Problems of weak gaming ecosystems
“The gaming industry ecosystem” is a fun phrase I've heard for several years now. I heard it in various situations and contexts, but still this phrase is most often used as: “Our ecosystem is weak for the time being, but we are improving it.” It even seems to me that several times I myself threw such a phrase to journalists. By the way, I live in Turkey. This is a semi-European, semi-eastern country, but I believe that we have quite a lot in common with other countries of the world. I want to analyze the consequences of the so-called “weak ecosystems” for various participants in the gaming industry, as well as problems related to such environments. I will also try to voice my ideas on how to overcome such problems.
Let's start by defining the term “entrepreneurial ecosystem,” which I took from Wikipedia:
“The economic community, which operates with the support of interacting organizations and individuals - business organisms. The economic community produces goods and services and sells them to customers, who are also part of this ecosystem. The ecosystem organisms also include suppliers, leading producers, competitors and other interested parties. Over time, their capabilities develop and their roles in this ecosystem improve. As a rule, organisms follow the directions established by one or several main companies. Leading companies may change from time to time, but ecosystem participants value their leader, as it allows them to move towards a shared vision, invest and find mutually beneficial roles. ”
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Apparently, it is necessary to distinguish between a “global ecosystem” and a “local ecosystem”. Over the past 10 years, the importance of the local ecosystem has noticeably decreased due to the use of the Internet, the mastery of general knowledge, the emergence of free tools, and the holding of global summits, but still its significance cannot be called "zero". In this article I will talk about 5 stakeholders that somehow shape the economic sector: developers, studios, investors, universities and the government. I do not think that in local ecosystems the market should be taken into account, as in most cases we are talking about the market on a global scale. Now we will understand how each of these parties interact with the local ecosystem.
We can also say "developers of developing countries" or even "developing developers of developing countries". As you wish. It is quite difficult to find experienced developers in weak ecosystems, and this is a vicious circle: you cannot create high-quality games and train juniors without experienced and knowledgeable developers.
If you are lucky and you have found an experienced developer, then in almost 100% of cases this will be a universal developer. For example, if you are looking for a 3D artist for your next project, a typical resume of a person with three years of experience will look like this:
- I own Maya, Zbrush, 3D Studio Max, Mental Ray
- experience of modeling environments, creating and animating objects
- teamwork experience. I keep deadlines.
In Turkey, a resume of the same specialist will look like this:
- I own Unity3d, Unreal Engine, 3Dstudio Max, Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator, SoftImage, After Effects, Movie Maker
- 2D / 3D modeling experience, texture, concept art, illustration, game design, plot creation, video editing, post effects, lighting, animation, staging
- Hire me, and I hope all ass. I am very talented.
The gap between such resumes will be much more noticeable if specialists have 5+ years of experience.
Most developers are looking for an opportunity to work in Western Europe or in North America, but only the most talented get to these countries. This means that if you are lucky and you get a "diamond", you can hardly hold it for long enough. Convincing a gifted alien to move in with you is also not very easy.
Another "underwater stone" is the lack of alternatives. My friend, who worked in California for quite a long time, once told me: “When you hire a new employee, you need to ask the opinion of each team member about the proposed candidacy. If at least one of them has doubts, there should be no hiring. ” This rule is unlikely to work in weak ecosystems.
The motivation of developers drops sharply if there are not enough of them in the ecosystem. The Internet, of course, reduces this feeling of “loneliness”, but if the developer is not quite correctly evaluated, the desire to work immediately falls. This often works with programmers: no one understands what they are doing, so few appreciate them.
The advantage of developers is that almost all developers are smart and educated. They represent an active part of our society, and it is they who have the potential to change the status quo and break the vicious circle of weak ecosystems.
Short notes that I made about developers in weak ecosystems:
In weak ecosystems, indie developers are much more than teams and studios compared to their number in strong ecosystems. Also, in weak ecosystems, development studios are much smaller, and they appear and disappear much faster: more than 50% of development studios of those that I know have released one or two games and closed. In addition, there are often no other departments in such studios besides the mobile application development department.
