How to choose a publisher for your mobile game, or 5 correct questions from developers
The KamaGames Studio team with the help of friends from KamaGames decided to consider the question of choosing a publisher for mobile games. This question is relevant for many indie developers, and sooner or later you have to solve it.
First we would like to discuss why in some situations it is worth going to the publisher. In our article, we will consider only f2p games, since it is this monetization model that brings the most money to mobile app stores. This can be seen by looking at the Top Grossing US AppStore. Picture below.
')
Unfortunately (and perhaps fortunately), the global mobile gaming market is changing rapidly and at the same time highly saturated. Therefore, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to successfully launch a game without a publisher. Our experience has shown that a publisher should have a history of successful launch of games, experts in game marketing and game design and a rather big promotion budget. Stories about two brothers who wrote a bestseller during their free time from school - almost never occur. Now it is hard to compete with large companies in terms of the quality of games, experience, understanding of players' requests, and even more difficult to fight for the user.
If you decide to run the game yourself, then you must clearly understand your marketing opportunities. You should not count on organics - for example, you can get into “New and Noteworthy” or “New Releases” only if your game “spick and span” demonstrates the functionality of the last axis or device.
Ideally, you should have a marketing plan, a budget and an understanding of how to maximize your budget. Believing in your project is very important, but realistically assessing the situation is simply necessary, since impressive marketing and advertising budgets are filled in with games that occupy top positions in Grossing USA. For example, the guys from ZeptoLab spent on launching Cut the Rope: Time Travel $ 1,000,000 . Now imagine the budget for the promotion of the game, about which no one has ever heard. And even if your game has the potential to be a hundred times greater than the Clash of Slans at one time - no one can know about it without competent marketing.
Of course, the honorable reader is in the know, but we still note that there are three main channels to promote the game: featuring (in, for example, the App Store and Google Play), PR and buying users (buying traffic).
As mentioned above, it's hard to break into the featuring. But, if you are convinced that your game will satisfy the requirements of the store, go ahead! Write to the App Store and Google Play staff, find out current and general requirements and try to convince them that your game just deserves special attention.
Literate PR will give you a few thousand downloads and, perhaps, a place in TOP Free in a particular country for a while. And the purchase of users requires not only money, but also an understanding of where, how and what kind of traffic is better to buy. It must be remembered that this process of advancement requires incessant efforts, as it costs you a little to slow down, others will come to your place, and the number of daily downloads will fall.
If after reading you want to go to the publisher, we recommend asking him a few questions, after which you will understand who is actually sitting in front of you.
Not all publishers have the same “package of services” and, most importantly, equal opportunities (and sometimes even under unfavorable conditions). The first thing you need to look at is how this publisher can be useful for your game. Some developers first ask about the conditions for sharing profits. But what's the point of having 80% (for example) of profit, if the game does not make money and nobody plays it? Think about what is better: 80% of ten thousand dollars or 40% (again, for example) of hundreds of thousands or a million?
The best proof of the publisher’s capabilities is the games released by it and their performance. In particular, the number of installations and active players, to which positions in Top Free and in which countries the games were withdrawn, and most importantly - the top positions of Top Grossing ratings. If all this is not - do not lose your precious time, get up and leave.
The publisher must have proven marketing channels and solutions that deliver results. Everything else that you can tell is lyrics. There are, of course, novice publishers, but in any case they must have their own successful projects, according to which it can be concluded, whether the publisher is or not.
Developing a game and producing it are two fundamentally different tasks. Promotion requires holistic knowledge of the market, the desires of the players, analysis of competitors, genres and key mechanics. The producer must know which mechanics work best and which ones are right for your game. It is very important to understand the scale of marketing costs for your game, as well as its desired and achievable performance indicators (retention, life-time, etc.) and ways to achieve them.
Ideally, the publisher will help you with this. His experience will save you development time and will not allow you to make typical and completely unnecessary mistakes. These can be any issues related to development and promotion: technical, product, interface, viral, etc. Be prepared for the publisher to propose changes — working together to improve the game will help you learn from experience and increase the chances of success.
It is very important to understand whether the publisher can be useful to you from the point of view of development and whether he is able to speak the same language with you. A publisher with development experience has already encountered high-load servers, optimization, has solutions for working with statistics, in general, should offer a systematic approach to solving many problems.
