Going Solo
Larian Studios' Swen Vincke on the decision to self-publish the studios' future products, and why that's not as hard as it sounds
Larian has always made other games also, which are not as well known. Like in the UK we made games for the BBC and CBBC - we have properties with different broadcasters in different territories. We also have a great series of educational games called Monkey Tales, which is coming to the UK soon. We won the MEDEA award for the best educational product of the year. That all earns us money.
And since we were co-publishing on our previous games that meant we had revenue-share deals, which means we weren't depending on advance-versus-royalty deals. So we actually see money from our sales, which is very important.
Thirdly, for the publishing unit, we used investment money from VCs, so we don't have any venture capital inside the company, but for each project we set up a different company in which VCs fund part of it.
What we're seeing disappear is the mid-size publishers, so developers who haven't set up their own financing and their own publishing cannot benefit from their presence anymore. However, the developers that embrace self-publishing and are capable of funding their own projects...they can become big independent developers, and I don't think it's going to take that much time before you're going to see AAA productions from independent developers pop up.
If I was a console manufacturer, I would be asking myself a lot of questions of what I'm doing now, with the market still being so heavily controlled, and asking if that's really such a good idea
There's a reason why Activision and EA have a monopoly on AAA development. As a matter of fact, I think they are actually making it a lot more expensive than it should be, because there's so much waste going on. I hope it's going to be us , it might be some other guys who are doing the same thing that we are doing, but we just need one great, true hit that doesn't even have to sell that many units and we can start competing with the AAA productions out there.
There's an enormous difference between the revenue being made on a game if you do it direct, versus what you get as a developer on a royalty. But if you can get access to the straight revenue that is being made per unit on a game that sells at £39 or £49, and you sell a million units, you have sufficient money to make a AAA game.
The key thing to remember is that the games industry is very large. It makes an enormous amount of revenue, and only a very, very tiny fraction of that makes it to the developers. And if developers can make more of that revenue they should be able to tackle any platform. Take Dragon Commander; it runs on all machines, right, so it's purely a business decision. If we see it's going to be successful [on PC and Mac] and we get good feedback, I don't think it's going to be hard to raise the cash and whatever is necessary to put it on the console.
I think that if they don't, they're dead. Simply, they don't stand a chance of survival if they can't adapt as fast as the other platforms can. Imagine the moment where you have an iPad streaming to your TV and it's as powerful as a console. What's the USP of an actual console at that point? If you think of OnLive, and they solve all of their logistical problems, why do I need a console?
If I was a console manufacturer, and luckily I'm not, I would be asking myself a lot of questions of what I'm doing now, with the market still being so heavily controlled, and asking if that's really such a good idea. If you put the console growth curve next to the growth curve of what's happening at Mac, for instance, I know which side of the battle I want to be.
I think that's spot-on. That's also how I see it. There is a range of services you need if you make content: you need marketing, you need PR, and you need distribution, and the rightful model would be that you could employ these services. If I need PR, I go to a PR firm. If I need marketing, I go to a marketing firm.
The big shift, and it's actually already happening, is that instead of the revenue being kept in a bank called 'the publishers' the revenue is now going directly to the developer, who is going to employ all of these. So it's a radical power shift that's going on, and I think it's a very good thing for our industry.