Indie adventures vs(?) casual games

[Noone]

Hello Dave.
I know that you recently have released The Blackwell legacy on BigFishGames. Can you tell a bit on how have you contacted this resource, what requirements for a game did they have and how finally did your game appeared there.

[DaveGilbert]

Hi Alex,

Sure thing! At first, I never considered the casual market as a place for Blackwell, but under the advisement of a number of indie game developers, I looked into it. The most notable of these developers was Amanda Finch, of Aveyond fame, who spent more time than she should have answering my countless questions.

I met the Big Fish and Playfirst people at the Games Developer Conference last March and we kept in touch ever since. They eventually asked if they could put the games up on the site and we signed a contract. The main hurdle involved the security wrapping, since AGS games don't mesh well with standard security wrappers like Armadillo and/or Software Passport. Eventually, those issues were sorted out and up the games went! It's been an interesting experience so far, and I'm greatful to BFG and PF for taking a chance on an "unproven" game like Blackwell.

[Noone]

Have you already recieved any feedback from this kind of auditoium? If yes, what kind of? Do casual players dream of adventure games? :-)

[DaveGilbert]

The feedback has been very educational! At first, the reaction wasn't so positive but the tide turned in a week or so. The one thing I noticed when selling the games on my site is that the majority of my customers fit the "casual demographic" perfectly, so I hoped there would be some overlap with the casual market. I was right, thank god. I was very happy to see the game hit the top ten lists of BOTH Playfirst and Big Fish. For a game like Blackwell to hit #5 on a site like Big Fish was an honor, not to mention a surprise!

That said, i think that adventure games are the next logical step for casual games. Hidden Object games (which are very big right now in the casual space) are essentially point-and-click games, after all.

[Disco]

#5? Wow...that is amazing! Who would have thought an AGS game (no offense) could have made it to the top 10 of a portal like that.

[Noone]

Yep, I was also really surprised by the fact that the game is on BFG and not at the bottom (no offence intended). Can you tell how many games were already sold through casual gaming portals? Well, not exact numbers but some estimations. 100? 1000? Even more? If you're not ready to tell this kind of thing, maybe in comparison with download/cd-selling from your site?

And another question: Don't you think that the same distribution method (through casual portals only) can be used for non-english versions of the game? Are you planning to release any non-english versions through local casual portals?

[DaveGilbert]

I can't give exact numbers, but I can tell you this. On Playfirst alone, Legacy sold more copies in two weeks than it did after several months on my site. The game didn't go on Big Fish until November, so I don't have those numbers yet.

I'd love to localize but organizing that is practically a fulltime job in itself. I definitely want to translate my games into a few languages some day (especially german) but right now I'm stretched pretty thin. I hope. one day, to be able to afford a few parttime staff members to take care of that sort of thing.

[Visitor]

Do you consider to sell your games also to other distrbutors, who could do the localisation and bring them to retail, as other indie developers did after distributing them for a while only online. Examples: Scratches, Sam and Max, Bone, Agon, Delaware St. John, Al Emmo etc.

So perhaps you could reach a wider audience in the non-english-speaking countries like France, Germany, Spain etc. (a DVD-Version with the first 3 episodes ?)

[DaveGilbert]

Not yet, but it's certainly something I'm looking into!

[Noone]

Well, I'm really impressed by this fact. So, you can recommend other indie adventure developers to come in contact with casual portals?

BTW, are you also planning to release Blackwell Unbound on BFG and PF?

[DaveGilbert]

I'd recommend others to definitely try. I had a feeling it would do well because my customers and their customers tended to overlap. Hopefully that will extend to other adventure games and not just ones starring red-headed mediums.

Unbound is definitely going on PF, and on another site called iWin. No deals have been signed with BFG yet, but hopefully they'll take it too.

[Noone]

Have you ever thought of Gametap as a distributor? (TellTale's Sam&Max series are distributed there) This is a bit different approach as the user doesn't pay for the game but for a monthly access.

[DaveGilbert]

Alas, I contacted them but there hasn't been a reply yet. After the new year I'm going to be pushing to get the games on other portals, since I have demonstrated success on two of the major ones. I have clout now! Whee!

[Noone]

I wish you luck with all this campaign. :-)

[DaveGilbert]

Thanks for all the great questions. :-D

[Noone]

I would also like to ask if BFG or PF had any special requirements for the game, i.e. the download must be not bigger then xx Mbs, playing time must be not lesser then x and not bigger then y hours and so on.

[DaveGilbert]

There were no major requirements, aside from adding an in-game tutorial section at the beginning of the game (a feature I used again in Unbound). The filesize was a concern, and I offered to seperate the speechfiles from the game and make it a seperate download, since the speechfiles made up 140MB of the game! They declined, however, saying the speech was an important part of the game and it should remain.

[shae]

What are "Hidden Object" games?

[DaveGilbert]

Hi there. Hidden Object games are games where you are given a screen full of, well, stuff. Let's say, a toy closet full near to bursting with dolls and toys and such. You are given a list of 12 or so toys you have to click on. You find them all, and you move to the next screen. Sometimes there's more to it than that, but that's the basic mechanic.

[shae]

Odd. But I guess people are playing even more bizzare things (Guitar Hero?! :).