I don’t normally write about my development, but I’m really excited about what I’ve got and I’d love to hear some feedback! So, please, if you would, let me know what you think of this little snippet!

I’ve been hard at work on the release version of Jeweltopia. In addition to an entire codebase rewrite, new art design, and a completely new custom soundtrack, I’ve changed the gameplay a little to diversify the experience. (Exactly why is another post for the future.) So, without further ado, I present an exclusive Jeweltopia gameplay video:

When was the last time you were confronted with a choice of difficulty in a game? And how many of you didn’t know what to select? It’s a tough call, especially if you’ve never played the game before. You haven’t yet developed an understanding of the developer’s definition of “Easy,” or “Experienced.” For all you know, “Easy,” could mean “a five-year old can play it without incident.” On the other hand, it could mean “Easier than Super Ultra Difficult… but not by much!” You don’t want to ruin the game by selecting an inappropriate difficulty setting. But more importantly, you don’t want to ruin it for your players.

In the final publicly released beta of Jeweltopia, many players complained the game was too challenging. This was especially true among casual gamers - my audience. In the act of re-tooling the game since the last release, I’ve come across many ways to handle difficulty levels:

None At All

It is possible to introduce variable difficulty into any game, so chalk this one up to a lazy developer. That’s not to say all games need difficulty settings - an extremely small niche game may thrive on its extremely difficult play, for example. But this method of handling difficulty isn’t recommended for most games, and especially most commercial titles.

Explicit

The prevailing method of difficulty adjustment on console games. Originally introduced with just two options (”Easy” and “Hard,) but has since grown to be far more complex with some games using multi-state or analog adjustment allowing for almost limitless difficulty settings. Usually not an ideal choice for game developers since the player has no idea what “Easy,” really means. However, this type of option can - and does - thrive in sim and god games where breadth of choice is a valuable asset.

Implicit

Certainly the most common. As the player progresses through a game, it is understood the difficulty will ramp up, usually gradually. However, while this method has been in use for ages, it’s important to recognize that its true purpose is to adapt to the player’s experience. As the player progresses, it is reasonable to assume the player excels at tasks previously difficult. To make later levels more difficult is to actually match what the earlier levels were in difficulty, but for a more seasoned player. Most games employ this method.

Dynamic

When abused, this is sometimes referred to as rubberband difficulty. The game adjusts to the player’s experience: as the player does better, the game becomes more difficult, and when the player begins to fail, the game lightens the load. This is a good way to keep the player interested, but can result in the game’s operations becoming “transparent.” When implimented improperly, this method can in fact be worse than explicit player selection, or no selection at all.

In the next article, I’ll discuss how to utilize most or all of these options for the best player experience.

I am selling a derivative game.

There exists no facilitation for the financial support of an independent, small-budget game developer. Since the health of my investment lies entirely in the market’s hands, and since the market has shown a preference for that type of game, it is a perceptually less risky investment for someone to which this game represents all or nothing. I do not have a portfolio of commercial games to offset my losses should the game tank. Therefore, any time I invest in the game need to be fully realized so that it may afford me the opportunity to completely develop and release experimental titles.

If there was a means in place to facilitate this experimentation without such risk on my part, then I would persue such course. But there isn’t, and so - as a wannabe experimental game developer - I must rely on myself to support such ventures. To do that, I must be financially stable enough to take such risks. To become so stable, I have chosen ancillary development of popular genre titles. That is, I would like to remain within the medium for the financial support, rather than seek support from another field.

This is the “broken industry,” and it has more than a menial impact on the development and maturity of the medium.

The industry hasn barely moved forward since its inception. What would have been excusable 15 years ago simply isn’t anymore. Games ran on pretty abysmal hardware, chock full of limitations. Technology has advanced. Budgets have skyrocketted. But the content remains the same. “Shoot enemy. Pick up health. Repeat.”

Actually, I retract that. At least back then we had handfuls of thoughtful games, like Adventures and true puzzlers. Today — the exceptionally rare gem notwithstanding — we are in a Dark Ages of game development.