The most common mistake of inexperienced teams is their frequent neglect of some details of the development or marketing process. Most often, several programmers and artists unite and do not realize that they know almost nothing about creating games. Another example is my own studio: we have completed a project that we have been developing for 3 years and released it without proper testing.
Quite a large number of studios prefer not to share knowledge and keep their development process in the strictest confidence, as if they are going to change the world. There is also artificial competition between studios that develop games of different genres for different markets.
Very few "veterans" of the gaming industry create their own development studios. Most of them are created by people who worked in companies related to IT and advertising. It often happens that development studios are created by recent college graduates with the money of rich parents.
Such companies rarely have a clear hierarchy. Leading positions are often not defined, managers do not have sufficient authority. As a rule, all decisions are made by the director. In such cases, companies face planning and management errors. Consider another example of my own development studio: when planning Monochroma, we didn’t think about animation at all. It turned out that the animation was one of the most difficult stages of development. We had to develop animation three times. Every time anew. Epic fail.
Low wages - one of the main advantages of gaming startups. In Turkey, the cost of work is about 3 times less than in North America. This is a serious weapon for gaming startups, you just need to use it correctly.
What did I do to overcome these problems?
I prefer an intensive development process. I like working with adventure games, the creation of which requires taking into account many different aspects, we need beautiful performances and an exciting plot.
I try to find the maximum number of development studios, find out their problems and tell them my own. I try to learn from my mistakes, I build a clear hierarchy, where everyone has their own duties and responsibilities for what they do. I try to get feedback on each of my decisions and always check everything twice.
We created Oyunder, where studios can join and share their knowledge, make friends and connections, get feedback and learn from the mistakes of other studios. This has proven to be quite effective, and we have already received rewards for our efforts. Together we hold, and separately - we break.
Fundraising is one of the most difficult conditions for starting a gaming business in weak ecosystems. Recently, e-commerce startups most often receive investments. But in general, investment models are quite safe. Angel investors acquire 50% of companies at ridiculously low prices in exchange for their connections and knowledge. Unfortunately, for the gaming industry, they do not have any special knowledge or connections.
Almost always, when a gaming startup gets invested through friends or family, this ends in a serious disappointment for everyone. Knowing about such failures, other investors prefer not to enter the gaming industry.
In search of foreign investment, startups understand that foreign “angel” funds usually prefer to invest in local development. Yes, and get the money now has become much more difficult than before.
The search for contracting works is a rather difficult path, but still this is easier than searching for investments. Some gaming startups are lost in planning advertising campaigns or developing software, since contract work related to the gaming industry is quite rare.
Grants, start-up stations and independent investments are the main ways to raise funds. Success stories and analysis of the gaming industry are required to attract investors. Our association of game developers Oyunder creates a gaming industry research center in Istanbul, Turkey.
My own strategy for getting out of this vicious circle is to use grants, plan, produce several demos and search for investments abroad. I want to create a headquarters somewhere in Europe or North America, and to carry out production work in Turkey.
In the absence of a developed industry that can influence public opinion about game development, gaming business and the games themselves, public opinion is formed from some snippets of news such as “another guy died playing a game during 17 hours” or “the gamer shot my whole family. " In the eyes of the conservative society, the game is at least a bad habit, and as a maximum is a danger. The opinion of professors is not very different from the views adopted in society. Parents and the education system drives creative people to the IT or advertising business. Hopefully, not everyone obeys.
But there are exceptions. Recently, master classes are held in Turkey directly on the topic of game development, and soon there will be a complete program of training graduates. I hope this will affect the situation in many ways.
Personally, I try to keep in touch with all the universities within my reach and to help them. But it still requires something more serious than any individual effort.