The publisher has learned from experience what will work and make money, and what won't. Many things should not just be taken from somewhere, but should be verified by themselves, they need their own experience. In short, the publisher is required to be able to make games and earn them. Therefore, ask his opinion on all questions, get an answer from him, how he sees your game, what changes need to be made and how to supplement it. If there is a publisher who specializes in games of your genre, then he will tell you better than others how to make the game better than publishers. In addition, remember that the PC is not equal to mobile and the adaptation of experience under the rapidly changing mobile market is simply necessary.
The question seems a bit strange, why should the publisher “sign the game” if he does not want to work on it ?! Nevertheless, it happens that the publishers, having signed the game, quickly lose interest in it, and it turns out to be “on the shelf”. In this case, the publisher loses almost nothing (except for his time), and the developer at least threw out several months of his work, in which he invested his soul.
You need to understand why the publisher takes your game: he wants to make money with you, or he just needs to sign the game, for example, to complete his KPI (or for some other reason only known to him).
Feel free to ask the publisher questions about his plans. Ask what will happen if after the launch of the game the indicators will not be as expected. Will work continue to improve the game, increase conversion and key metrics? Did the publisher have a similar successful experience? Or in his portfolio most of the games, which he forgot a week after the trial run?
Making the publisher ensure long-term project work is difficult. In the end, the game can really not be in demand, and then it should be closed. But, having asked these questions, you will be able to understand his plans and reduce for yourself the risks of finding yourself in a similar position.
There is no universal council on what conditions to work, this is very individual. It all depends on the situation: the experience of the developer, the quality of the game, its potential, the complexity of entering the market, and so on.
There are various options for the division of profits, the structure of payments, financing development, guarantees on each side and much more. There can be only one advice here: weigh all the risks - both your own and the publisher. Try to think a step further, cover all situations and read the text written in the contract in small print.
Your first game will not necessarily be an absolute hit for all times. But each game is, at a minimum, a step to the next game, which is more likely to become that very hit, and the main thing here is to get the maximum from an already-made product that will allow you to continue doing your favorite thing.
Do not be afraid to work with publishers, because there are so many options on the market. There are old-timers of the market, there are young publishers who are successful developers and have accumulated their own extensive experience. Look for the one that is best for you. But do not forget that the most important thing in working with the publisher is to combine your efforts in order to get a good, high-quality and successful game. If you understand that you will definitely not achieve this with someone, then you should not waste your time on them!
First we would like to discuss why in some situations it is worth going to the publisher. In our article, we will consider only f2p games, since it is this monetization model that brings the most money to mobile app stores. This can be seen by looking at the Top Grossing US AppStore. Picture below.
')
Unfortunately (and perhaps fortunately), the global mobile gaming market is changing rapidly and at the same time highly saturated. Therefore, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to successfully launch a game without a publisher. Our experience has shown that a publisher should have a history of successful launch of games, experts in game marketing and game design and a rather big promotion budget. Stories about two brothers who wrote a bestseller during their free time from school - almost never occur. Now it is hard to compete with large companies in terms of the quality of games, experience, understanding of players' requests, and even more difficult to fight for the user.
If you decide to run the game yourself, then you must clearly understand your marketing opportunities. You should not count on organics - for example, you can get into “New and Noteworthy” or “New Releases” only if your game “spick and span” demonstrates the functionality of the last axis or device.
Ideally, you should have a marketing plan, a budget and an understanding of how to maximize your budget. Believing in your project is very important, but realistically assessing the situation is simply necessary, since impressive marketing and advertising budgets are filled in with games that occupy top positions in Grossing USA. For example, the guys from ZeptoLab spent on launching Cut the Rope: Time Travel $ 1,000,000 . Now imagine the budget for the promotion of the game, about which no one has ever heard. And even if your game has the potential to be a hundred times greater than the Clash of Slans at one time - no one can know about it without competent marketing.
Of course, the honorable reader is in the know, but we still note that there are three main channels to promote the game: featuring (in, for example, the App Store and Google Play), PR and buying users (buying traffic).
As mentioned above, it's hard to break into the featuring. But, if you are convinced that your game will satisfy the requirements of the store, go ahead! Write to the App Store and Google Play staff, find out current and general requirements and try to convince them that your game just deserves special attention.
Literate PR will give you a few thousand downloads and, perhaps, a place in TOP Free in a particular country for a while. And the purchase of users requires not only money, but also an understanding of where, how and what kind of traffic is better to buy. It must be remembered that this process of advancement requires incessant efforts, as it costs you a little to slow down, others will come to your place, and the number of daily downloads will fall.
If after reading you want to go to the publisher, we recommend asking him a few questions, after which you will understand who is actually sitting in front of you.
