1 00:00:00,060 --> 00:00:01,780 The following content is provided 2 00:00:01,780 --> 00:00:04,019 under a creative commons license. 3 00:00:04,019 --> 00:00:06,360 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare 4 00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:10,730 continue to offer high-quality educational resources for free. 5 00:00:10,730 --> 00:00:13,330 To make a donation or view additional materials 6 00:00:13,330 --> 00:00:17,215 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 7 00:00:17,215 --> 00:00:17,840 at ocw.mit.edu. 8 00:00:21,754 --> 00:00:23,670 PROFESSOR: And [INAUDIBLE] them for next week. 9 00:00:23,670 --> 00:00:26,610 So for Monday just to really settle 10 00:00:26,610 --> 00:00:28,830 expectations for what we're doing on Mondays, 11 00:00:28,830 --> 00:00:31,670 we are doing rehearsals of presentations. 12 00:00:31,670 --> 00:00:35,980 You do not need to do the demo of your game 13 00:00:35,980 --> 00:00:37,280 part of the rehearsal. 14 00:00:37,280 --> 00:00:40,810 You do need to do the actual talk. 15 00:00:40,810 --> 00:00:43,410 That means we're asking for the visual slides, any visuals 16 00:00:43,410 --> 00:00:44,630 you're going to use. 17 00:00:44,630 --> 00:00:46,970 Go through the full talk as if you're going to do it. 18 00:00:46,970 --> 00:00:49,350 Don't try to speed through it. 19 00:00:49,350 --> 00:00:51,780 If it's in outline mode, then maybe 20 00:00:51,780 --> 00:00:53,670 you're testing the actual material 21 00:00:53,670 --> 00:00:56,149 that you're going to be going through. 22 00:00:56,149 --> 00:00:58,690 Please pay attention to all the talks that you're listing to. 23 00:00:58,690 --> 00:00:59,730 Give them feedback. 24 00:00:59,730 --> 00:01:02,600 Give the other teams feedback about what they're saying. 25 00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:05,519 We will be here basically kind of like The Voice 26 00:01:05,519 --> 00:01:07,100 but without the cool chairs, letting 27 00:01:07,100 --> 00:01:09,325 you know what we think about your stuff. 28 00:01:09,325 --> 00:01:09,825 Yes. 29 00:01:12,395 --> 00:01:14,650 A great way to get a good grade for the presentation 30 00:01:14,650 --> 00:01:18,010 is to listen to all the feedback and make changes, 31 00:01:18,010 --> 00:01:19,352 so keep that in mind. 32 00:01:19,352 --> 00:01:21,310 AUDIENCE: Just as a suggestion, even though you 33 00:01:21,310 --> 00:01:22,890 don't have to demo your stuff, it 34 00:01:22,890 --> 00:01:25,570 might be a good idea just to bring the computer [INAUDIBLE]. 35 00:01:25,570 --> 00:01:26,570 PROFESSOR: Absolutely. 36 00:01:26,570 --> 00:01:27,755 AUDIENCE: And test the hardware just 37 00:01:27,755 --> 00:01:30,010 to make sure that the screen resolution works out, 38 00:01:30,010 --> 00:01:31,570 you can go full screen, you don't 39 00:01:31,570 --> 00:01:35,150 have that Google Chrome has taking over your entire screen. 40 00:01:35,150 --> 00:01:35,874 Hit Escape. 41 00:01:35,874 --> 00:01:36,540 PROFESSOR: Yeah. 42 00:01:36,540 --> 00:01:38,040 So make sure the game works, but you 43 00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:39,337 don't need to actually play it. 44 00:01:39,337 --> 00:01:40,420 Works in a period of time. 45 00:01:40,930 --> 00:01:43,230 Time length for these presentations-- each team 46 00:01:43,230 --> 00:01:44,900 is given 20 minutes. 47 00:01:44,900 --> 00:01:45,710 You will be timed. 48 00:01:45,710 --> 00:01:48,190 We will flag you once you hit 20 minutes. 