IGC: Austin Indie Game Conference Gamecock Keynote
Sorry for the delay everyone I’ve been totally slacking off but I’m going to try and get all of these summaries of the sessions from the Austin Indie Game Conference written up quickly for you. Also if there are any errors in here I apologize and blame my memory giving out over the holidays 
On Thursday morning the Gamecock heads were supposed to give a keynote but they couldn’t make it and VP Steve Escalante gave the presentation instead. Gamasutra already has a great write up on this keynote so I’ll just direct you there and give you my thoughts that may complement theirs.
Gamecocks Thursday Keynote
Steve says you must make sure that you are ready to do game development. Also you have to think about the other teams that you’re competing against to win those publisher dollars. Right now the opportunity to create original intellectual property and be successful with it is greater than ever as consumers are getting tired of the crappily done movie licenses and rehashed sequels, lots of players want fresh new games. Furthermore the digital space removes a lot of the barriers to entry that used to exist, with digital distribution a game can become successful even without breaking into the major retail channels. They feel that digital distribution portals like steam can sell 25% as much as retail which could turn a nice profit when you consider the portion of the game price that the retailer takes and the manufacturing cost of packaging materials.
The Gamecock group doesn’t believe that the giant budgets that exist now for major games are needed. By working smarter a game of equal quality can be created for a fraction of the cost. Included in this is outsourcing of some of the development work which lowers the budget and makes it more presentable. On the upper end Gears of War launched for $10 million so any more that that is certainly not necessary.
Steve also gave an example of the sorts of projects Gamecock is working with. He mentions that Dementium Ward for the Nintendo DS was made by 3 guys in only a few months and it went on to get very good reviews. They are also publishing Pirates Vs Ninjas for the Xbox Live Arcade which is being made by 3 guys and costs less than million to make.
The keynote also gave some great tips for people trying to get in with a publisher (or at least if you want to be published by Gamecock as they’re a bit different than most publishers). First you want to consider does your game appeal to a majority of gamers and can thus compete in the market. Also do you think your game will sell well enough to be in the top 20% of games that generate 80% of revenues. Another important thing is a good vertical slice (a playable demo) that you can show the publisher when you talk to them to help them get excited, this isn’t necessary always but can help tremendously. He also mentioned, however, that you should be looking to make the game you want to make and not the one you think will make the most money. Furthermore you should consider monetization methods during predevelopment if you plan on doing something fancy like ad supported gameplay or micropayments since revenue models can be extremely hard to switch near or after game launch if it turns out they won’t work.
