Lecture
A small introduction about who this article is for. Probably more for those who are interested in the gaming industry and appreciate the pros and cons of entering it. It will be useful to those who have already been here for some time and are assembling their team without having experience in managing game development. Not intended for veterans at all, because for them everything described below is obvious to them and (for them) at the kindergarten level. I would like this article to help all those who are interested in game devs, to understand whether to go here and what they expect here, what they will have to face and what are the advantages here.
At the same time, this article will be rather superficial (yes, I warn you at once) simply because each item described here can be expanded into a separate article with several pages.
The game development industry is very high risk. Some risks can be reduced relatively easily; others, on the contrary, are very difficult. There are many risks and they are diverse; In general, I consider game development for new investors a venture business. I can’t sort them out somehow because the risks play differently for different teams and companies. For some, management problems are obvious and how to solve them, for others - technical, for the third - economic. So, the risks.
What does the game consist of? A minimum of three main components: technical implementation, art and game design. For large games (for example, MMO), the technical part is divided into the client (the game, what the players see and interact with) and the server (where the game itself takes place, calculations of physics, paths, logic and much more). For social networks, virality (viral distribution) is equally important, without which the game will not be profitable. If substandard game design, then the game will not play. If the bad art, the game will not even watch. And so on, for each platform may be its own features that you need to know. Thus, each of the main components of the game should not be below a certain level that players expect to receive. As the gaming industry develops, the bar for each component rises ever higher, which in turn raises the threshold for entry into the industry for non-core investors or young developers.
This risk arises from the previous one. In order for each direction to be at the level, leading experts (leads) are needed. The standard set is a lead artist (art director), a lead programmer (lead programmer or architect), producer (often combines the position of lead game designer). Each of these employees must have not only the highest qualifications, but also understand the game and feel at the level of intuition, what is good for the game and what is bad for the game. It is difficult to find such key people and, for the most part, they have already been dismantled and motivated by salaries, 20-50% higher than in the market. For example, a competent producer to find in Moscow now less than 170-200 thousand will probably be no longer possible. For other cities of Russia everything is simpler, prices can be twice as low. But the question arises: are there highly qualified professionals in general, and if so, why are they not yet in the capital or somewhere in the USA?
What happens if your key employees get hit by a bus? What happens if at least one of your leads gets hit by a bus? If a replacement for an artist can be found (excuse me, gentlemen, artists!) It is relatively easy just because his work is immediately visible, then if your lead programmer disappears, what will happen? If your lead game designer disappears (and often he is alone on the project), then who knows where to develop the project further and how? After all, a game designer has a long-term goal and often (honestly, almost always) all future mechanics are not described. In any case, changing the lead expert on the game project is always a rework. If you are very lucky, you will need to redo a little (rarely). In the usual situation, a third of the entire project may undergo processing, and in the worst cases, the entire direction (art, code, game design) will be redone from scratch.
This risk is reduced by motivational mechanisms and by the fact that not one person works in one direction, but at least two people who can do each other’s work or, in extreme cases, continue it if an employee leaves, until a replacement is found. . This is an obvious thing, which, nevertheless, few people practice.
Game design is the direction of games, which for the most part is based on the same dramatic principles as cinema or literature. Even games built on primitive reflexes use these mechanisms; even the so-called “babloososki”, whose goal is one - to draw out as much money as possible in the least possible time, will not work without the right game design (and the monetization model, of course). This is a very, very simple thing, but which many people lose sight of: the game is not a service, it is an object of art. Big companies, leaders of the gaming industry, have long understood this and refer to games that way. But in start-up companies, game design is considered something secondary and not as important as a picture or code. What are these newcomers missing? Very simple thing: if the gameplay is bad, the game does not cling, does not delay, can not immerse in the game world, does not know how to constantly set new goals, annoying, too complicated or too simple and a lot, a lot more, neither the schedule nor technical execution. Game design is the heart and soul of the game. Therefore, if there is no game designer in the team (yes, it happens even now - the role of the game designer is played by someone along the way, sometimes even the investor himself), or the game designer is a low-qualified specialist, or the target audience does not understand. Therefore, I believe that starting to create a game without a game designer is throwing money away. Sooner or later you will have to hire him, and when he comes, half of everything done will be sent to the trash can, and the second half will have to be redone (how the team will treat him after that is also a good question).
It is believed that game developers are special people and they need a special approach, because they are all irreplaceable and important, only they know how to make games and God forbid someone will leave. Yes, this is a reference to the risk described a little earlier. And, therefore, management in game development teams is much softer than in most other companies. This is a big mistake. Game development is a business. Business is complex, with a huge amount of high risks (which I am writing about right now, if you noticed). Therefore, without clear management and control, these risks turn from high to exorbitant risks. About what is bad management in the development of games and what it can lead to, I wrote here. It also tells how you can reduce this risk or prevent the development process from turning into a quagmire, from which you can never get out.
