Tag: zombie-army-trilogy

In the second part of his series (originally published for MCV), Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley says that when it comes to self-publishing, when you launch is key. Also, Jason says, the best way to minimise surprises is to be ready for them.

Adapting your business to the self-publishing model requires a number of practical changes.

You need someone who can handle PR, manage an internal marketing team or someone that can hire in and manage freelancers.

Finding someone externally to make assets like trailers can be costly so, if you can’t afford dedicated teams, think about hiring individual artists and video editors who can help with communications.

This all needs to be done a long way in advance, as planning and creating the content needed for sales, marketing and media channels takes a great deal of time.

Timing is Everything 

As a developer-publisher you have to make the call on when to launch.

This means considering when you realistically expect to complete project milestones, checking resources like MCV’s release schedule and making sure you’re not going to market jammed in between two franchise behemoths. As an indie publisher, you’ll want as much clear space around your release as possible.

With massive games these days initial release dates can slip, and feature sets can often change or be dropped. It’s therefore best to keep your ear to the ground for insider news. It’s also worth looking at the track record of those making a potential competitor. Some dev teams hit dates, others don’t. With Zombie Army Trilogy, we had one eye on The Order: 1886 and Batman Arkham Knight. The Order turned out to not have multiplayer and Arkham Knight got pushed back to June, which worked out well for us.

Knowing the genres of games you will be competing against is important; with Zombie Army Trilogy we wanted to avoid other major shooters, but Forza Horizon and Just Dance were less of a concern.

Being an indie publisher you have to accept that there will be, in many cases, an enormous disparity in the scale of resources at your disposal.

Rebellion is now relatively large, yet we are aware we’re still competing with titles that cost at least ten times as much to make and have more than 20 times our marketing budget. So you need to have talented people who can spot an opportunity and make it count.

We have to be very targeted in our more traditional marketing activity, using social media intelligently and choosing only a handful of important voices and trusted media partners with whom we have a longstanding professional relationship. For us, TV spots are out of the question, but short, effective bursts of video pre-roll ads on Twitch and YouTube aren’t. Focus your resources where you can, and where you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck. Be sure to review the data afterwards to find out what worked.

Minimise the Surprises

If you are making your first foray into publishing then my top piece of advice would be to communicate honestly and as far in advance as possible with your partners. Problems can and will emerge, and you will need other people’s help to address them.

As a publisher you are more dependent, compared to a developer, on a wider array of other businesses to do your job – whether they are retailers, manufacturers, design agencies, merchandising support, legal counsels, journalists, or banks.

Companies like Sony and Microsoft are huge, with complex structures and in spite of large budgets in places, a lot of restrictions. It is vital to cultivate relationships here – you will need friends in high places, and the best way to win new friends is to be honest and ask for help when you need it. The biggest corporations are run by busy people and behaving like an aggressive so-and-so won’t win you any favours.

When plotting your project timelines, be sure to overestimate how long everything will take and give yourself an extra week here and there – the extra time will be used up in ways you didn’t expect.

Ultimately, things will happen, but by minimising the surprise as much as possible, you give your partners the time they need to help you address the challenges.

Look out for more from Jason’s series on self-publishing on MCV and here on the Rebellion blog. And be sure to follow Jason on Twitter: @RebellionJason

Go to part 3…

When it hit stores in March, Zombie Army Trilogy became the first console game Rebellion had ever self-published in its long history. This was a huge and exciting decision for us, but as our CEO Jason Kingsley explains in this piece (originally published on MCV), it was one we came to after a whole lot of thought. 

There are advantages and disadvantages to developers self-publishing.

The complex decision as to whether we should self-publish happened over an extended period of time and a series of long conversations. Ultimately, the decision will depend on the weight each different studio gives the risks and rewards.

Basically, it will depend on how deep your pockets are, how confident you are in your game-making and scheduling skills, and where your company is in its employee structure. Publishing is not easy, nor is development, and each discipline has its own set of skills. I’d encourage any budding developer-publisher to think over their own situation carefully.

Here are the key questions I would recommend addressing: 

How strong is your cash flow and project pipeline?

Working with a publisher can provide a solid underpinning for a game development business, as long as you have steady flow of projects with minimal downtime in-between and a publisher that is financially stable. 

Gaps in the production pipeline mean an interruption of cash flow, which needs to be planned for and, if unexpected, can be deadly for any business. Hitting development milestones on time, as agreed with your publisher, is also essential; if you miss them repeatedly, it’s likely you won’t get paid. 

We were in a fortunate position; we own our own IP and have multiple sources of revenue, plus expert teams who make great games again and again to deadlines. As such, we’re well positioned to take advantage of the increasing options available to those looking to self-publish. 

Do you have the capacity and capability to pick up the publishing workload?

When you self-publish there are a lot more tasks you have to take on, such as approvals, retail and platform-owner negotiations and packaging design. In addition, there’s marketing, PR and community management.

This is easier for purely digital PC releases. Digital-only removes the complexity and scheduling hassles of the physical manufacture of discs and boxes, and also means you don’t have to manage approvals, age ratings, distribution schedules and inventory – it’s just a case of getting the message out there and hoping people download your game. 

After analysing how the workload is or has been historically split between you and your publisher, if you find you have been doing much of the publisher-side tasks yourself already, and already have the staff and knowledge – or can cost-effectively hire them – then it may make sense to consider self-publishing. 

How strong is your business track record and experience? 

Publishers always take a risk when they back a developer, just as you are taking a risk in backing yourself. Ultimately the decision whether to self-publish or not comes down to a balancing of risk versus reward.

By choosing to self-publish Zombie Army Trilogy, Rebellion added more risk to the project, as nobody else was paying us to do the work; crucially, though, we think it’s risk we can control. 

It’s still just as essential to set dates and stick to them, otherwise you risk letting your ‘increased freedom’ cost you more in expensive delays. 

Data is also a benefit. With work-for-hire, the feedback on how your game is performing can take many months, if not years – especially when it comes to physical retail. By self-publishing, you can see on a daily basis what revenue is coming in, and what you’ll be receiving in the future, allowing you to manage post-launch investment in terms of game updates and marketing. 

Self-publishing is an exciting new direction for Rebellion. We’re keeping our fingers firmly crossed, and I look forward to sharing more of the experience as we progress towards the launch of Zombie Army Trilogy – and beyond.

Look out for more from Jason’s series on self-publishing in the coming days, right here on the Rebellion blog. And be sure to follow him on Twitter: @RebellionJason

Go to part 2…