49 00:01:48,190 --> 00:01:50,630 That's total for the entire presentation including 50 00:01:50,630 --> 00:01:51,740 the demo. 51 00:01:51,740 --> 00:01:54,360 Limit the game-playing part of your presentation 52 00:01:54,360 --> 00:01:57,130 to no more than 10 minutes. 53 00:01:57,130 --> 00:01:58,720 Anything more than 10 minutes, we're 54 00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:01,520 going to make a note of that, but please keep it 55 00:02:01,520 --> 00:02:02,530 under 10 minutes. 56 00:02:02,530 --> 00:02:07,040 It can be as short as you like. 57 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:09,054 You could have someone play the entire game. 58 00:02:09,054 --> 00:02:11,220 You can have someone play just one part of the game. 59 00:02:11,220 --> 00:02:12,636 You will have somebody who has not 60 00:02:12,636 --> 00:02:15,020 played your game before playing the game live on stage, 61 00:02:15,020 --> 00:02:20,610 so that's also a test of ours. 62 00:02:20,610 --> 00:02:22,950 Time for the actual slides part of your talk 63 00:02:22,950 --> 00:02:29,520 has to be at least 10 minutes, so 10 is a good suggestion. 64 00:02:29,520 --> 00:02:33,760 Five minutes of demo, 15 minutes of talk is also fine, as well. 65 00:02:33,760 --> 00:02:35,320 After you're finished with that talk, 66 00:02:35,320 --> 00:02:37,028 we're going to open it to Q&A from people 67 00:02:37,028 --> 00:02:43,160 in the group in the room, and that will include us. 68 00:02:43,160 --> 00:02:47,340 So rehearsal is give your presentation. 69 00:02:47,340 --> 00:02:50,300 We won't do the Q&A. We'll just do feedback. 70 00:02:50,300 --> 00:02:53,750 Final presentations are the real deal. 71 00:02:53,750 --> 00:02:55,480 It is being recorded, of course. 72 00:02:55,480 --> 00:02:58,340 We are still figuring out if we're going to live stream it. 73 00:02:58,340 --> 00:03:02,160 Please invite your friends on Wednesday the 10th to come. 74 00:03:02,160 --> 00:03:04,380 We're sending out invites to a bunch of people, 75 00:03:04,380 --> 00:03:06,940 to get some of our local developer friends 76 00:03:06,940 --> 00:03:09,574 to come in and talk, and also some folks from our department 77 00:03:09,574 --> 00:03:11,490 and from some of the other game design classes 78 00:03:11,490 --> 00:03:12,250 to come and watch. 79 00:03:16,320 --> 00:03:18,784 Attendance for those two days-- so attendance for Monday 80 00:03:18,784 --> 00:03:20,950 is going to be normal like we've just been doing it. 81 00:03:20,950 --> 00:03:26,845 Attendance for Wednesday-- come in at 1:00, please. 82 00:03:26,845 --> 00:03:28,470 Let us know if you're going to be late, 83 00:03:28,470 --> 00:03:30,935 like email the video game bosses list if you 84 00:03:30,935 --> 00:03:33,340 are going to be late on Wednesday 85 00:03:33,340 --> 00:03:35,390 for the final presentations. 86 00:03:35,390 --> 00:03:37,360 We'll keep the sheet in the back of the room 87 00:03:37,360 --> 00:03:40,200 so you can sign in as you come into the room. 88 00:03:43,230 --> 00:03:46,700 Anything I'm missing from any of that? 89 00:03:46,700 --> 00:03:48,955 And then at the end of all the presentations, 90 00:03:48,955 --> 00:03:51,330 we'll probably going to end up with about 30 minutes left 91 00:03:51,330 --> 00:03:53,370 of class, so you can open up your computers 92 00:03:53,370 --> 00:03:55,610 and have people play your games if you like. 93 00:03:55,610 --> 00:03:57,290 Totally not required, but it tends 94 00:03:57,290 --> 00:04:00,070 to be fun when we do that. 95 00:04:00,070 --> 00:04:00,640 Cool. 96 00:04:00,640 --> 00:04:02,670 So if there's no questions about any of that, 97 00:04:02,670 --> 00:04:04,660 we are going to do our last lecture. 