Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The Hard Sell Lecture Notes

Intro:
Getting your game in the press is a valuable part of getting your game out there (*sigh* and can net over $10k in Kickstarter funding per article).   However, getting your name out there sounds like a daunting task, but there is good news! Major news sites like Kotaku run 100 stories a day, and journalists will be out of a job if nobody had stories to report. During the Pax Dev presentation "The Hard Sell: What You Need to Know When Talking to the Press" by Ben Kuchera had several tips and strategies were given to help independent developers and small companies get into the press.


Strategies
Managing the press is something you do after you have a game.  Lots of projects have a false start or fail to come together. That being said you should expect to start your marketing/press push about a year before you ship your game. (I expect this to mean you should be testing and refining your game by the time you expect to do any press work).

Marketing your games to the press is tough. You may feel lost or scared, but the worst thing you can do is run from the problem. When sending out emails to people in the press you will fail to get a response much more than you will succeed. Above all building a good game must be your priority. If your game is crap then anyone who does take a chance on your game, wont end up reviewing it.

Buiding a relationship with the press is a good way to help it get in the spotlight. Picking several of your favorite press people (both big and small) and follow them. Look them up on twitter, comment on their posts ect. Try and be a face and a name before you start asking them for press coverage. Press people are much more likely to read an email from a person they kinda know than from someone they have never heard of. That being said you should cast a wide net and talk to many people. Remember, you have no excuse to not talk to people.

Journalists are Lazy (or Busy)

Have a press kit (like this one http://dopresskit.com/ ). No seriously, have one.

Journalists need to write a story, so giving them a good game and a personal story about it's development or design will help. If you've been making a game for a while you have some stories. A good game and a personal story will get you coverage. Talk to the press about what you do better than anyone else. If you don't know what you do better, find out and talk about it.

"Practice your patter." You should be able to say your personal story and what your game's about. Be able to answer When your game is out, Where they can buy it, How much it costs,  How long is it to play and any other relevant questions (if you don't know, ask other devs who made a game like yours; Devs are nice people)

You need to meet people in the middle. It requires being outgoing and talking to people (I will personally attest that people remember faces, and there is nothing wrong with introducing yourself to someone who you should know. If it looks like its going sour just thank them for their time and leave. If you are really scared you'll screw up, go to a bar and practice talking to people you don't know. It's really not that bad)

Go guerrilla! Meeting people at conventions and shows is a good way to get your game in front of the press. Use a laptop, an I-pad ect.  to get it in front of their eyes. Lots of big indie games were shown to the press in hallways, clubs, ect before they got coverage.

Once you are in, you are in for life. Stories will become other stories and working with someone again is much easier than finding a new guy. You can also take your time to contribute to stories that don't directly have to do with your game.

Press No-NosDo not offer money or bribes for coverage! This violates journalistic integrity, and no journalist will cover your game for fear of being seen as bought out. This kind of thing will get you basically black-listed. It's like walking up to a girl, pulling out a wad of 20's and saying "How much?" instead of "May I buy you a drink".

Your email title shouldn't be an apology, you need to have confidence in your product. No gimmicks or shock factor stuff, it looks immature. The press is not a bunch of 18 year old bros; regardless of the sex analogy in the last paragraph. You shouldn't be showing things you have to apologize for (I'm aware I violated this with my blog). Have screen-shots and video of your game in action. That media will give the press something to work with. Don't worry too much about how you look in your videos, there are not a lot of attractive people in the business.

Keep buzz words out of you Email title. A Kickstarter is not a story, The video game your making is the story. If you wanna include a nod to your Kickstarter, just nonchalantly give them the link after your website.  words like, indie, mobile, free-to-play just get stale after a while.

Conclusion
Getting your game in the news circuits is definitely a hard sell; But it's not impossible. Understanding where the press is coming from  is key to getting noticed. Remember they have to write stories and get the word out about interesting stories. Make a good game and get it in front of the right people and work with the press. You can get a game noticed, but only if you do it right and get it out there. Oh and remember nobody is going to write a story on a bad game.



Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Keynote the Defense Grid 2 Kickstarter pt.2

Intro
Hey look Pax and Pax Dev is over! This means I can devote more time to the Blog! And yes, I'm aware it needs some organization; but things will improve in the following weeks (I feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record).