Another problem of young teams and startups (and what I experienced for myself) is non-core investors who do not understand how the development should go, how it goes and cannot understand what is happening in their own company. Some delve into it and begin to sort it out, then some order appears in the company, but it takes a lot of time; some delegate their authority to managers and wait for results. What are the risks here? The risks are that managers can sit comfortably on high salaries and tell the investor beautiful stories about how great it will be (see the video of the closing of Parallax Art Studio, which for 7 (!) Years pulled money out of investors). The second risk is that the investor doesn’t really show the result, sometimes six months or more - the time it takes to create the architecture, implement the basic gameplay and game logic. Sometimes an investor thinks he is being cheated where the work is actually going. In my case, there was a situation when the investor did not wait for two months to complete the work and sold our company and project (fully returned the invested funds and lost nothing, but did not gain in the end).
How can you reduce this risk if you are a non-core investor? Have a clear work plan, attend to team planning, require documentation and understand what the team is doing, how it works and how it lives. Hire a highly qualified, adult project manager (PM) who will report on what the team is doing and show the results of the work. Even if it is a low-level code, it can be demonstrated and told what it is and why it is needed. But without the personal involvement of the investor in the life of the team, I believe that the risk of not fulfilling the plan and objectives greatly increases. And do not listen to those who say “the plan is not needed”, “the documentation is not needed”, “we are working on R & D (research & develop)”, “the documentation is already outdated by the time the game is released” and other reasons why the documentation is allegedly not needed . It is needed, especially in games, and we need the most different. In general, the risk of succumbing to the beautiful words “we will first do, then we will write down”, exists and is very high.
All this leads to the fact that the cost of developing the game requires a serious investment. There are many stories that “such a team made such and such a game in three months,” but for the target audience of this article (novice in the industry or non-core investors) there will never be such results. Just because to make even a small game requires a well-coordinated work, which comes only with experience. Yes, big companies can really rivet games in 3-4 months: they have all the processes developed, selected and tested personnel, a huge number of developments and blanks that can be used. The young teams have nothing. There may be some developments from past projects, but in most cases they will not fit what you have in mind. Therefore, the timing even for small games can be two to three times higher than that of experienced teams. The longer the game is done, the more it will cost to create it.
The second point is that truly skilled workers cost a lot. If you do not want to redo everything, then only leading experts will cost at least half a million rubles a month (for an average project). Ordinary employees must also be good specialists and now they cost a lot. The high cost of development, coupled with all other high risks, makes the threshold for entry into the game development industry unacceptably high for most investors.
What to do when the game is ready? How to sell it? How to earn it? How to build PR and marketing, what data to collect and how to analyze them? What is good and what is bad for the game? How to deal with competitors and grab your piece of the market? How to beat off the money and go into profit? How to extend this period? There will be a lot of questions. Industry leaders have sufficient experience, knowledge and analytical data to answer them. The newcomer has no chance. If there is a competent producer - he will be able to bring the game to the right indicators, if not, then you just have to pray and look for partners. Another option is to create your own marketing department, which is also expensive. In addition, the market is divided into casual, social, mobile, multiplayer, boxed, browser-based, cross-platform, console and so on. Each direction has its own specifics and its own difficulties, which novices do not even suspect ... and when faced, they may not survive in such a collision without proper preparation. There are solutions - working with the publisher, or joining a large company, or merging with someone, or selling a team and project; it is possible to continue moving independently, some (especially hard) succeed, and the results are good. But such a problem exists and one should be aware of its existence and that it will have to face it.
You have no idea how much you will earn. You even have no idea whether you will earn at all. If, for example, in construction or trade, you can clearly count how much business will bring, then in games you can only guess. Even leaders cannot guarantee the success of their games. Therefore, if you are told that “the game will bring at least X, and in a year the income will be Y”, send such guys as far as possible (to space, to another galaxy desirable) and as soon as possible. The right teams will tell you something like “our closest competitors have such-and-such an audience, such-and-such an online (or DAU / MAU), average payment (ARPPU) they have such-and-such, a player's lifespan is such-and-such; we think that our indicators will be such because ... ”and further will be followed by an analysis of the target audience of your game, the profile of a regular player, the time he can devote to the game, and so on. And all this will be at the level of "we think that ..." and "most likely, we will get this and that under such and such conditions." Understand how sane the numbers can be only if research is conducted or there is experience / information on similar games, and the chance of hitting the target will be modest.
If you do not understand what the market will be by the time you are ready to release the game, you have every chance to publish an irrelevant, useless game. In order to get into the trend, you need to live and breathe the industry, or have as a team someone who is part of it (a competent producer and / or game designer). In the course of development, you need to monitor the market and keep the project up to date, be able to make corrections in time, but not allow the project to mutate uncontrollably.
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Why go to the game development industry with so many risks and so many unknown, unpredictable moments, what is so good about it? Why do people play games, are they idiots? Or all the same because what is there its pluses? Of course it is. There are advantages, and for many igrodelov (or investors), they fully and repeatedly compensate for the risks and disadvantages described above.