98 00:04:04,660 --> 00:04:06,905 We've invited Sean Baptiste from Fire Hose Games 99 00:04:06,905 --> 00:04:09,430 to talk to us about community management, marketing, 100 00:04:09,430 --> 00:04:11,620 and all sorts of stuff, and basically how do you 101 00:04:11,620 --> 00:04:15,050 get people to play your games. 102 00:04:15,050 --> 00:04:18,137 And after he's done, attendance will be back open. 103 00:04:18,137 --> 00:04:18,970 SEAN BAPTISTE: Cool. 104 00:04:18,970 --> 00:04:19,970 Thank you very much. 105 00:04:19,970 --> 00:04:21,053 Thanks for having me here. 106 00:04:21,053 --> 00:04:21,860 This is great. 107 00:04:21,860 --> 00:04:23,600 My name is Sean Baptiste. 108 00:04:23,600 --> 00:04:27,250 I'm a 10-year veteran of the video game industry. 109 00:04:27,250 --> 00:04:31,490 My first job was at Harmonix, which 110 00:04:31,490 --> 00:04:35,200 was a huge AAA sort of deal. 111 00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:39,320 And now I'm at a small indie game studio 112 00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:43,740 right here in Cambridge that was started by some former game lab 113 00:04:43,740 --> 00:04:49,872 alumni, Ethan Fenn and Sharat Chat and Eitan Glinert. 114 00:04:49,872 --> 00:04:52,330 I think I should probably start how I got into the industry 115 00:04:52,330 --> 00:04:53,650 in the first place. 116 00:04:53,650 --> 00:04:58,210 I don't have a tech background whatsoever. 117 00:04:58,210 --> 00:05:00,590 I came up through theater. 118 00:05:00,590 --> 00:05:04,620 I was a theater major, and one thing I've realized in my years 119 00:05:04,620 --> 00:05:09,684 is that there are a lot of theater majors in video games. 120 00:05:09,684 --> 00:05:11,100 I've been thinking about it a lot. 121 00:05:11,100 --> 00:05:14,980 I think a lot of it is that video games and theater 122 00:05:14,980 --> 00:05:17,430 both have an interactive element where there's 123 00:05:17,430 --> 00:05:19,830 interplay between the audience and the creator 124 00:05:19,830 --> 00:05:21,880 that film doesn't have necessarily. 125 00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:23,640 And I think a lot of theater people 126 00:05:23,640 --> 00:05:25,280 drift towards there when they realize 127 00:05:25,280 --> 00:05:28,790 there's no money to be made whatsoever in theater. 128 00:05:28,790 --> 00:05:31,030 That's how I made it. 129 00:05:31,030 --> 00:05:33,310 So I was working in film and I was 130 00:05:33,310 --> 00:05:37,380 working in theater and stuff and I got sick, 131 00:05:37,380 --> 00:05:39,620 and just the only game I could play 132 00:05:39,620 --> 00:05:43,132 was Amplitude, which was an early Harmonix title. 133 00:05:43,132 --> 00:05:44,590 And as I was playing it I was like, 134 00:05:44,590 --> 00:05:47,500 oh, I think people make these. 135 00:05:47,500 --> 00:05:49,084 Like, I don't think games just happen. 136 00:05:49,084 --> 00:05:50,250 I think somebody makes them. 137 00:05:50,250 --> 00:05:52,790 And I realized that was-- I lived up on the North Shore, 138 00:05:52,790 --> 00:05:57,150 so it was close, and I just started pestering Harmonix 139 00:05:57,150 --> 00:05:58,890 to hire me since I was close. 140 00:05:58,890 --> 00:06:03,470 And they kept telling me no until eventually I just got 141 00:06:03,470 --> 00:06:06,110 a friend there who sort of said nice things about me, 142 00:06:06,110 --> 00:06:10,550 which was lovely of him, and that sort of got me in in QA. 143 00:06:10,550 --> 00:06:13,590 QA, I'm hesitant to say that that's a good way 144 00:06:13,590 --> 00:06:17,214 to start in the industry anymore because I don't 145 00:06:17,214 --> 00:06:18,380 know if it's quite as valid. 