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