In our Oyunder association, we launched a pilot project to create high school game development clubs. We motivate universities to create courses on game development, or at least include this topic in existing courses. We also brought together people with relevant education who are interested in the gaming industry, and help them begin to publish a dissertation journal and essays related to gaming topics.
The vision of the games and gaming industry by the government often reflects public opinion. Games and game development, one way or another, are associated with government agencies. But in the absence of a clear strategy and centralized governing body, there are many strange, interesting laws, prohibitions and subsidies that depend on the amount of knowledge of the authorized person about the gaming industry. In some cases, the government provides incredibly good opportunities, but most often in this area a mess is created. For example, the Ministry of Finance offers a large subsidy with the return of 50% of the platform commission to the developer. He forgets to list all suitable platforms, and the subsidy covers only mobile games. Unfortunately, so far no representative of the authorities has been able to give a precise definition of the “game”, and therefore, for the developer, obtaining a subsidy is a real problem.
Turkey provides huge bonuses to exporting companies to cover the budget deficit. But at the same time, they cannot decide on what the game is: a product or service, and therefore there are no preferences in this industry. Game development is about programming, programming is about IT, and IT is about services.
Similarly: our sales office is an office for the export of metal products. Metal products? Games are computer programs, computer programs work on computers, computers are wires and circuits, wires are processed metal. Why not? The government can enroll us in food exporters.
High-tech parks are everywhere. It was said that they are being built to accommodate and provide tax breaks for technology companies. Now they are filled with operating IT-companies, mainly representing large companies. Empty office is difficult to find.
As a “plus” we can say that grants are available, they can be used as an accelerator for development. There are many subsidies for local game marketing campaigns in global markets. I think that Turkey is pursuing a much more rational policy in this regard than many other countries. At least, our government has good intentions, although the laws and regulations are far from perfect.
We need associations and lobbyists for effective change.
I am not saying that everything is bad in weak ecosystems: there are many different possibilities in such conditions. However, there are problems, but we need to learn how to overcome them.
Let's start by defining the term “entrepreneurial ecosystem,” which I took from Wikipedia:
“The economic community, which operates with the support of interacting organizations and individuals - business organisms. The economic community produces goods and services and sells them to customers, who are also part of this ecosystem. The ecosystem organisms also include suppliers, leading producers, competitors and other interested parties. Over time, their capabilities develop and their roles in this ecosystem improve. As a rule, organisms follow the directions established by one or several main companies. Leading companies may change from time to time, but ecosystem participants value their leader, as it allows them to move towards a shared vision, invest and find mutually beneficial roles. ”
')
Apparently, it is necessary to distinguish between a “global ecosystem” and a “local ecosystem”. Over the past 10 years, the importance of the local ecosystem has noticeably decreased due to the use of the Internet, the mastery of general knowledge, the emergence of free tools, and the holding of global summits, but still its significance cannot be called "zero". In this article I will talk about 5 stakeholders that somehow shape the economic sector: developers, studios, investors, universities and the government. I do not think that in local ecosystems the market should be taken into account, as in most cases we are talking about the market on a global scale. Now we will understand how each of these parties interact with the local ecosystem.
Developers
We can also say "developers of developing countries" or even "developing developers of developing countries". As you wish. It is quite difficult to find experienced developers in weak ecosystems, and this is a vicious circle: you cannot create high-quality games and train juniors without experienced and knowledgeable developers.
If you are lucky and you have found an experienced developer, then in almost 100% of cases this will be a universal developer. For example, if you are looking for a 3D artist for your next project, a typical resume of a person with three years of experience will look like this:
- I own Maya, Zbrush, 3D Studio Max, Mental Ray
- experience of modeling environments, creating and animating objects
- teamwork experience. I keep deadlines.
In Turkey, a resume of the same specialist will look like this:
- I own Unity3d, Unreal Engine, 3Dstudio Max, Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator, SoftImage, After Effects, Movie Maker
- 2D / 3D modeling experience, texture, concept art, illustration, game design, plot creation, video editing, post effects, lighting, animation, staging
- Hire me, and I hope all ass. I am very talented.