146 00:06:18,380 --> 00:06:22,330 QA teams have gotten smaller and the turnover is a little bit 147 00:06:22,330 --> 00:06:25,590 difficult, so it's not necessarily the entryway 148 00:06:25,590 --> 00:06:27,150 into the industry that it used to be, 149 00:06:27,150 --> 00:06:30,940 which I do think is a bit unfortunate. 150 00:06:30,940 --> 00:06:34,610 I worked as a QA person on the Karaoke Revolution series 151 00:06:34,610 --> 00:06:37,450 early on and then on the Guitar Hero series 152 00:06:37,450 --> 00:06:40,690 before I end up becoming a technical artist, which 153 00:06:40,690 --> 00:06:43,710 meant that I wasn't a programmer or an artist 154 00:06:43,710 --> 00:06:46,930 but I helped make them have less fights with each other, which 155 00:06:46,930 --> 00:06:49,380 is probably something you guys are used to at this point. 156 00:06:49,380 --> 00:06:52,960 So I did a lot of that and learned how 157 00:06:52,960 --> 00:06:56,000 to animate and hook things up. 158 00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:58,980 But then they realized-- one of the things I was doing 159 00:06:58,980 --> 00:07:01,620 was-- so Harmonix, I don't know how familiar you 160 00:07:01,620 --> 00:07:04,030 guys are with Harmonix's [INAUDIBLE], 161 00:07:04,030 --> 00:07:09,650 but this was before Harmonix got bought by MTV. 162 00:07:09,650 --> 00:07:12,770 And Guitar Hero had come out, but that handled by RedOctane 163 00:07:12,770 --> 00:07:16,830 and Activision-- RedOctane, then Activision-- 164 00:07:16,830 --> 00:07:20,310 and we had an outside PR place handle a lot of the PR. 165 00:07:20,310 --> 00:07:23,910 And mostly we just made games and put them out there 166 00:07:23,910 --> 00:07:29,320 and there wasn't as much of a consideration for us doing PR 167 00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:30,260 from inside. 168 00:07:30,260 --> 00:07:34,190 But we realized as we wanted to make Rock Band 169 00:07:34,190 --> 00:07:37,110 and we're moving away from Guitar Hero and kind 170 00:07:37,110 --> 00:07:40,430 of owning our own destiny that we were the ones who were going 171 00:07:40,430 --> 00:07:43,071 to have to talk up our own games and kind of create something 172 00:07:43,071 --> 00:07:43,570 about it. 173 00:07:43,570 --> 00:07:48,780 So I wasn't the best technical artist, I'll be honest. 174 00:07:48,780 --> 00:07:54,290 So they moved me over to running the community. 175 00:07:54,290 --> 00:07:55,930 From Frequency and Amplitude, there 176 00:07:55,930 --> 00:07:58,490 was a very small community of I'm 177 00:07:58,490 --> 00:08:02,700 going to say about 50 or 60 people on the Harmonixfreak.com 178 00:08:02,700 --> 00:08:07,457 forums and I was only one willing to talk to them pretty 179 00:08:07,457 --> 00:08:08,540 much in the whole company. 180 00:08:08,540 --> 00:08:11,740 So as part of my job is technical artist, 181 00:08:11,740 --> 00:08:13,636 for an hour each day I would sit and talk 182 00:08:13,636 --> 00:08:15,010 with people on the forums and try 183 00:08:15,010 --> 00:08:19,300 to manage that community, which was very, very small 184 00:08:19,300 --> 00:08:21,787 and very angry that there wasn't a sequel to Frequency 185 00:08:21,787 --> 00:08:23,870 or Amplitude, that that was kind of a dead series. 