Modern Models . Indie Gaming’s path to riches and success

Indie gaming has certainly gotten attention as the next important step in gaming’s evolutionary process. Though while there is a virtual maelstrom of talent and ideas clashing and merging in the scene, the developers of such have yet to beget a method of supporting themselves on their endeavors. For many it is, rightfully, a thing of passion and commitment on which money is now a secondary consideration. And yet, there is growing insecurities that by giving out so many products for free, the scene itself is seen by the outside world as something akin to fan fiction – work by talented individuals that holds no profit potential and thus, limited growth in the long run.

The problem lies in getting big numbers out of a small scene. The systems that would work in the T.V. world with millions of fans wouldn’t be viable enough for indie developers. Whatever system becomes widely accepted will be so because it works for a multitude of platforms and genres and pays a developer – who may only have a few thousand fans – a livable wage. And would anybody mind if a Sports Locker commercial came on in between rounds of Soldat? Or after saving in Cave story?

Indie gaming must eventually become united under some form of central distribution method and price point. What would the movies be like if every movie costs a different price? Or if only Capcom games were available at EB, while Konami games were only available under Gamestop? It frustrates the consumer and cuts into the potential for the developer. The following list is hopeful attempt to document alternate ways for developers to market their game, aside from just selling it for a set price of course.

As “Today I die” and “I wish I were the moon” creator, Daniel Benmergui put it, “We are on the dangerous border of a forced business model change. So while we still can, we must figure out ways to make money that are not based on charging for software or slinging ads (at) our players. Not that I have an answer yet, though.”

And with that, the method Mr. Benmergui uses brings us to number one…

Sponsorships

The good . If it’s well enough for little league and alcoholics, it’s good enough for you. A sponsor can take the weight off of a developer either by giving free stuff, webspace or funding. In gaming, this usually dictates that the game will be exclusively (usually) playable on only the sponsors site. For “Today I Die”, Benmergui found a non-traditional sponsor which allows TID to be, according to Benmergui, “self-hosted in a quiet page, with no ads around it.”

But… Sponsors like the one for TID are the most common type in indie-gaming. A sponsor will rarely cover the entire costs of production, which, if they did, would include the cost of living for the developer during production – meaning: food, rent, utilities, internet, what have you. That high costs put supporting a game by anyone less than Pixel a huge risk. As it is though, a sponsor will usually just offer a small up-front payment and provide the ads around a game, making a majority of the game’s cost still the responsibility of the developer. To cap it off, a sponsor also limits the future revenue potential for a game, since future platform releases or direct ad placement now have to be negotiated between two parties.

Save our indies? Unlikely, unless larger supporters step up to the mound able to pay more to developers, or indies suddenly start becoming more in-demand than in-vogue. This would only save a small portion of developers from a day job, leaving undiscovered talent to rise the ranks as it currently does.

In-game advertisements

The good . The buzz word 31-years in the making, in-game advertisement has been widely discussed for the damage and benefits it offers the game industry. It first showed its controversial head in Scott Adam’s (ever the prankster) “Adventureland”. My first memory was with the original Jet Moto, which I blame for my life-long idealism for Mountain Dew and Butterfinger. Even now, as a healthy-eating twenty-something, I gaze at these items in the market and see the plastering of the brands on my hover-racers jacket. If there is any proof to the “get’em young” theory of marketing – I am it.

Younger still, I would have discovered IGA if I ever picked up one of the copies of “Zool” that KB Toys was stuffed with back in 1994 and its marketing tie-in with 1990′s candy craze Chupa Chups. Every kid in my school would have them at school and the teachers would give them out as prizes or gifts; their creamy ice-cream flavorings and later, sour soda making the mouths of children water back in the nineties. Hard to give credit for a phenomenon like Chupa Chups to a game like Zool, but with the amount of copies KB Toys had in the nineties, and the amount of systems it appeared on… who could judge? Oh, and according to Massive Inc via wikipedia.com, IGA generated $56 million in revenue in 2005, due to dynamic (time and audience-based) ads, but could grow up to as much as $1.8 billion in 2010.

But… With the amount of space shooters, platformers and generally surreal experiences in indies, most of those game worlds do not lend themselves to IGA, unless it’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek. And it’s hard to imagine Coke throwing money towards a pixel platformer when there are so many other, presently mainstream, avenues.

