Single-A Games – How Zeno Clash, Braid, Trine and more are changing the industry
With Modern Warfare 2’s record-breaking launch at the end of last year and Wii Sports smashing sales barriers the world over, the industry would appear to be in rude health. But as consumers continue to count their pennies while the economy staggers to its feet, are publishers losing out by going for blockbuster or budget every time? games™ analyses whether there’s wealth to be found in the space in between.
GamersGate is actually a prime example of a developer playing the publishers at their own game. Set up by Swedish studio Paradox Interactive – which has a history of producing strategy games considered too niche for mainstream release, but too detailed to be described as ‘budget’ – it has allowed the developer to bypass the traditional retail model and go straight to the consumer.
“Publishers need to re-think their position,” claims Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox. “Traditionally, publishers have done three things: sales, marketing and funding. While sales is more and more focussed on a few download channels, this can be pretty much handled by every independent developer themselves. Publishers need to get even better at marketing and funding. A lot of studios still think that ‘a good game will sell itself’ and don’t recognise the value of marketing.”
Whether or not publishers heed Wester’s advice could be irrelevant in the long run, as independent studios are increasingly handling their own promotion. Like so much change in the modern industry, the mobile development scene is leading the way on this front, with recommendation sites like TheGameTrail hosting trailers and gameplay videos that promote iPhone games. Set up by independent studio Fabrication Games, the site helps give smaller iPhone developers a chance to compete in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
According to Fabrication president Tommy Palm, ventures like TheGameTrail.com are simply a reaction to the freedom digital distribution has given smaller studios on all platforms. “The creativity has been there for a long time, but with physical distribution, titles and content have been filtered by publishers that often like to play it safe,” he says. “Development studios, on the other hand, often follow their passion without calculating too much about how it might perform with certain target groups of markets.”
If the industry is nearing a point where a single-A games can be developed, promoted and distributed without the necessity of publisher support, it begs the question of why more publishers aren’t getting in on the act.
“I know that the big players are very interested in this trend,” Palm adds. “They know it’s the future, with a more open market and less middle-men, but it means they will lose much of their current revenue streams and will have to come to terms with the same kind of problems the music industry has been struggling with for a couple of years now.”
However, rather than signalling a stall in the rise of the single-A game, the fact that many publishers are so reluctant to engage with the idea means there is time for studios like Zeno Clash’s ACE Team to consolidate their position. Consumers looking for single-A products will find a market dominated by independent studios selling original games at an attractively diverse range of price-points. The issue is no longer whether gamers want smaller, more focussed titles, but rather who is going to make them.
“Smaller and medium-size developers have an excellent opportunity to build market presence as the big publishing houses still try to grasp the new digital distribution models,” Wester concludes. “It will take another two years before the big companies have optimised their organisations for the new digital reality.”
The rise of the single-A game is, in fact, merely history repeating. Just as MP3s became an established part of the music industry almost without its consent, the availability of sophisticated middleware and, to an even greater extent, digital distribution makes games that don’t handily tick the blockbuster or budget box an inevitability rather than a mere opportunity. Indeed, the industry is already becoming more fragmented. As creativity blooms within developers both big and small, those tied up in deals with major publishers will become increasingly aware of the strict paths they are being pushed down for the sake of easy profits.
In his original article, Steve Gaynor concluded by speculating as to whether single-A games might act as a “bridge” between the “indies and corporate blockbusters.” Evidence already exists that they will, and there is potential for even greater change. Games for every budget. Games for every lifestyle. Games for everybody.
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