186 00:08:23,870 --> 00:08:27,000 So a lot of my time was spent apologizing, 187 00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:29,830 I guess is how I would-- that my big start to community 188 00:08:29,830 --> 00:08:32,820 management was apologies. 189 00:08:32,820 --> 00:08:34,950 So I did that for a while. 190 00:08:34,950 --> 00:08:36,630 And when it came up that we were going 191 00:08:36,630 --> 00:08:38,171 to have to start doing our own stuff, 192 00:08:38,171 --> 00:08:43,840 I got promoted up to create the community development 193 00:08:43,840 --> 00:08:45,975 team at Harmonix. 194 00:08:45,975 --> 00:08:48,540 And I put that together, and that's 195 00:08:48,540 --> 00:08:52,570 when there's a big change because then we're owned by MTV 196 00:08:52,570 --> 00:08:56,690 and they have a lot of money-- like, a lot of money. 197 00:08:56,690 --> 00:08:59,810 And they put a lot of money into advertising for the game 198 00:08:59,810 --> 00:09:02,870 and sending us around to, like, every event and stuff. 199 00:09:02,870 --> 00:09:05,360 I went to the Grammys and was giving out 200 00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:09,820 Rock Band to Morris Day and the Time and weird stuff like that. 201 00:09:09,820 --> 00:09:11,480 And it started moving a little bit away 202 00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:15,270 from just general apologizing, daily dealing 203 00:09:15,270 --> 00:09:19,260 with problems, and more with kind of creating, 204 00:09:19,260 --> 00:09:22,210 or at least sustaining, a cult of personality 205 00:09:22,210 --> 00:09:24,360 around the persona of Harmonix, which 206 00:09:24,360 --> 00:09:28,360 was sort of punk rock and kind of outside of-- it 207 00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:30,662 wasn't as much like traditional game development. 208 00:09:30,662 --> 00:09:32,870 Everybody there was a musician and there was actually 209 00:09:32,870 --> 00:09:34,350 kind of this identity that we could 210 00:09:34,350 --> 00:09:36,760 point to and kind of play that up and make 211 00:09:36,760 --> 00:09:39,450 that sort of the character of the company. 212 00:09:39,450 --> 00:09:41,310 And we definitely did that. 213 00:09:41,310 --> 00:09:44,571 We played that up and because one of the things-- and we'll 214 00:09:44,571 --> 00:09:46,570 get into that more when I talk a little bit more 215 00:09:46,570 --> 00:09:49,270 about the difference between marketing for AAA verses 216 00:09:49,270 --> 00:09:54,870 marketing for indie-- is a lot of games in AAA, 217 00:09:54,870 --> 00:09:56,170 you're selling the games. 218 00:09:56,170 --> 00:09:58,950 As far as marketing goes, you're selling the games. 219 00:09:58,950 --> 00:10:01,400 For indie, what you're doing is you're 220 00:10:01,400 --> 00:10:03,380 selling the people who make the games, 221 00:10:03,380 --> 00:10:05,380 and Harmonix was in this interesting place 222 00:10:05,380 --> 00:10:07,490 where even though it was owned by MTV, 223 00:10:07,490 --> 00:10:09,870 it worked a lot more like an indie company. 224 00:10:09,870 --> 00:10:12,970 So once we were able to promote ourselves, 225 00:10:12,970 --> 00:10:16,150 we promoted the company as a group of people. 226 00:10:16,150 --> 00:10:19,900 Like, don't just buy Rock Band by Harmonix. 227 00:10:19,900 --> 00:10:20,860 Buy the whole company. 228 00:10:20,860 --> 00:10:21,825 Buy what we do. 229 00:10:21,825 --> 00:10:23,200 Stick with us because we're going 230 00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:24,780 to keep making cool stuff. 