IGA also has few successful stories, and its mere presence seems to harm the experience instead of improve it. Remember navigating the large AXE body spray sign in “Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory” (what?). Ever pull a Coke can out of the ground in “Pikmin”? How fast did that send you back to reality? IGA seems to work best at destroying the immersion that gamers feel when playing a game, which is ironically the opposite from what developers say when deciding to use in-game advertisement. And when a game is old hat and outdated, that realism is pulled out from under it. When “The Matrix: Online” was in its twilight years, advertisers pulled out like it was the style, leaving players with miles of empty “advertise here” billboards that were both obnoxious and a sign of the game’s inevitable end.

Save our indies? In-game advertising is best left to sports simulators.

In-game commercials

The good . While there hasn’t been a game or technology that can input commercials into a game the same way that television does its shows, the benefits to a developer would be lucrative. Imagine a mix of google’s ad sense and a Hulu-like 30-second video break. The breaks could be on a per-game system, between levels, at save points, after dramatic points or remaining idle for too long. Whatever. The important thing would be to not break up gameplay mid-play, but during a time when players know that it is separated from actual gameplay, just like it is common knowledge that commercials are a necessary evil of television. This could also present developers with the option of selling a purchasable version or a free version supported by these ads.

But… With a Google ad-sense model (every click on an ad registering a micro-cent of profit for the website owner), developers would need a large audience to see a decent return. With a traditional t.v. method, aided by a company like Massive, advertisers would have to expect lower returns while a game develops momentum and also accept a lower audience than mainstream media. Over on newgrounds.com, user PsychoGoldfish invented the NG flash ad system which allws developers to put ads into their games (loading screens and such). The problem is that a user needs hundreds of thousands of ad clicks before it can make a profit. This puts the power in the advertisers instead of a clean split between both parties.

Save our indies? Potentially, but the scene would have to grow before this method is viable and long term.

Pay-to-play model

The good . “I (am considering) letting people purchase Action Fist for whatever they deemed it worth, Radiohead style,” said “Action Fist” developer Beau Blyth. It’s become a conversation mainstay when discussing online media and distribution and with many a good reason. When Radiohead used their high profile to dare fans into paying what they feel is appropriate for their music, they gave both hope and, depending who you are, fear to media producers and developers everywhere. Now we just call the act of letting fans choose their price, “The Radiohead model”. In its first week, Radiohead “sold” 1.2 million copies of their album “In Rainbows” to a total of nearly $10 million, give or take a few. “Free is good, but we all require money for food,” said Blyth. So far the donation method has already been adopted into the indie game scene, but not yet on the scale where we can expect it to be the standard transaction between fans and developers.

But… Actually, with reasonable expectations of worth, this method is one of the least painless to ask of fans that are used to getting their .exe’s for free. According to an essay published by Wired magazine founder and technologist Kevin Kelly entitled “1,000 True Fans” (something we’ll visit more later on), a small group of hardcore fans can support an artist with smaller donations. In the same way that Radiohead expected fan allegiance to donate something instead of nothing, indie developers can inspire the same level of allegiance, albeit on a lower scale. Even Benmergui, who doesn’t believe in charging fans for his work, will be working in a donation-based fee for his game compilation, “Moon Stories Pack” (a collection of all his free games plus some extra goodies), with the proceeds going to support the next game.

Save our indies? Very possibly. The next year will decide if “true fans” come to the rescue and if the habit of clicking that Paypal button in the top right will become something fans do out of honor, even years down the line.

Outside hosting

“Kongregate is a great site. It’s working toward a very community-focused kind of Flash gaming. The Flash world in general is, I think, the best place for a lone game developer to make money in the short term. You can make games on your own, without outside influence, and then make enough money through sponsorships and ad revenue to eat and have a place to sleep. Few Flash developers are getting rich off of their work, but a lot of us are making a living. One of the reasons for that is that Kongregate is just one of thousands of sites out there, and that means that it’s easy to reach a lot of eyes by spreading games as far and wide as possible. And people don’t have to pay a dime to play my games.” – “The majesty of Colors” dev. Gregory Weir

The good . The white knight of this method is independent site GameJolt, a new in-beta hosting site, that has agreed to give developers 50% of the revenue earned from hosting on their site. Hopefully they will stick to their word as an audience builds.

But… Benmergui makes no money over at Kongregate. In discussion and on his site he has noted that despite “I wish I were the moon” being one of the most popular games on the site, he has made $92. That comes from roughly 97,700 plays, those numbers are not going to save anything.

Save our indies? We need a more realistic system to account for a smaller audience, right now that might be GameJolt.

