[casual_games] Business Models

Wed Aug 31 20:11:11 EDT 2005

Hi Mal,

Typically a game production company (or toy company -- or any licensee for
that matter using your ip)  will come in when either the show is definitely
going to run, or it is running and its a huge success.  The goal is to
leverage the brand recognition to take risk out of the production, which is
unfortunately fleeting in the feature film space, and perhaps short lived on
TV, so it can be risky -- and you will find few takers.  Often toys and
games are developed first, and TV shows produced to support the toy launch
(such as Rescue Heroes, Max Steele and others).

Kevin Richardson

  -----Original Message-----
  From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
[mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]On Behalf Of Mal Cumpston
  Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 5:00 PM
  To: wade at largeanimal.com; IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
  Subject: RE: [casual_games] Business Models

  G'day everyone.

  I apologise if this is the wrong environment in which to post this, but it
seemed right.

  My name is Mal Cumpston, and I represent Inventive Entertainment
(www.inventive-entertainment.com), an Australian television production
company specialising in high concept sci-fi and fantasy products.

  Right now we’re at the “boot strapping” stage of start up, having
collected the IP for products, we’ve built our prototype (a short film
length trailer of one of the products) and are positioning ourselves for an
approach to Sci-Fi Channel in the US, with scripts, TV Concept Documents and
all such.

  My fellow directors are very focussed on putting everything in place for
making the TV shows.  I’m pushing REALLY hard on the marketing front with
everything from music to computer games, but I don’t know much at all about
how the computer game world works.

  I THINK maybe that the involvement of game developers should be early,
when we do our “animatic” for the episodes so that the game developers can
use all the CGI stuff we’re using to build into the game, and even
incorporate the same music from the tv show and beyond.

  You’re all talking about the business models for building games.  I’m
trying to build a document that describes how we’d make the computer game a
reality as an integrated part of our tv production process.  I’d really like
to talk to someone about how this might work.  I know there’s on-line
gaming, and that’s presumably different to other kinds of gaming
can you
tell yet that I have a LOT to learn?

  I’ve got ideas on how the “deal” might be constructed, but I don’t know if
there are already existing standards in place
 in fact I have a lot of
questions.

  Is anyone able to comment?

  Thanks.

  Mal

  Mal Cumpston

  Director

  Inventive Entertainment

  mal at inventive-entertainment.com

  Wade Tinney <wade at largeanimal.com> wrote:

    Hi Brent-

    I see other developers as competitors only in the weakest sense of the
word. Perhaps in the same way that one musical group *might* see other
groups as competition for the ears and music budget (which is to say, piracy
time) of a particular demographic. Frankly, I don't think many music groups
think like this and I don't see why developers in this space should either.
Obviously, there are limits to what can be shared, but generally speaking, I
think we all benefit from sharing information. In fact, that is really an
the central purpose of the IGDA and therefore this group.

    As for the business model question, my company spent 4 years doing
contract development of web-based promotional games for consumer brands. We
built a dozen games a year, on average, honing our production process and
socking away dollars to spend on internally funded projects. We've never
received, or sought, any type of external investment. Using that strategy,
we were able to fund (and find the time for) about 1 downloadable game per
year. As of about a year ago, we are no longer doing straight work-for-hire
work; all of our projects are partnerships in which we share the revenues
from the game in an on-going way. There are two reasons why we were able to
switch over to this way of working; 1) revenues from our existing titles
started to account for a meaningful percentage of our monthly operating
costs; and 2) we began partnering with publishers or other IP owners who
were interested in download able, casual games. These partners have money
and we have talent; its a match made in heaven.

    Currently, we are working on a combination of internally-funded projects
and partner-funded projects. This mix gives us a comfortable level of
stability.

    We've done some licensing of the flash and shockwave game engines we
developed in those first 4 years, but its not a primary business model for
us. We also generate some revenue from licensing our downloadable titles to
developers who port and distribute them on other platforms. We also
distribute the games of other developers on largeanimal.com

    Hope that helps. Let me know if you have other questions.

    Wade

    Wade Tinney
    partner, game designer
    Large Animal Games
    http://www.largeanimal.com
    wade at largeanimal.com

     -----Original Message-----
    From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
[mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Brent Lowrie
    Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 10:45 AM
    To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
    Subject: [casual_games] Business Models

      I know this is a topic that many are interested in but few are really
willing to talk about. We are all competitors after all.

      We are a relatively small game development group fighting to establish
some independence within an interactive marketing firm. As the group leader,
I have been putting together a business plan of sorts and would like to
field some questions for those established developers with many games in
their portfolio. How did you go about producing so many games? That is, was
it self-funded internal development in the hopes of licensing them? Were
they games developed for clients that you retained rights too and now offer
a non-branded version for licensing? A combination?

      Thanks in advance...

      Brent Lowrie
      Games & Animation

      RARE METHOD
      500, 1812 4th Street S.W. Calgary AB T2S 1W1
      P. 403.543.4500 x341 F. 403.532.3004
      www.raremethod.com
      games.raremethod.com

      Strategic Interactive Marketing
      Provoke Thought Direct Action Get Results

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