231 00:10:24,780 --> 00:10:26,850 And I did that for a number of years 232 00:10:26,850 --> 00:10:31,620 and it was crazy-- flew constantly everywhere, 233 00:10:31,620 --> 00:10:35,570 stayed in hotels that didn't have lice and stuff. 234 00:10:35,570 --> 00:10:36,900 It was nice. 235 00:10:36,900 --> 00:10:41,200 A lot of getting to do really cool things. 236 00:10:41,200 --> 00:10:43,160 I ended up getting sick after that 237 00:10:43,160 --> 00:10:45,897 and spent a few years away from the industry. 238 00:10:45,897 --> 00:10:47,480 And when I came back, I'd been playing 239 00:10:47,480 --> 00:10:51,620 so many independent games from small indie teams-- 240 00:10:51,620 --> 00:10:56,990 things like stuff that John Blow had made or Fez or just a lot 241 00:10:56,990 --> 00:10:59,110 of the games-- Castle Crashers, Alien 242 00:10:59,110 --> 00:11:00,590 Hominid, those sorts of games. 243 00:11:00,590 --> 00:11:05,190 And I realized there was an analog to what I was already 244 00:11:05,190 --> 00:11:09,910 doing with Harmonix, which was kind of the-- in indie games, 245 00:11:09,910 --> 00:11:11,890 you really do have to sell the artist. 246 00:11:11,890 --> 00:11:13,030 You're selling the artist. 247 00:11:13,030 --> 00:11:14,510 You're trying to get people to come 248 00:11:14,510 --> 00:11:18,470 because if you don't have an interesting story in a way 249 00:11:18,470 --> 00:11:21,554 or that you can sell to the press or to journals, 250 00:11:21,554 --> 00:11:23,970 you're not going to get anybody writing articles about you 251 00:11:23,970 --> 00:11:25,982 for the most part. 252 00:11:25,982 --> 00:11:28,500 That's just the case. 253 00:11:28,500 --> 00:11:30,890 The big AAA companies have lots and lots of money 254 00:11:30,890 --> 00:11:33,160 so they can plant lots and lots of articles. 255 00:11:33,160 --> 00:11:35,150 And as far as indie stuff goes, the only way 256 00:11:35,150 --> 00:11:37,130 you can sell yourself is having a good story 257 00:11:37,130 --> 00:11:40,250 that a journalist wants to tell because if you don't have that, 258 00:11:40,250 --> 00:11:43,250 there's really no upside for them 259 00:11:43,250 --> 00:11:45,640 to write an article about you or your game 260 00:11:45,640 --> 00:11:47,420 or anything like that. 261 00:11:47,420 --> 00:11:51,690 I know that seems a little cynical, but there it is. 262 00:11:51,690 --> 00:11:53,840 That is the case. 263 00:11:53,840 --> 00:11:58,894 So let's see-- so when I went to Fire Hose, 264 00:11:58,894 --> 00:12:00,810 the differences in the marketing, like I said, 265 00:12:00,810 --> 00:12:06,170 was when I was at Harmonix, a lot 266 00:12:06,170 --> 00:12:09,620 of what I did in community management was making 267 00:12:09,620 --> 00:12:13,480 sure everybody was really invested in the product, 268 00:12:13,480 --> 00:12:18,030 in ourselves as a team. 269 00:12:18,030 --> 00:12:22,170 But a lot of it was also keeping our secrets-- 270 00:12:22,170 --> 00:12:24,640 making sure that people weren't leaking information 271 00:12:24,640 --> 00:12:26,137 from inside of the company, making 272 00:12:26,137 --> 00:12:28,470 sure play testers weren't leaking inside of the company, 273 00:12:28,470 --> 00:12:31,910 making sure an unannounced project that a coder on there 274 00:12:31,910 --> 00:12:34,780 didn't go in and update their LinkedIn profile and say, 275 00:12:34,780 --> 00:12:37,790 hey, we're working on Rock Band 2 at the time 276 00:12:37,790 --> 00:12:39,520 before we'd announced Rock Band 2, 277 00:12:39,520 --> 00:12:40,770 and then there's a huge thing. 