Microtransactions

The good . The bane of modern gaming, criticized for sucking extra dollars out of hard-working fans, micro-transactions undeniably works. One look at the 360 marketplace and you’ll see alternate costumes, levels, even new modes of play, up for sale. The answer is easy, people pay. It’s hard to find a mainstream release that doesn’t have micro-transactions pre-planned into its release. The new MMO “Knights of the Old Republic” is planning a virtual store and “The Sims 3″ is being propositioned as a micro-transaction hub. Last month, Business Week reported that Zynga, the company that makes those Facebook games, has made $100 million in micro-transactions. Granted that’s from 40 million plays a month, but we’re not really expecting $100 million a year for our games are we?

“A small group of enthusiastic players can spend a tremendous amount of money,” says Daniel James, CEO of game developer Three Rings in San Francisco in an interview to the Wall Street Journal. For its game “Puzzle Pirates“, Three Rings allows players to perform “micro-transactions,” purchases ranging from 20 cents to more than $100 for items such as a pair of boots or an estate for their character. Three Rings grossed more than $4 million last year and more than 75% of the sales came from these micro-transactions.

But… Micro-transactions are yet unproven in the indie game world with little to know examples of its worth. (I am not counting MMO’s.) Furthermore, many indies have short story archs when compared to their mainstream brethren. It would be risky to try and bank on micro-transactions to extend the life of a game, but stupid to make it required.

Save our indies? Potentially, but it would have to fit the right game/genre. MMO’s have proven it, but what about platformers and shmups?

Subscription

The good . According to a Wall Street Journal interview with “Jetpack Brontosaurus and “Off-Road Velociraptor Safari” developers Flashbang studios, the company has decided to start a subscriptions division for its fans. The games on the site will still be free to play, but converts to the subscription model will get news, bonus material and downloadable copies of its games. The company is leaning towards $20 for a six-month subscription. The company is hoping for 5,000 subscribers which will allow Flashbang to keep a staff of six and cover a $20,000 per month budget.

But… The subscription model divides indies from each other, a bad move from what is essentially a social and virtual scene. $20 For their subscription means $20 away from someone else’s work. Long-term subscriptions are also unlikely; after all, how many magazine subscriptions do you keep year after year? Plus with newspapers and magazines on hard times, subscriptions may prove fruitless in the long-term.

Save our indies? Another maybe. Subscriptions have fallen out of style, but a lower cost and a new market, along with lower expectations and a small, but necessary subscription rate might mean money and rent for the companies that do it correctly.

Donations

The good . Kickstarter.com is a start-up company that users sign up and petition for money, make a video or a rant and see if people bite. Basically you (developer) say “I need $3000 or I am not making this game” and people will decide if they indeed care or not.

But… It doesn’t really speak to the interests of a developer who wants to develop no matter what. It’s a long process as well. So far only one indie has graced the kickstarter site.

Save our indies? Fund our indies , yes, but the passion of a developer may be too ambitious to wait for approval.

Keep it free

The good . It works. “Money makes things complicated, so it’s just really nice [to know] how [many] good free games there are,” said 10800 Zombies developer Jan Willheim Nijman.

In many ways, indie developers aren’t expecting a lot, monetary-wise, and gamers are getting some of the most varied entertainment in the history of gaming, video or otherwise. The innovation and camaraderie in the scene is unheard of since the days of DIY music in the eighties, and developers are productive and centralized amongst a chosen few websites. By offering free games, developers are also showing the rest of the world that passion besieges profit and that money will come from doing good work first. Plus, when large studios go looking for staff, developers of indie games are in a good position to move into the next area of their career where they can expect substantially larger pay.

But… To really be considered a viable threat to mainstream gaming, and to be seen as a cohesive alternative, an industry-wide method of transaction between fans and developers must be accepted. Indies have done great so far, but should we continue down this path?

Save our indies? It’s definetly boastered an audience, but can it continue?

Bottom line

Of the 8 Seamus McNally award winners at this year’s Independent Games Festival, five were released for free online, one (Blueberry Garden) was unreleased and one – Cortex Command – was purchasable, but a less feature-heavy version is still available for free.

Sources

online.wsj.com/article/SB124094416078864595.html

indiegames.com/blog/2009/05/interview_kickstarters_chen_on.html#more

kickstarter.com/projects/793731304/farmlands-an-indie-game-project

pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/Zynga+news/news.asp?c=13028

online.wsj.com/article/SB124094416078864595.html

gamasutra.com/blogs/DariusKazemi/20090506/1333/An_Example_of_Indie_Game_Patronage.php

ludomancy.com/blog/page/2/

gamejolt.com
Photo Thanks
nwrecisf.un.com , dbking, happynews.com , radiohead.com , kartoen.be , usuallyalex.files.wordpress.com , thenakedscientists.com , stuartngbooks.com , 2bpblogspot.com , wiki commons

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