Most games will go nowhere, not even beating off the money invested. A small amount of them will discourage money and will bring a modest income. But if you are lucky, you will assemble the right team - then profitability can be incredibly high: for example, operating expenses + marketing are three million monthly, income is twenty-seven (the real numbers are one fairly average team with a game that is far from perfect quality).
Just give the last two high-profile examples - and this is not World of Warcraft, no. The first is Clash of Clans from the Finnish (!) Supercell company, which earns $ 1 million per day. Just imagine: one. million. dollars. at. day. This happens daily in the last six months. The second is World of Tanks from Wargaming.net, which earned $ 278 million in 2012. Do you have a chance to become so lucky? Certainly, though small.
If you still do not know, then in Russia this is the case (reference to the source from April 16, 2013). In the US, the picture is similar. The turnover of games in the world for 2012 and only the PC was $ 20 billion . (roughly), and DFC Intelligence predicts growth to $ 70 billion in 2017 (article here). The global mobile gaming market for 2012 was $ 9.9 billion and growth is forecast at $ 15 billion by 2016 . For comparison, the global cinema market in 2012 reached $ 34.7 billion (6% growth over the year, the source here). If we compare the growth rates of the gaming industry and cinema, then the leader will become obvious in a few years. Anyone who understands business understands what a growing (especially so fast) market means.
You've seen it somewhere before. In risks, right? But there is a very big plus: the complexity of (serious) entry into the industry makes it relatively free, and the competition is relatively small. Yes, you have to fight for top places. Chances that you will get there to climb around zero or a little less. Nevertheless, this cake is very large and is increasing every day. And it will not decrease (of course it will mutate, it will not decrease in the global sense). And there is enough cake for everyone (with the exception of poor indies who never hollowed out understood that game dev is a business for a long time that requires a business approach). The fact that very few new actors are definitely very good in the game development professionally and clearly. It is especially good and relevant for our country that domestic government agencies will never come to this industry. Even in spite of all their previous attempts, there is little chance. And if you still look at their previous attempts, then the odds generally tend to zero divided by infinity. Why it is good, I suppose, no need to explain.
In addition, this means that there are many times less fraud, banditry and corruption, which can be encountered (in our country, at least) in any other business.This does not mean that you are insured against such cases: I myself went through one very unpleasant moment when my team, company and project were stolen from me, along with all the development rights. But if you do everything correctly and in your mind, be aware of such moments (very simple, in fact), then there is no problem to defend yourself. I haven’t met any complicated mechanisms of fraud, raiding and other things so far in our industry.
If you manage to still manage to get to the point when your business starts to generate income, it will become very stable (in my opinion). Yes, like a shark, the game needs movement: if it does not develop, it dies. But if you do everything correctly and without unnecessary risky experiments, then everything will be fine. Moreover, the various crises in the entertainment industry are least noticeable. Games are always in demand, even during wars, soldiers played and enjoyed themselves in the intervals between battles (and they play, only the way content is delivered can change). Entertainment removes stress, distracts from problems - so the income of one company in which I worked during the crisis, during this time has grown. I will not speak for everyone, some teams must have died out at that time, but it’s not a fact that the crisis was the cause. The problem, again, is only one:get to this point when the game / project / team starts generating revenue.
By making games, you are not very attached to the place. You can make a game for Russia, then for the USA, Europe and so on. You can start from any country that you like best. Each country has its own specifics and the games adapt to each country in its own way, but this problem is surmountable (it is enough to know it and understand how to cope with it). Distribution in many countries is not only a multiple increase in profitability, but also excellent diversification. Moreover, the cost of localization compared to the development itself is scanty.
Another plus is that if your game is good, then you will easily find strong publishers who will take on the whole problem with the localization, distribution and marketing of your game.
Personal opinion: the game industry is very interesting. Extremely for beginners, though. If you love the thrill - then you here.
. . .
For beginners, the game industry is good as an additional business (and, perhaps, not the second and not the third). However, if you want to succeed in this business, you will have to deal with them personally. Delegation of authority to proxies is possible, but personal control is necessary.
I want to reiterate that the game development industry for most investors is a venture capital business. And the risks in it are difficult to minimize (by the way, a funny moment: in Russia, the so-called venture funds do not even consider gaming projects due to a complete lack of understanding of this industry, as well as their inability to assess risks or potential profitability). But if it shoots, it will shoot properly and will pay off all the risks or previous failures. For example, there are teams that have made several games that have not gone; but the 4th or 5th shot and not only recaptured all previous costs, but also brought the team to the leaders of the industry.
Whether it is worth starting to play games, everyone must decide for themselves, assessing their strengths, resources, risks and potential benefits. I do not recommend starting without a reliable person from the industry who understands it perfectly and has at least ten years of experience (there are already quite a few of them). There are options for equity participation in already working teams and projects, maybe for someone such options will be the most interesting. But if this is your last / only money, if you have little patience, if you want a quick result, then you better not. Everyone else is welcome!
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Computer games developming
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