Articles Posted October 2011
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IGDA Perspectives, Alternative Funding
October 2011 – IGDA Perspectives Newsletter – Table of Contents – Alternative Funding Sources Hello! Welcome to the October issue of the IGDA Perspectives Newsletter. He Who Pays First, Laughs Last: The Rise of Crowdfunding, David Midgley BioShock Pitch Document: A Brief Analysis, Erik Robson IndieSpective: Crowdfunding to the Rescue!, Robert Madsen Dark Acre: A [...]
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He Who Pays First, Laughs Last: The Rise of Crowdfunding
About six months ago, I got into a Skype chat with an old friend I hadn’t spoken to for some time. He’s working as a programmer in Texas, and generally consumes himself with geeky things like role-playing games, impossible long-distance relationships and making more money than me. He told me to check out the website [...]
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BioShock Pitch Document: A Brief Analysis
Pitch documents are strange animals. They remind me of a man introducing himself to a woman and asking her on a date — it behooves him to present his best qualities with confidence and poise, while it’s in the woman’s interest to scrutinize him intensively. Imagine that scenario as an unfolding narrative. Will the woman [...]
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IndieSpective: Crowdfunding to the Rescue!
Finance The bane of every indie developer is financing. Most indies have deliberately forsaken the traditional publisher-funded model in the name of creative freedom. Most other sources of funding, such as venture capital, are either beyond our reach or would put the same restrictions on our creativity as the publisher agreement. So the big problem [...]
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“No Spectacle without Spectators”: A View on Marketing Digital Games
An Interview With Steve Fowler Facebook is watching it change their business, as Facebook Credits revenue is now growing faster than ad sales. It’s a major initiative for Google, who was on an acquisition spree in the space in the lead up to Google+. At Apple, it’s become a cornerstone of both the iPhone and [...]
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Finding Your Cheese
“Whenever he started to get discouraged, he reminded himself that what he was doing, as uncomfortable as it was at the moment, was in reality much better than staying in the Cheeseless situation. He was taking control, rather than simply letting things happen to him.” This is one of my favorite lines from Spencer Johnson’s [...]
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New Developments in Facebook Advertising Analytics
Social gaming is massive on Facebook, with social games such as Zynga’s Cityville attracting 75 million active users globally. Unlike the traditional gaming market, the majority of social gamers are women (55 per cent), with an average age of 43. About 60 percent of users play with people they know. Branded social games are potent [...]
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Game Design Aspect of the Month: Indie Game Revelations
The following article first appeared on the community blog, Game Design Aspect of the Month (http://gamedesignaspect.blogspot.com), also known as GDAM, under the topic of Indie Game Revelations. Each month, game designers and other industry professionals offer their views on a particular game design issue. GDAM is currently edited by Sande Chen, founding member of the [...]
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The Pilot Paradigm: How to Launch a New IP Cheaper & More Effectively
The Traditional Launching a new IP in the games industry is a daunting and expensive task. Not only does it require the intense work of creating the game, but also the creative tinkering of the marketing and publishing teams performing market education. It is, in essence, a massive gamble; we put tens of millions of [...]
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Dark Acre: A Lesson in Crowdfunding
The donation drive I started at the launch of Dark Acre has died a dignified death. I learned a lot running the campaign, and I was extremely nervous prior to launch. What if no one donated? What if it made me somehow look bad or damaged the embryonic brand? For anyone interested in running a [...]
