Chapter 3.0: Introduction

You have built a solid company, with an impressive business plan that has seduced investors and allowed you to secure enough private financing to develop your first game? Or maybe you have created a spectacular demo and are ready to show it to publishers? Or have you completed a project and decided to sell it online yourselves? Good; you have taken the first step toward success. Now comes the most difficult part of the operation: taking the game to market.

The game publishing market is highly concentrated, with only a few dozen large publishers accounting for the overwhelming majority of sales, and getting more so every year. Retailers have limited shelf space, and will only open it to games they perceive to have reasonable expectations of success. Players get bombarded with information about new games every day; how will you make sure that yours is the one they remember?

Most developers' marketing effort is essentially limited to what is needed to obtain a publishing contract. For self-publishers, the job expands to public relations, customer service, and maybe even direct sales. How do you go about ensuring that your company signs with a publisher at advantageous terms, or that your downloadable game emerges from the masses of its competitors to become a cash cow for years to come? The articles in this section of the book describe how to optimize your marketing effort, whatever the strategy you choose:

• Beverly Cambron, president of game public relations firm Rocco Media, explains how to build good relations with the gaming press and use them to improve your title's notoriety.

• Ed Bartlett, director of development at UK-based developer The Bitmap Brothers, describes how to secure a contract with a publisher.

• Borut Pfeifer, co-founder of independent developer White Knuckle Games, explains the pros and cons of hiring an agent to represent your company in negotiations with publishers.

• Game industry attorney and independent developer Thomas Buscaglia examines the clauses found in typical development contracts, and explains how to negotiate deals that protect your interests.

• Game agent Jay Powell studies the respective advantages of global and territorial publishing deals.

• And finally, Mason McCuskey, president of independent developer Spin Studios, explains how self-publishers can optimize the online sales of their own games.