All because publishers have opted for the path of safety, without any regard for the future of the medium. Is this perpetual? Will it go on forever? Will our medium die the horrible death of obscurity, before being resurrected in the future as a land of golden opportunity for creative expression? Has it already? Are we on the upswing, or the downswing?

What do you think?

Certainly, money will be the primary consideration in any business. But it is not — nor should it be — the only.

Ignorance of the broad consequences of a self-centered industry is what lead to the destruction of our field in 1984 and will likely again. And we’re not the only creative industry who has witnessed these consequences. The music and film industries have had their share of hurt for years and they’ve only just begun acknowledging the true cause of their losses.

It is not only the self which one must consider in business. The industry as a whole must be considered. If one were so lucky as to have been born into a singularly dominated industry, then one would be responsible only to himself for its destruction. But we are many, each affecting another. The procedural devaluation of products through commoditization is unsustainable. We must consider not only our own business’ “bottom line,” but the “bottom line” of our industry as a whole, if we want this field to continue to thrive and prosper.

Farm without replenishment and it will become a barren wasteland, profitable for no one.

I’m here. I’m alive. I’m okay.

My sincerest apologies to all my faithful readers, for not being here when you expected. My life got turned upside-down for a time these last few months.

I won’t bore you with the details.

Suffice it to say, I’m back, and I’ll be populating this once thriving blog with more indie game development tips. In addition, I’ll be expanding the focus of this blog to entertain my various and sundry interests in the arts, music, and entertainment. Expect Photoshop tips, programming tips, music composition tips, sound editing tips, web design tips… Hell, the whole gamut of digital multimedia!

In the meantime, please have a look at a little site I whipped up to house and distribute my many musical pursuits:

music.Solari Studios

I’ll be seeing you in the next few days. It’s good to be back!

The official Nintendo Wii website states the following about the Wii’s Virtual Console feature:

[The Virtual Console] also will be home to new games conceived by indie developers whose creativity is larger than their budgets.

Are they talking about we indies? As in, the little guys? Xbox Live Arcade indies? On the Wii?

Sounds like it to me. Anybody know more?

Nintendo will be holding their E3 conference only 45 minutes from now, and I wanted to go on record with a few predictions before they make their big announcements. Here they are in no particular order:

• System will launch at under $300
• System probably launch at or under $250
• 1 bundled game (Tennis)
• If the system launches above $200 and the tennis game is bundled, then the system will ship with 2 controllers
• If Wii controller has microphone, then Zelda has a blowgun weapon that takes advantage of the technology
• Zelda may be Wii exclusive

After the fact: Well, looks like none of them have been either confirmed or denied, except Zelda. (Greatful for that one!) Guess we’ll see about the rest!

Hundreds of games are released every year, yet only a small handful sell enough to recoup their costs. This is because the games industry is a hit-based one — you’ve got to make a hit to make a buck. The few top games make most of the money while the rest of the crowd sits on the sidelines. But how much is that? In order for the top titles to capture the majority of the market, they must sell an order of magnitude better than the titles below them. What we’re talking about is a non-linear curve:

As you can see in this simplified example, a #1 hit title sells 10,000 units more than the #2 title, while the #2 sells only half that more than the #3 title, or 5,000 units. And the #3 title makes half that more than the #4 title, or 2,500 units more, etc. The further down the curve, the less the difference is between each title. With this tyle of non-linear curve, a #1,043 title may only sell 5 or 10 units more than a title 300 spots behind. What you see is 1% of the titles making 90% of the money. That 1% are the “hits.” The rest is called the “long tail:”

There is a lot of potential in the long tail for retailers — as a collective, the long tail is very valuable given its sheer volume. However, for a developer, being in the long tail is catastrophic.

Let us for a moment pretend you’ve managed to climb the ladder — you’ve left the volatile long tail and now you’re poised to hit the top 10 chart. The top of the charts is a tough nut to crack, however. The further up you go, the more you have to excel to get to the next spot. A game may fluxuate from #1,690 to #1,782 over the course of a week, but a top 10 title may only gain or lose a couple places at a time, if that. Unfortunately, unless you’re privy to the logs of a successful portal, there’s no real way to know what the weekly top 10 charts look like, in sales.

