this new era of social-network games as a golden one for the classical game designer.  “It’s like going back to 1980, knowing what you know now.”  He concludes, “All of the things we want in AAA games are in here.  We’re just talking to people we haven’t talked to before.”

Step 2: People should have a clear view on what to expect from the game. “Who does the player represent? What will the player be doing? How does the player measure success or failure? What are the first fifteen minutes to be like? They may be critical for acceptance.
With Age of Empires, people were enjoying themselves and wanted to know. The Wallstreet Journal reviewed the game and referenced to it as ‘digital cocaine’.

Step 3: Your game is great, because? “Get engaging compelling gameplay,” Shelley suggests. He referred to how Sid Meier sees games as a series of interesting decisions. “In your game concept, what are the interesting things that the player will do?”

Step 4: Make a competitor analysis. According to Shelley, more than 53 Strategy games were being developed during the first Age of Empires. Because most of them featured fantasy and sci-fi settings, Shelley explained Age of Empries stood out because “we were the only ones doing a history themed game.”

Step 5: The business case. “We’re making commercial art, not fine art,” Shelley reminded his audience. ”Repeat how your game is comparable and recognizable, but different, innovative, and a good value,” he suggests. “Show sales figures from competing games to support your case.” According to Shelley, the addition of an own marketing plan, though unusual to be made by game developers, shows potential publishers that you are devoted to the project. He also recommends developers to think of how to create a brand, opportunities for sequels or expansions, multi-platform deals, expanding upon another existing brand or any online functionalities. “Place your game into a larger strategy,” Shelley emphasized.