Transcript Art or Commerce Bruce Reilly President Mass Bay Marketing LLC

Art or Commerce
Bruce Reilly
President
Mass Bay Marketing LLC
Art Or Commerce
 Introduction
 Review of Game Industry
 The “Sales” Function
 TerraGlyph Interactive Postmortem
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Or how to lose $30,000,000
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 Development is compete
 Now what?
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 How do we get to the consumer?
 Who does that job…?
Who are you…?
 Are you big?
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First Party – Hardware
 Microsoft
 Nintendo
 Sony
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Third Party – Software Publisher
 EA
 Take
Two
Who are you…?
 Are you small…?
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Publisher Only
Developer Only
Contract Developer
 Little room in the middle
Retail Channels
 Top Five Accounts
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Wal-mart
Best Buy
Target
Electronics Boutique
Game Stop
Retail Channels
 How much of the market do they
control?
Top 5 Accounts
 75% - 80% of total sales….
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 Before consumer ever sees the game
these chain buyers are the
gatekeepers…
 Much more conservative now.
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Batman – Toys R US
 Non risk takers
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 How are products selected?
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Reputation of Company
 Only
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Past Performance
 Why
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sequels are king
Expectation you can fix a problem
 Price
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as good as last game
protection
Marketing and Advertising funds
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 What doesn’t happen?
 Buyers don’t play the games…often
 Or have
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Spirited discussion of game play
Care about the quality of graphics
Story line
Listen to the music
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 They must trust the person “selling”
game
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Will ask your opinion…
 Must believe “word of mouth”
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Can not be PR purchased
 Must believe what they see
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E3 and Prototypes
 Person who actually plays game
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 Why did I call this presentation
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Art or Commerce?
 Aero
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The Acrobat
Do I want to make money?
Do I want to make art?
 Must do both to survive and be
successful!
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 TerraGlyph Interactive Postmortem
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$30,000,000 Loss
 Lack
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First 80% easy
 Lack
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of Time
of Internal approval
More like internal deception
 Carnivale Beta
Art or Commerce
 TerraGlyph Interactive Postmortem
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$30,000,000 Loss
 Inadequate
Content Pipeline
 Large Team Problems
 Crunch Time
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Absolutely
Ruined families and friendships
Art or Commerce
 TerraGlyph Interactive Postmortem
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$30,000,000 Loss
 Technology
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“Thought I could do it…”
Have to appreciate we tried…
 Team

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/ Performance
Problems
Who gets limited resources
When technology waits for art
 Quality/Bugs
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 TerraGlyph Interactive Postmortem

$30,000,000 Loss
 Publisher
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“What does Disney know…”
Contract versus reality
 What
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
Interface
does it all mean?
How did your projects work…?
Small versus large company
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 What does it mean to you…?
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Do it better
Be smarter
Take chances
Don’t settle for the way it’s always been
done…
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 For me…Solve this problem…
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The ability to allow customers and
consumers to play the “game” in 30-45
days
Cost no more than $100,000
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 Questions…