We’ll roll our own.

Let’s use Download.com’s download statistics for this example. They’re freely available and they have a large enough audience to make our experiment worthwhile. I’ve taken the liberty of transcribing Download.com’s 30 Most Popular in Games list to an Excel spreadsheet and charting the results:

As you can see, the #1 download — Global MU Online, downloaded 92,287 times — was downloaded 431% more times than the #10 download — Snood, with 21,412 downloads. However, the difference between the #11 and #20 titles is a mere 160%. Of the 30 titles sampled, the top 10 accounted for almost two-thirds — 63% — of all downloads, with 11-20 accounting for 21% and the bottom 10 taking in only 14%.

If you look carefully, you’ll notice an interesting thing: there’s only an 18% difference in the 11-20 and 21-30 charts, versus the 271% difference between the top 10 and 11-20. The top 10 is so vastly skewed, something must be happening. I can figure only one possible scenario to explain this unnatural behavior: the top 10 chart itself accounts for a massive influx of positive traffic. In fact, I suspect that if the list was adjusted to regularly expose the top 15 titles, we may see a similar, yet wider result.

No spot is quite as valuable as the #10 spot. The #1 spot comes close, but the beneficial difference between #10 and #11 is the most significant of any place on the board. This means the difference between mediocrity and acclaim. As soon as you hit that 10 spot, you’ve elevated to an entirely new tier of competition. Hang around 11 or 12 for a while and you may never taste the sweet successes the top 10 charts bring, but obtain the elusive #10, and your chances of success increase by an order of magnitude.

How you get there is an individual matter. But just know you need to get there — that’s where all the money is.

Yesterday I introduced you to the barriers of sale, or the “sales chain” — a long list of steps which must be completed before you ever see a cent from your visitors. Every broken link in that chain — no matter where — is a missed sale; money lost. It is up to you to strengthen your sales chain to its maximum fidelity in order to take your downloadable game business to the future. And that requires you pay special attention to every link in your sales chain. Today we’ll be talking about another one of these vital links: screenshots.

In a recent post, I explored some surprising statistics about my visitors — casual gamers — and the utter lack of dial-up subscribers in the bunch. A little more than 4% of my visitors successfully downloaded a full 4.72 MB demo with a dial-up connection, and only the smallest fraction of those purchased the game. Only 0.02% of my business effectively comes from dial-up users. Seems like a pursuit hardly worthwhile, doesn’t it?

At this point, you’ve got one of two options: support dial-up users, or don’t. In my experience, however, their business impact is so low that I feel there is no question which is more valuable. With a broadband target, you are free to experiment with new asset types, site designs, and so much more that simply wasn’t an option when you made yourself available to dial-up users. However, just because a user is on broadband doesn’t mean they’ll download your game.

Jeweltopia gets approximately 1 download for every 6 visitors (~16%) that view the game information — screenshots, copy, etc. (This includes the few download sites Jeweltopia is featured on, so the statistics are probably significantly lower than what you’re used to seeing with your own site, alone.) Dial-up users can’t be blamed for such a discrepancy because they only account for less than 10% of the total viewership and their download rate per capita is actually higher than broadband users. And surely a sub-5 MB game isn’t turning off the broadband users…

So, where’s the problem?

Here’s a question for you: What’s the first thing a visitor does when exposed to your game? The visitor explores it; they investigate it. The visitor does this by reading copy and looking at screenshots. I have no idea of the frequency at which visitors read the game’s copy — it’s simply impossible to measure without a dedicated testing facility and gobs of expensive monitoring equipment. But I do know how many visitors view screenshots: almost all of them. 94%, to be exact. This viewing rate is light years ahead of the ~16% download rate I’ve learned to accept.

Why screenshots? Why are screenshots so intriguing that 94% of my audience will bother to expand at least one? Because they give the visitor the richest taste of the product before commiting to the download/install process. The copy is most likely skimmed (nobody reads anymore), but the screenshots… the screenshots are golden. You could say they sell the game. Less than 1% of my viewership downloads the game without expanding a single screenshot.