However, there is the unfinished business with the Defense grid 2 Kickstarter presentation so without further ado...

Money and Backers
Median backer for the Kickstarter was 42$
Had 6291 backers
Roughly 75% of backers donated less than 15$
Small, medium and large backers made up equal thirds

News stories brought in money
Rock Paper Shotgun article brought in $ 15,000
Kotaku article $ 17,000

After fees and merchandising the total money raised was $197,505 (fundraising goal was 250,000)

Community
You need a community to make a successful Kickstarter
Took roughly 10 person months of work
Hidden Path (Developers) also had a PR firm

Kickstarter is Not about the Money; It's about the community.
Kickstarter odds are worse than getting a publisher.

Conclusion
So, Defense Grid 2 Kickstarter was a modest Kickstarter in comparison to some of the astronomical successes out there. It met it's funding goal of a quarter of a million dollars. A Kickstarter is a lot of work and very focused on the community. There are a lot of hidden costs associated with using Kickstarter and it requires work on the back end to support your pledges. The traditional publishing model is still the easiest way to get money for a large company. However, if you have a strong community and a good marketing presence it can be a good way to fund a project.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Warning! Unorganized content ahead!

Pax has put me in a state of disarray! Right now I'm mostly text dumping to this blog. In the coming weeks I will organize and edit the content. Sorry for the confusion! Feel welcome to post and comment and I hope to get things more usable soon! (I feel bad as a designer having ux issues on my blog- there's not much I can do untill pax is complete).

An on Campus Job

I have been recently accepted for an on campus job this semester. My job will be to write and assist students use an in-house engine developed at Digipen Institute of Technology (the engine needs a lot more work before we roll it out to the public, So I wont go into specifics).

Last year our class was thrown this engine (which was and still is actively in development). We were tasked with learning it as well as Python 3.2 (being told this at the start of the semester). Through talking with professors and the programming team I was able to get a jump on the engine and learn some of its basic ins and outs and have been steadily accumulating knowledge ever since.

An internal Wiki was also set up which I have written the roughly half of the content for (I was the primary contributor and essentially used as a engine consultant by students using the engine). I'm actually replacing a previous TA for the engine (he's not pursuing the job anymore).

This experience has taught me that I enjoy not only helping others and learning game engines, but also trying to find the 'Zen' or sort of internal work-flow the engine expects of the user. This has been an overwhelmingly positive experience for me and in addition to all the engaging challenges of game design I'm excited to learn some new engines and develop, test, and refine games with them.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation of Players Presentation Notes

Intro.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation have been (are being) featured prominently at Pax Dev and Pax Prime this year especially in reference to free to play. While issues have raised the issue of Intrinsic and Extrinsic rewards as early as the nineties; Scott Rigby, the president of Immersyve (http://www.immersyve.com), provided a presentation on Intrinsic and Extrinsic rewards with regards to games using the free to play model.

Slides can be downloaded at this link:
http://www.immersyve.com/downloads/conference-presentations/

Intrinsic vs Extrinsi.
Intrinsic motivation is doing something for the love of the action; it is considered automatically. The example is presented in building a space ship from Legos with a child. Once completed the child takes apart the spaceship so the task can be repeated. In a sense this means the task itself is rewarding; the Goal of the task is performing the task itself.

Extrinsic Motivation is much weaker. It primarily works in regards to doing X to get Y. It's often instrumental for another goal. (what is the other goal?)

Motivation as a Continuum.
Intrinsic is good and Extrinsic is bad is a false dichotomy.
(in the slides this is illustrated by Dr Evil and Superman. The point was raised that Dr. Evil may in fact be intrinsically motivated to evil and Superman is extrinsically motivated for approval and acceptance into society. However, for the purposes of the lecture Dr Evil was supposed to represent villainous intentions while Superman was supposed to represent noble intention.)

Extrinsic Motivations are disliked when the player feels they are being controlled or manipulated by the game. they feel as if they must do things. If the players themselves are actually setting goals for themselves or these goal are entwined with something the player chooses to want, then it is a positive use of Extrinsic motivation (for instance grinding enemies for money or exp).

