Re: Pyrogon Postmortem

2004 April 28th
Wednesday

The circumstances you describe in your Pyrogon article
seem very familiar to me, Brian.

It's sad that publishers and gatekeepers interfere with
the success of an independent developer.  Why can't a
person or small company with a great idea and the 
capacity to successfully implement the idea enjoy the
rewards of original thinking and hard work?  I know that
greedy publishers accounted for only part of the cash
flow problem for Pyrogon, but I think this issue is 
very significant.  The fact is that if independent 
developers received a much higher percentage of income
from selling their products, such developers would have
the opportunity to develop future products.  As it is now,
independent developers do not have the ability to
survive based on the proven market success of their own
products -- which is an insane condition.

The high percentages demanded by gateways (web sites,
BREW decks, game console publishers, store shelves), often
50% or higher of gross income, makes it nearly impossible
for independent developers to sustain themselves, and, as
a consequence, leads to a glut of mediocre, unimaginative
products, and corresponding impoverished developers.

What a crazy situation:  A developer needs to make a deal
with a party that controls access to consumers.  All the
gatekeeper does is block developers from an otherwise
free market, and for this the gatekeeper is rewarded with
most of the income!

Many things determine the financial reward that comes from
being an independent game developer, including the merits
of the product concept and the quality of the implementation
of the concept.  When gatekeepers with their high 
profit demands AND their often capricious requirements
(extensive product certification, content restrictions,
requiring branding/licensed characters/franchises, etc)
are involved, the success of the developer has little to do
with actual product value or market demand.

I am currently in a situation that might very well end in
total loss, for no good reason.  I spent four months 
developing an original game for the BREW platform.
I thought that Qualcomm testing was the only thing that
stood between me and making my product available to 
Verizon customers.  Furthermore, I was convinced, despite
being a "no-name" and giving Verizon 40% and Qualcomm 20%,
that I could become rich, based on the merits of my 
product and the lack of credible competition.  Well, 
Verizon artificially limits the total number of accessible
products to what one can see on their "deck" -- "to
avoid overwhelming the consumer with choices".  This is
like having limited "shelf space", but such a concept 
does not make sense in a virtual store!  I wrote an e-mail
to Verizon saying I'd be glad to help them implement a
link to a page that allowed consumers to enter an 
arbitrary product ID, permitting an essentially infinite
selection of BREW products, just like DoCoMo does in Japan
with their huge catalogs of stuff.  All I want to do is 
compete in a market.  I'll pay Verizon and Qualcomm their
"tribute", but I want customers to have access to my product.
I can promote it myself.  I can give people the product ID
just like movie posters, television ads, newspaper ads, etc,
feature web addresses for films, companies, and products.
If Verizon doesn't allow my product on their "deck", and
if they don't expand their "deck" system in the simple
way I proposed, then I will have TOTALLY WASTED hundreds
of hours.

After reviewing my product, one of Verizon's suggestions
to have a better shot at getting on their "deck" was to
get my product branded by a large corporation.  I am 
pursuing this now, but in the event that I actually 
succeed, this is just more profit loss for me.  (Still,
this scenario would be a miracle; it's sad that I'm even
thinking in this desperate way.  I just don't want my
work to actually be worth zero at this point, so even
being totally exploited seems like a blessing.  Ugh!)

I mention my own story just to reinforce the idea that 
gatekeepers, especially those who make it very difficult
to link developers with eager consumers, hurt and 
discourage independent developers, and, on a 
larger scale, reduces the profit for all parties in the
entire industry.  Yes, I think that there is a point when 
demanding too much of a toll when linking consumers to
products actually hurts the gatekeeper's bottom line
in a big way.

What a nightmare it is to develop an original product.
I never would have started if the first page of the 
$49.95 book "Wireless Game Development in C/C++ with
BREW" said: "Don't buy this book unless you already
have a contract to develop a game based on licensed
characters or a major franchise, and your employer
has published several games with Verizon already."
In fact, that should be the TITLE of the book.  Instead,
Qualcomm's easy download of their BREW SDK, and the
fun, enticing nature of this book, lures people in to
the trap of believing that they can actually succeed
at something.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I read the article in
the April, 2004, Game Developer Magazine, "The Wireless
Gold Rush", when it was pointed out that while DoCoMo
offered thousands of games (even printing listings in
catalogs), Verizon was seeking to reduce the size of
their "deck" from 300 games down to around 100.
Okay, so Verizon wants to reduce the clutter of their
product menu tree; that's fine.  But why limit the
selection to what the user can easily navigate with
the phone-web interface?  Okay, so Verizon wants 
BREW to be synonymous with "awesome quality" and 
"hit titles".  All I'm asking is for an alternate link
to select arbitrary products for educated consumers
with a different set of priorities.  Britney Spears,
The Incredible Hulk, 50 Cent, Paris Hilton, Will Hung,
American Idol, Survivor, MTV, etc, don't need to 
endorse every product to make it viable.  (For a
certain demographic such endorsements would be a big
plus, but sooner or later people seek qualities 
beyond the brands.)

I'm sure there are thousands of stories about developers
being run in to the ground, and the thing that upsets
me most is the fact that moderate concessions on the part
of gatekeepers would have been just what was needed to
sustain independent developers and ultimately help 
everyone in the industry.

Anyhow, I wish you the best of luck on your future 
projects, Brian.  It seems like the PC is the only real
free market, especially thanks to the free(*) distribution
channel of the Internet, but piracy is terrible (unless
your target demographic is typically marked by honor
and disposable income).  (*...By "free" I mean that one
does not beg a gatekeeper to make the product available
to consumers, and there is no percentage of profits
demanded for the privilege of access to consumers.
Sure, there's credit card overhead, and bandwidth cost,
but somehow such expenses seem insignificant relative
to dealing with any gatekeeper/publisher.)

--- Colin

[email protected]



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Hook" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 5:38 PM
Subject: [GD-General] Pyrogon Postmortem


For those curious or interested, I did a little postmortem on Pyrogon:

http://www.bookofhook.com/Article/GameDevelopment/APyrogonPostmortem.html




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