How do you increase the impact of the screenshots? How do you utilize the popularity of the screenshots to drive downloads? We’ve decided to stop supporting dial-up users, so maybe we need to re-think the dial-up-friendly screenshot paradigm. Screenshots are static, boring representatives of an interactive medium. Videos, on the other hand, are not. With video, we have the capacity to actively sell the download to our visitor.

With all the wonder and availability the Internet has brought the world, the one thing it lacks (depending on your point of view) are salesmen. We rely on the visitor to pull information from our sites. The visitor must actively seek, search, and assimilate the data in any given site. This is a frustratingly tiring approach for the average visitor, which is why you’ll find so many people merely scanning and skimming the text on most sites they visit. In contrast, if you walk into many stores in the U.S., you’ll find yourself innundated with obnoxious salesmen, each trying to help you — each trying to earn a commission. Annoying, perhaps, but the last thing you’ll need to do is work to find what you want.

The most popular medium of the last several decades is the television — the boob tube. An extremely lazy form of information “push,” that permeates almost every single home in the U.S. And why has it gained in such popularity? Because it’s easy. There’s nothing the general public likes more than “easy.” (Except, perhaps, “free.” But that’s an essay for the future.)

So let us combine the two most profound technologies of our time — television and the Internet — and throw in a dash of what makes a great salesman useful: easy information. Consider, now, you have the capacity to actively sell your product to a visitor. For every visitor looking, searching, prodding for information, you can feed it to them in a manner they appreciate. Easy, full multimedia glory: vibrant video and explosive audio. Your very own salesman on your very own site, actively feeding pitches to your audience without the slightest bit of effort.

Video is what this world has grown up on, and video is what it expects. The dial-up popularity of the early days of the textual Internet are quickly fading, giving way to a new method of expression available only to the increasing numbers of broadband users. So, give the users what they want: easy, palatable information at the touch of a button. No reading required. No thinking required. Just full, unadulterated media spoon-fed to the expecting public.

So, the value to your visitors is clear. What isn’t is whether such tactics would provide you with an increase in downloads. I’ll venture to say it does, if for no other reason than the sheer popularity of screenshots, combined with the ubiquitous penetration of broadband connectivity and the desire to be fed information. Users previously unwilling to learn about the game by reading the copy (too much work) can now explore the game in a full multimedia presentation. For every link in the “sales chain,” if only one fails, you’ve ultimately lost a sale for sure. For every user that doesn’t find immediate interest in your static, boring screenshots — screenshots that barely reflect the interactive nature of your medium — and doesn’t download the game, you’ve lost a potential sale.

I’ll be experimenting with videos over the next several months, and I’ll be sure to share the results with you. Until then, begin thinking of other ways you can excite your visitors with unique and engaging media. If you can increase your downloads, you can increase both your exposure and your sales. Anything you can do to strengthen each link in the chain dramatically increases your chances of successfully closing a sale and earning a return customer for your future products. In the next iteration of the “Double Your Sales” series, I’ll be taking the multimedia screenshot idea to the next level: interactivity and web games. Until then, keep your chain strong and prosper!

Note: Video development and deployment is an entire essay on its own, and there are already many excellent resources available throughout the web. I would suggest looking into Flash as a deployment platform, as the earliest version that supports video is 7, and with a penetration of over 95%, you’re going to hit a lot less compatibility walls than using a proprietary format, such as WMV or QuickTime.

What would you say if I told you that you could double your sales? How about triple them? It wouldn’t be easy, and it would probably take an entirely new approach to developing a game than you’re already used to. But, I’m getting ahead of myself — let’s start small. Let’s begin by following the natural progression of a visitor’s experience with a downloadable title:

1. Become aware of the game.
2. Visit the site.
3. Learn more about the game.
   1. View screen shots.
   2. Read copy.
   3. Read reviews…
      • …on local site.
      • …on remote site.
4. Download the game installer.
5. Find the game installer on the hard disk.
6. Run the game installer.
7. Progress through the installer wizard.
8. Run the game…
• …from the completed installer.
• …from the desktop shortcut.
• …from the Start Menu…
  • …find game folder…
    • …run game.
9. Enjoy the game.
10. Click, “Buy Now,” inside the game.
11. View website order form.
    • Potentially wait for the modem to connect.
12. Decide if the price is acceptable.
13. Proceed to the payment information page.
14. Physically find and get the form of payment.
15. Enter the payment information.
16. Wait for the payment authorization.
17. Check email for the key code or a download link.
18. Enter the key code into the application or download and install the full version.
19. Enjoy the registered full version.