Basic Psychological NeedsCreating intrinsic motivation starts with focusing on the psychological needs as opposed to specific wants.

Three psychological needs:
    1. Competence: people want to feel as if they are good at something. This is broken into two sup parts:
        Mastery: The perception that the player is effective within the game and can complete the challenges.
        Growth: The perception that the player has advanced in skill and can do more that what they were previously able to.
    Information feedback is critical to this. When players are taking an action that results in a demonstration of mastery or growth feedback needs to be presented.
    Gory head-shots in FPS games are about feedback (NOT sadistic blood lust).

    2.Relatedness: the feeling that your actions matter to other players or NPCs
     In a multiplayer FPS players want to feel that their actions matter to the other players.
     In MMO's One player helping another player (or working off each-other) builds a sense of relatedness.

    3. Autonomy (Volition): players can choose their path
     Players essential get to choose how they complete the critical actions in the game ("What if I do it this way?")
     Sandbox games offer significant amounts of autonomy.

    But Wait! Choice can be depleting!
    Choice is only depleting when players are looking for a specific optimal solution.(pick the best axe)
    Meaningful choice is when there are multiple solutions or no one right answer.(guns or swords?)
 
    Autonomy can be supported in constrained environments by telegraphing or showing the possible choices that will occur in the future. (However lack to deliver on this choice is greatly unsatisfying)


What are the effects of focusing on needs?

Need satisfaction sustains engagement longer (players play longer) they are also more loyal.
Need satisfaction creates players likely to evangelize a product.

Extrinsic rewards are OK, if they are in focus to reinforce the intrinsic goals of the game.
Extrinsic rewards used to control a player are almost always bad.
Studies show that Extrinsic rewards reduce enjoyment.
If players feel they should or must do something it is bad.
(it's the difference between walking up to a girl and saying "may I buy you a drink"(intrinsic, ie I wanna spend time with you ) v.s. "How much do you cost?"(extrinsic, ie I wanna use money to control you)).

Think of using Extrinsic rewards as a sort of chose catalyst for facilitating needs
Do not try to control players.

However, if players choose an extrinsic reward and come to it on their own conclusion (its inline with their goals) its not detrimental.

The Language of control.
You need to ask "Why" players are taking a particular action.

If you are talking about "sticky mechanics", Whales, Behaviorism you are most likely talking about controlling forms of Extrinsic rewards.

If players are doing things because they must or they have to; You are likely dealing with controlling forms of Extrinsic rewards.

Epilogue.
The use of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards in games and the fulfillment of needs is seen as an important next step in advancing the art and science of game design. The understanding of these concepts can help design more engaging mechanics especially in a free to play environment. The future of game design is moving beyond control and exploitation of players for money. Providing players with a pleasurably needed psychological experience which can be monetized in way that respects the customer is going to build better games and better player retention.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Pax Dev Jesse Schell Keynote- 8 pieces of free to play

Note: Slides can be found here
http://www.slideshare.net/jesseschell

Note: By Jesse Schell's own admission this material is in 'Beta'

Notes on 8 pieces of free to play.
Lots of focus on Game Design is mechanics. People are often looking at free to play mechanics as a way to monetize their game. In a way this makes game mechanics like keys and player's minds become the locks. a good game will unlock a players mind.

However, if you want to make a key that opens a lock, you should probably examine the lock. Traditionally if you wanted to know about the mind, you consult psychologists. But psychologists don't know much about optimal experience and 'fun'. if they did, they wouldn't throw such terrible parties. In a way this makes game design at the fore front of the study of fun. This also means there really isn't any literature out there on the 'Mechanics of the Mind'.

So it's a jungle out there, but if you keep searching you will find things (like buildings in a jungle).

So in the study of the mind for game design purposes Jesse has found 8 'pieces' for better crafting an optimal free to play experience (Personally, I'm not sure if it's limited to free to play).

1. Self Determination Theory
Self Determination Theory states that beyond survival there are 3 psychological needs in an experience.
Competence - People want to feel effective at what they are doing (they make a difference).
Autonomy - People like to feel in control of their actions and how they do their job.
Relatedness - People want to feel as if they are part of a community or connected with others.