The choice of the publisher. 5 questions that the developer must ask first
1. What are the capabilities and potential of the publisher?
Not all publishers have the same “package of services” and, most importantly, equal opportunities (and sometimes even under unfavorable conditions). The first thing you need to look at is how this publisher can be useful for your game. Some developers first ask about the conditions for sharing profits. But what's the point of having 80% (for example) of profit, if the game does not make money and nobody plays it? Think about what is better: 80% of ten thousand dollars or 40% (again, for example) of hundreds of thousands or a million?
The best proof of the publisher’s capabilities is the games released by it and their performance. In particular, the number of installations and active players, to which positions in Top Free and in which countries the games were withdrawn, and most importantly - the top positions of Top Grossing ratings. If all this is not - do not lose your precious time, get up and leave.
The publisher must have proven marketing channels and solutions that deliver results. Everything else that you can tell is lyrics. There are, of course, novice publishers, but in any case they must have their own successful projects, according to which it can be concluded, whether the publisher is or not.
2. Does the publisher have professional and experienced producers?
Developing a game and producing it are two fundamentally different tasks. Promotion requires holistic knowledge of the market, the desires of the players, analysis of competitors, genres and key mechanics. The producer must know which mechanics work best and which ones are right for your game. It is very important to understand the scale of marketing costs for your game, as well as its desired and achievable performance indicators (retention, life-time, etc.) and ways to achieve them.
Ideally, the publisher will help you with this. His experience will save you development time and will not allow you to make typical and completely unnecessary mistakes. These can be any issues related to development and promotion: technical, product, interface, viral, etc. Be prepared for the publisher to propose changes — working together to improve the game will help you learn from experience and increase the chances of success.
3. Does the publisher have its own development experience?
It is very important to understand whether the publisher can be useful to you from the point of view of development and whether he is able to speak the same language with you. A publisher with development experience has already encountered high-load servers, optimization, has solutions for working with statistics, in general, should offer a systematic approach to solving many problems.
The publisher has learned from experience what will work and make money, and what won't. Many things should not just be taken from somewhere, but should be verified by themselves, they need their own experience. In short, the publisher is required to be able to make games and earn them. Therefore, ask his opinion on all questions, get an answer from him, how he sees your game, what changes need to be made and how to supplement it. If there is a publisher who specializes in games of your genre, then he will tell you better than others how to make the game better than publishers. In addition, remember that the PC is not equal to mobile and the adaptation of experience under the rapidly changing mobile market is simply necessary.
4. Does the publisher have a desire to work on your game?
The question seems a bit strange, why should the publisher “sign the game” if he does not want to work on it ?! Nevertheless, it happens that the publishers, having signed the game, quickly lose interest in it, and it turns out to be “on the shelf”. In this case, the publisher loses almost nothing (except for his time), and the developer at least threw out several months of his work, in which he invested his soul.
You need to understand why the publisher takes your game: he wants to make money with you, or he just needs to sign the game, for example, to complete his KPI (or for some other reason only known to him).
Feel free to ask the publisher questions about his plans. Ask what will happen if after the launch of the game the indicators will not be as expected. Will work continue to improve the game, increase conversion and key metrics? Did the publisher have a similar successful experience? Or in his portfolio most of the games, which he forgot a week after the trial run?
Making the publisher ensure long-term project work is difficult. In the end, the game can really not be in demand, and then it should be closed. But, having asked these questions, you will be able to understand his plans and reduce for yourself the risks of finding yourself in a similar position.
5. Under what conditions does the publisher want to work?
There is no universal council on what conditions to work, this is very individual. It all depends on the situation: the experience of the developer, the quality of the game, its potential, the complexity of entering the market, and so on.
There are various options for the division of profits, the structure of payments, financing development, guarantees on each side and much more. There can be only one advice here: weigh all the risks - both your own and the publisher. Try to think a step further, cover all situations and read the text written in the contract in small print.
Your first game will not necessarily be an absolute hit for all times. But each game is, at a minimum, a step to the next game, which is more likely to become that very hit, and the main thing here is to get the maximum from an already-made product that will allow you to continue doing your favorite thing.
And finally
Do not be afraid to work with publishers, because there are so many options on the market. There are old-timers of the market, there are young publishers who are successful developers and have accumulated their own extensive experience. Look for the one that is best for you. But do not forget that the most important thing in working with the publisher is to combine your efforts in order to get a good, high-quality and successful game. If you understand that you will definitely not achieve this with someone, then you should not waste your time on them!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/195752/
All Articles