Telltale Games Success Secret
The editorial team of App2Top.ru decided to find out the reasons for the success of Telltale Inc. games, including The Walking Dead: The Game and Law & Order: Legacies. On the five approaches to the development of singles on mobile platforms and the prospects of this game genre, see below.
Telltale Games has been releasing games on mobile platforms for more than two years, and its six-part horror Walking Dead: The Game is popular, including among users of iOS devices. In total, the company received $ 15 million in investment from IDG Ventures SF and Granite Ventures to develop its projects. In addition, the staff of Telltale Games has doubled this year, and in the spring of 2013 the company plans to increase the team by another 40 people.
In many ways, this success is ensured by the principles that Telltale Games adheres to in developing its games. In total, we have identified 5 main approaches:
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1. Episodic format
Small studios can create large projects only in fragments - they simply won't pull in another way. First, the cost of developing the game will be progressive, and you will not have to spend all your strength and resources right away. If the first parts of the game will be profitable, then you can take on the following episodes.
Secondly, when developing each new “series” of a single, developers can take into account the wishes of users. Plus, regular updates can be sold for an additional fee. With constant work on the content of a single-game can be a full-fledged serial service.
2. Work under license
Reduce marketing costs and get an audience that accurately downloads the first episode of your game, you can, using IP. Since its first project (Bone’s serial quest based on Jeff Smith’s comic book), the company has been working on this principle.
3. Practical approach
To put the whole process of developing games on the rails, it is more convenient to create a single toolkit, an engine that will be customized for a specific genre. At the same time, the development of a new game and each of its episodes is based on the same principles, only the content will change. This will save both the budget and the working time of level designers and screenwriters whose tasks are already defined by the existing framework. The only drawback is that the engine has a number of technical limitations, which means that the same framework determines the conditions for the further development of the project.
4. Multiplatform
The more game platforms are represented in, the more users can be reached. This should not be forgotten.
5. The plot
In Telltale Games, the main focus is on the plot. It is the plot that can sell the project and keep the users watching each new episode. The game turns into something more than just interactive entertainment.
For example, the studio's latest gambling blockbuster - The Walking Dead horror drama - was released in five episodes, each of which came out with an interval of one to two months. In the first two weeks of sales of the part "Episode 1. New Day" more than a million copies of games were sold. Such a powerful start based on the plot of the zombie apocalypse from the original comic allowed the studio to develop the project further.
But the most important thing in creating an episodic game is the presence of excitement around the release of each new part of it. And here the powerful plot will play its role: you can cut off the story between the episodes at the time of the climax. And within a month before the release of the new part of the game, to warm up the interest of gamers with teasers, reviews and promo.
Telltale Games has been releasing games on mobile platforms for more than two years, and its six-part horror Walking Dead: The Game is popular, including among users of iOS devices. In total, the company received $ 15 million in investment from IDG Ventures SF and Granite Ventures to develop its projects. In addition, the staff of Telltale Games has doubled this year, and in the spring of 2013 the company plans to increase the team by another 40 people.
In many ways, this success is ensured by the principles that Telltale Games adheres to in developing its games. In total, we have identified 5 main approaches:
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1. Episodic format
Small studios can create large projects only in fragments - they simply won't pull in another way. First, the cost of developing the game will be progressive, and you will not have to spend all your strength and resources right away. If the first parts of the game will be profitable, then you can take on the following episodes.
Secondly, when developing each new “series” of a single, developers can take into account the wishes of users. Plus, regular updates can be sold for an additional fee. With constant work on the content of a single-game can be a full-fledged serial service.
2. Work under license
Reduce marketing costs and get an audience that accurately downloads the first episode of your game, you can, using IP. Since its first project (Bone’s serial quest based on Jeff Smith’s comic book), the company has been working on this principle.
3. Practical approach
To put the whole process of developing games on the rails, it is more convenient to create a single toolkit, an engine that will be customized for a specific genre. At the same time, the development of a new game and each of its episodes is based on the same principles, only the content will change. This will save both the budget and the working time of level designers and screenwriters whose tasks are already defined by the existing framework. The only drawback is that the engine has a number of technical limitations, which means that the same framework determines the conditions for the further development of the project.
4. Multiplatform
The more game platforms are represented in, the more users can be reached. This should not be forgotten.
5. The plot
In Telltale Games, the main focus is on the plot. It is the plot that can sell the project and keep the users watching each new episode. The game turns into something more than just interactive entertainment.
For example, the studio's latest gambling blockbuster - The Walking Dead horror drama - was released in five episodes, each of which came out with an interval of one to two months. In the first two weeks of sales of the part "Episode 1. New Day" more than a million copies of games were sold. Such a powerful start based on the plot of the zombie apocalypse from the original comic allowed the studio to develop the project further.
But the most important thing in creating an episodic game is the presence of excitement around the release of each new part of it. And here the powerful plot will play its role: you can cut off the story between the episodes at the time of the climax. And within a month before the release of the new part of the game, to warm up the interest of gamers with teasers, reviews and promo.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/160411/
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