2. Novelty Seeking
People like to be surprised by something new.
Setting and achieving a reward gives a dopamine boost; being surprised by something cool gives you a greater reward.

Variable rewards tend to be better than a fixed reward schedules. The brain comes to expect rewards on a  schedule and they cease becoming rewards. (Personally I think the brain files them as patterns/ rules/ mechanics)

People also buy things to try them out and see what they are like.

3. Plans 
Cookies.
Simply, stating that 3 cookies are 1.20$ gets people thinking that they should buy 3 cookies (and they will). Basically they create or see a plan in their head.

A plan is a real thing. People want to execute a plan or mental model in their head.

4. Worlds
Star-wars was/is a a very popular world and people want to go to that world. Often when kids play with toys from a world (or IP) they make up their own stories that take place in their perception of the world. These toys and games really are selling access to this world.

Pokemon is a great example; there are so many ways to access that world...

These worlds of fantasy creates a inner 'psychosis' (Personally I call this a 'real fantasy', a fantasy I identify with. Its my my fantasy that I can sort of have in its own little place. People have the real world where you do the real stuff like eat and sleep and a fantasy world where you do dangerous exciting things that you would never attempt in the real world)

Fantasy worlds are real in the sense they are really important to some people.

In a way people can be broken into 2 groups:
Imagineers - people who really like fantasy worlds
Mundanes - people who are not in the fantasy worlds (they like sports, which have no fantasy)

5. Pleasure Seeking and Pain Avoiding
Pain avoidance and pleasure seeking are different pathways in the brain. In a way Pain avoidance is when you "Hafta" (have to or must) do things. Pleasure seeking is when you "wanna" (want to, like to do)

F2P hate often stems from when players feel like they "hafta" do something.
Leaving a F2P game is jokingly referred as a Divorce.

6. Status
All human interaction has status.
People have an innate status and will attempt to maintain that status with the individuals around them.

see Testosterone and competitive play (link provided)
http://www.lostgarden.com/2009/11/testosterone-and-competitive-play.html

7. Membership
People tend to choose to identity with a particular group (will act to conform to this).
People want to feel like they are a part of something bigger
This can be a negative group (like those saps who spend money on a social game)

For instance people don't want to buy-out of work.  Players want to feel like they earned it.

8. Utopia
People want to make the world a better place.
So often fantasies take place in broken worlds and the players goal is to fix it (or leave it in a better place than they started)
Everyone wants a perfect world, Game will let players actually be able to create it.

Epilogue 
I know I left some things out if you follow the slides (I can do a Slide by Slide breakdown of the presentation if requested).

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Keynote the Defense Grid 2 Kickstarter


The Defense Grid 2 kickstarter was a good way to start the conference. Many high profile funding ventures have been funded through kickstarter such as Double Fine Adventure, Planetary Annihilation, Wasteland 2, even the Ouya android game console. This has created a lot of wonder and skepticism through the game development community. The presentation denoted a bunch of interesting points about kickstarters from the Defense Grid 2 ‘s more modest experience.

Word of Warning
The first major point was that KickStarter is not in any way easier than getting funding from a publisher. Most Kickstarters are not successful, like 97% are not successful. However, your odds double to a 6% chance of meeting your funding goal if you try to get less than 20K $.


Pledges
However, there are ways to improve your odds. A good pitch video (with good audio), multiple pledge tiers, limited pledge tiers (ie an early bird special) pledges that get you something instantly.

Be specific with what people get with your pledges. Decimals and commas mean different things in different countries. People will not read your FAQ.

So shipping merchandise and items to people who pledged also costs money. The suggestion is that this should be around 10-20% of the price of a pledge (Kickstarter take 10% of your pledges, so you lose 20-30% of this pledge).

Kickstarter is a service that handles donations, not shipping, not distribution, not getting your stuff to the people who pledge. There are “Pick and Pack” groups that will handle this for a price. (from other panels on kickstarter I know there are stories of people who do this themselves. this is a good way to alienate your friends)

Defense Grid 2 team actually wrote a program that parsed the website to give out beta keys to their previous game (and Kickstarter was ok with this).

While this seems like a lot of work it is necessary; Giving pledges some sort of instant gratification was noted as a reason for success. Also donations of hardware and a PR firm also helped.