The gap between such resumes will be much more noticeable if specialists have 5+ years of experience.
Most developers are looking for an opportunity to work in Western Europe or in North America, but only the most talented get to these countries. This means that if you are lucky and you get a "diamond", you can hardly hold it for long enough. Convincing a gifted alien to move in with you is also not very easy.
Another "underwater stone" is the lack of alternatives. My friend, who worked in California for quite a long time, once told me: “When you hire a new employee, you need to ask the opinion of each team member about the proposed candidacy. If at least one of them has doubts, there should be no hiring. ” This rule is unlikely to work in weak ecosystems.
The motivation of developers drops sharply if there are not enough of them in the ecosystem. The Internet, of course, reduces this feeling of “loneliness”, but if the developer is not quite correctly evaluated, the desire to work immediately falls. This often works with programmers: no one understands what they are doing, so few appreciate them.
The advantage of developers is that almost all developers are smart and educated. They represent an active part of our society, and it is they who have the potential to change the status quo and break the vicious circle of weak ecosystems.
Short notes that I made about developers in weak ecosystems:
- you have to keep your team’s developers for years and help them grow
- you should offer them decent career prospects and help them move to larger studios if they need it. No one wants to become an artist or program AI if there are no vacancies for them in your country. But if they know that you can help them find a job, everything will gradually change. By the way, it is quite good if one of your former employees works in large studios, because they can return to you in the future, having accumulated a serious store of knowledge
- you should find them mentors and help them grow
- you should learn more about the technical part in order to understand what your programmers are doing and appreciate them
- you must learn to get along with different people and work diligently to create teamwork, because you don’t have that luxury: dismissing an employee just for his bad behavior
- dismissal is the most extreme case
Development studios
In weak ecosystems, indie developers are much more than teams and studios compared to their number in strong ecosystems. Also, in weak ecosystems, development studios are much smaller, and they appear and disappear much faster: more than 50% of development studios of those that I know have released one or two games and closed. In addition, there are often no other departments in such studios besides the mobile application development department.
The most common mistake of inexperienced teams is their frequent neglect of some details of the development or marketing process. Most often, several programmers and artists unite and do not realize that they know almost nothing about creating games. Another example is my own studio: we have completed a project that we have been developing for 3 years and released it without proper testing.
Quite a large number of studios prefer not to share knowledge and keep their development process in the strictest confidence, as if they are going to change the world. There is also artificial competition between studios that develop games of different genres for different markets.
Very few "veterans" of the gaming industry create their own development studios. Most of them are created by people who worked in companies related to IT and advertising. It often happens that development studios are created by recent college graduates with the money of rich parents.
Such companies rarely have a clear hierarchy. Leading positions are often not defined, managers do not have sufficient authority. As a rule, all decisions are made by the director. In such cases, companies face planning and management errors. Consider another example of my own development studio: when planning Monochroma, we didn’t think about animation at all. It turned out that the animation was one of the most difficult stages of development. We had to develop animation three times. Every time anew. Epic fail.
Low wages - one of the main advantages of gaming startups. In Turkey, the cost of work is about 3 times less than in North America. This is a serious weapon for gaming startups, you just need to use it correctly.
What did I do to overcome these problems?
I prefer an intensive development process. I like working with adventure games, the creation of which requires taking into account many different aspects, we need beautiful performances and an exciting plot.
I try to find the maximum number of development studios, find out their problems and tell them my own. I try to learn from my mistakes, I build a clear hierarchy, where everyone has their own duties and responsibilities for what they do. I try to get feedback on each of my decisions and always check everything twice.
We created Oyunder, where studios can join and share their knowledge, make friends and connections, get feedback and learn from the mistakes of other studios. This has proven to be quite effective, and we have already received rewards for our efforts. Together we hold, and separately - we break.