There is a potential for 23 steps between first becoming aware of the game and enjoying the fully registered version…and this assumes nothing went wrong! From a credit card being declined, to a lost installer, this is certainly not a flawless process. Every step has the potential for complete and utter failure to convert a web-site visitor into a paying customer. Unfortunately, many independent developers and publishers fall into the trap of believing that once they’ve got a website and a game, they’re done. This couldn’t be further from the truth!

Over the next couple weeks, I’ll be bringing you articles in which I explore ways we can whittle and polish our list to turn it into a finely tuned revenue generating machine. Today, I’ll be talking about why, “FREE,” is relative, and exploring other costs — costs besides money — that keep a potential customer from ever giving more than a cursory glance at your blood and sweat.

Developers can shout, “FREE,” as many times as they’d like, but when you’ve got the whole lot of them yelling it up in unison, all the visitor hears is a dull roar. Of course, ample use of, “FREE,” is important to cue the visitor they’re entering into zero-obligation space, but, “FREE,” alone isn’t enough. Why download your demo when they can get someone else’s, also for free? Now, for the purposes originally intended, “FREE,” is just shy of meaningless.

Our answer lies near the top of our list: “Learn more about the game.”

The first thing a visitor does before downloading a game is learn more about it. They’ll browse screen shots, read energetic copy, even read their peers’ reviews. Well, what are they waiting for? We’ve already made it clear that the download is completely free, so they’re probably not worried about a cost right now. They’ll go so far as to spend several minutes looking at screen shots and reading about the game, so why won’t they download it already?

Because it takes time and effort. Before they download and install the game, they are comfortably browsing the web. Everything is on their terms. They’re happy with their underlined links and their, “Back” button. And they are now faced with the option of jumping into an abyss of unknown. The user has to risk exposure to the Internet “elements:” Viruses, worms, spyware — all the nasties thrown around the media. The user may be a highly capable computer professional with the strongest anti-virus and the latest virus definitions, but there is still a strong element of the unknown.

“Will the download install stuff I don’t want?”
“Will the program work after I’ve taken the time and space to download it?”
“Could I be checking out other, better games while I’m tying my time up with this?”

And dial-up users have it worse! They’ve got to devote upwards of 15-20 minutes for even the smallest of demos…and they don’t even know if it’ll run on their computer — it might crash! Or worse: It may not be any fun! All that time wasted tying up their Internet, phone, and computer…and for what? A lousy pile of bits and bytes! Don’t underestimate the cost of initiating a download, finding an acceptable storage location for the installer, waiting for the download to complete, finding the installer, and sitting through the install process. For some, especially developers on broadband connections, it may seem like a trivial process, but for so many more, it’s a bigger commitment than you think.

As a try-before-you-buy software distributor, you have to be aware that the user is coming from an environment in which options can be chosen and acted upon in a matter of moments. Don’t like this page? “Back.” And it took less than a second. Follow this link? “Click.” And here we are, asking them to actually make a commitment! That’s pretty rude, considering we have have, “FREE,” plastered all over our site. “Time is money, pal!” There is a reason they spend so much time looking at screen shots and reading copy. Believe me, they’re not doing it because you’re such a great copy writer!

Between a potentially long download and the hassle of an install, there are a lot of points a visitor may just give up on your game; a lost sale. However, there are many things you can do about it, from shrinking your file size to streamlining your install. In the future we’ll discuss what you can do to encourage more downloads and greater sales from those downloads, as well as exploring alternatives to the familiar download paradigm.