Getting the word out
Marketing and getting the word out about your game isn't easy! Contacted EEDAR regarding when they should try to run this Kickstarter for maximum press. Basically the 2 weeks on either side of E3 is a bad time to release new stuff.

The press also do not want to do a story on a Kickstarter, they want to do a story on a game. Remember it’s not about the Kickstarter it’s about the game.

A news story will energize your kickstarter for Hours. A big article can bring in a several thousand dollars into your kickstarter.


Did you know that if you pay people a salary you are a rich developer? This is what people think, so unless you are living on a ramen budget in the room above your parents garage you are going to be seen as rich.

Keep things simple. People don't want to hear your complex funding strategy or get a 101 course in running a business. have a simple strategy people can see.

Part 2 
This blog post is finished up here:
http://tommyhanusagames.blogspot.com/2012/09/keynote-defense-grid-2-kickstarter-pt2.html
Comment if you have any ideas about how you want to see my notes!

Pax Dev Notes

I will be updating my blog with notes regarding the Pax/Pax Dev Presentations and Panels I attended (or will attend at the time of writing). Basically these are my summary of the takeaway points from the presentation, and not a substitute for actually attending the panel itself and I’m not trying to put words in anyone's mouth. If you think I’m wrong, post a comment! I'm considering restructuring the posts to be based on smaller topics rather than panels to reduce their length. So things may shift around in a couple of days.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Explaining Game Design

Intro
When I was driving to Oregon with my father we began talking about some rapid prototyping game design classes I was struggling with at DigiPen. Through our discussion (and his confusion, since he doesn’t even play video games) he asked me to break down “Game Design” into 5 parts. Well I couldn't do it on the spot, but lucky we were going on a family backpacking trip. During some time spent resting in seclusion at the top of a waterfall I came to my answer (apparently, that kung-fu movie stuff really works). So to explain game design (even to your parents or people who just don't understand), I broke it down into the following 5 parts. 

1. Theme
Having a theme, central message, or motto to your game will help you make decisions during development. All the work in a game, the art, the music, the mechanics, the level content, will contribute to a theme. If you never set one, the work in your game may speak quietly to different themes and in the end it may appear as if the game has no theme at all. At worst you may have a confusing theme or two or three competing themes that confuse the player.

2. Style
Games need to have a style or a type of consistency in how they deliver and create and experience for players. This means that the art, music and narrative presentation are done in a way that serves the game and is consistent. If a game doesn’t have a style it often means that the assets will clash with others and confuse players.

3. Usability
A major portion of Game Design is usability and accessibility of a game. This means having good controls for the game and feedback regarding actions (both successful and unsuccessful). In addition to feedback and controls the player must also be given training and explanation regarding the actions they are required to take (ie there needs to be some sort of tutorial).

4. Flow
The Player of a game improves over time. The game designer is responsible for crafting an experience that facilitates or helps a player reach a flow state (see Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). Essentially this means a game designer is responsible for making sure a game isn't too hard or isn't boring (as dictated by their Theme and Style).

5. Mechanics
It is the responsibility of the game designer to determine the rules and goals by which a games takes place. Basically they have to develop the game mechanics. These mechanics and rules (even the game genre) are determined by the Theme and Style of the game and further adjusted for purposes of Usability and Flow.

Epilogue
With this foundational understanding of game design, I hope people better have a better understanding of what game design is (Oddly, still a problem in the industry). I also hope that this helps prospective and current game designers become more aware of the problems they will face when they create a game.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

My blog needs a post...

Ok, I said I was going to write some game reviews and I honestly stalled because when I started putting games to the metrics and reviewing them, it wasn't working. I felt like I was judging the games in a way that wasn't exactly fair. I essentially had a bad criteria. Anyway during my continued studies and school work we were shown the idea of using the MDA paper as a way to classify games. This works better then a metrics based judgement system because it tires to describe what the game is as opposed to if it is good or not. It's kinda like food; if you hate sour foods, it doesn't matter how good something is (especially by someone else's judgement) you aren't going to like it. I also learned that perhaps committing to specific updates is a bad idea. My school keeps me too busy to let me update this blog with any sort of regularity. However, I will update with things; at some time, at some point, eventually. (and I will try to get some more things up here!)