Investors / Fundraising
Fundraising is one of the most difficult conditions for starting a gaming business in weak ecosystems. Recently, e-commerce startups most often receive investments. But in general, investment models are quite safe. Angel investors acquire 50% of companies at ridiculously low prices in exchange for their connections and knowledge. Unfortunately, for the gaming industry, they do not have any special knowledge or connections.
Almost always, when a gaming startup gets invested through friends or family, this ends in a serious disappointment for everyone. Knowing about such failures, other investors prefer not to enter the gaming industry.
In search of foreign investment, startups understand that foreign “angel” funds usually prefer to invest in local development. Yes, and get the money now has become much more difficult than before.
The search for contracting works is a rather difficult path, but still this is easier than searching for investments. Some gaming startups are lost in planning advertising campaigns or developing software, since contract work related to the gaming industry is quite rare.
Grants, start-up stations and independent investments are the main ways to raise funds. Success stories and analysis of the gaming industry are required to attract investors. Our association of game developers Oyunder creates a gaming industry research center in Istanbul, Turkey.
My own strategy for getting out of this vicious circle is to use grants, plan, produce several demos and search for investments abroad. I want to create a headquarters somewhere in Europe or North America, and to carry out production work in Turkey.
Universities
In the absence of a developed industry that can influence public opinion about game development, gaming business and the games themselves, public opinion is formed from some snippets of news such as “another guy died playing a game during 17 hours” or “the gamer shot my whole family. " In the eyes of the conservative society, the game is at least a bad habit, and as a maximum is a danger. The opinion of professors is not very different from the views adopted in society. Parents and the education system drives creative people to the IT or advertising business. Hopefully, not everyone obeys.
But there are exceptions. Recently, master classes are held in Turkey directly on the topic of game development, and soon there will be a complete program of training graduates. I hope this will affect the situation in many ways.
Personally, I try to keep in touch with all the universities within my reach and to help them. But it still requires something more serious than any individual effort.
In our Oyunder association, we launched a pilot project to create high school game development clubs. We motivate universities to create courses on game development, or at least include this topic in existing courses. We also brought together people with relevant education who are interested in the gaming industry, and help them begin to publish a dissertation journal and essays related to gaming topics.
Government
The vision of the games and gaming industry by the government often reflects public opinion. Games and game development, one way or another, are associated with government agencies. But in the absence of a clear strategy and centralized governing body, there are many strange, interesting laws, prohibitions and subsidies that depend on the amount of knowledge of the authorized person about the gaming industry. In some cases, the government provides incredibly good opportunities, but most often in this area a mess is created. For example, the Ministry of Finance offers a large subsidy with the return of 50% of the platform commission to the developer. He forgets to list all suitable platforms, and the subsidy covers only mobile games. Unfortunately, so far no representative of the authorities has been able to give a precise definition of the “game”, and therefore, for the developer, obtaining a subsidy is a real problem.
Turkey provides huge bonuses to exporting companies to cover the budget deficit. But at the same time, they cannot decide on what the game is: a product or service, and therefore there are no preferences in this industry. Game development is about programming, programming is about IT, and IT is about services.
Similarly: our sales office is an office for the export of metal products. Metal products? Games are computer programs, computer programs work on computers, computers are wires and circuits, wires are processed metal. Why not? The government can enroll us in food exporters.
High-tech parks are everywhere. It was said that they are being built to accommodate and provide tax breaks for technology companies. Now they are filled with operating IT-companies, mainly representing large companies. Empty office is difficult to find.
As a “plus” we can say that grants are available, they can be used as an accelerator for development. There are many subsidies for local game marketing campaigns in global markets. I think that Turkey is pursuing a much more rational policy in this regard than many other countries. At least, our government has good intentions, although the laws and regulations are far from perfect.
We need associations and lobbyists for effective change.
Conclusion
I am not saying that everything is bad in weak ecosystems: there are many different possibilities in such conditions. However, there are problems, but we need to learn how to overcome them.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/258793/
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