278 00:12:40,770 --> 00:12:42,950 So a lot of my stuff was managing 279 00:12:42,950 --> 00:12:46,870 what information got out. 280 00:12:46,870 --> 00:12:50,850 In independent games, my job is to make sure 281 00:12:50,850 --> 00:12:53,610 all of the information gets out and that we are constantly 282 00:12:53,610 --> 00:12:56,670 screaming for people to notice us because there's 283 00:12:56,670 --> 00:12:59,100 so much competition. 284 00:12:59,100 --> 00:13:02,350 I mean, just look at the explosion 285 00:13:02,350 --> 00:13:05,300 of independent games in the past let's say 286 00:13:05,300 --> 00:13:07,000 five years, six years. 287 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:09,830 2008 I think is really when it really 288 00:13:09,830 --> 00:13:13,860 started becoming this definitive thing that you can point at. 289 00:13:13,860 --> 00:13:16,520 There's a lot of people, and a lot of people 290 00:13:16,520 --> 00:13:19,517 who also equally want people to pay attention to them, 291 00:13:19,517 --> 00:13:21,350 and there's only so many outlets and there's 292 00:13:21,350 --> 00:13:23,620 only so many places where people are going 293 00:13:23,620 --> 00:13:24,790 to be able to read about it. 294 00:13:24,790 --> 00:13:26,680 So you're really fighting. 295 00:13:26,680 --> 00:13:32,480 There is a sort of-- it could very easily turn 296 00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:35,120 into a sort of crabs in the bucket situation, 297 00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:38,010 just everybody pulling each other down. 298 00:13:38,010 --> 00:13:41,209 Luckily that's not really how the indie game scene works. 299 00:13:41,209 --> 00:13:43,250 A lot of people are trying to push each other up, 300 00:13:43,250 --> 00:13:45,840 which is nice, but you're still competing 301 00:13:45,840 --> 00:13:49,240 with so many other people for a limited amount of slots 302 00:13:49,240 --> 00:13:50,610 of articles. 303 00:13:50,610 --> 00:13:53,400 The one thing I've learned since I've been at Fire Hose 304 00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:58,550 is that actually matters very little if in the end-- 305 00:13:58,550 --> 00:14:00,120 and by that, I should say I mean that 306 00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:03,140 in terms of sales of the game. 307 00:14:03,140 --> 00:14:06,340 A big article on Kotaku isn't going 308 00:14:06,340 --> 00:14:08,540 to sell your game, not anymore. 309 00:14:08,540 --> 00:14:10,190 When I first started in the industry, 310 00:14:10,190 --> 00:14:11,540 that absolutely was the case. 311 00:14:11,540 --> 00:14:17,160 A big article in GameSpot or IGN, one of the big-- 1UP 312 00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:20,040 at the time-- that would put you over. 313 00:14:20,040 --> 00:14:21,860 That could definitely help put you over. 314 00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:27,350 But at this point, that's just simply not the case. 315 00:14:27,350 --> 00:14:29,690 And even a year ago, I was saying that, 316 00:14:29,690 --> 00:14:31,500 and that everybody should probably 317 00:14:31,500 --> 00:14:34,570 put more of their marketing time towards getting YouTube 318 00:14:34,570 --> 00:14:36,320 people to cover their games. 319 00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:38,270 And now that's sort of the predominant theory, 320 00:14:38,270 --> 00:14:39,728 but I think that's going away, too, 321 00:14:39,728 --> 00:14:43,750 because everybody who likes games has a YouTube channel 322 00:14:43,750 --> 00:14:44,950 and does Let's Plays. 323 00:14:44,950 --> 00:14:51,070 So in a way, it's sort of a reflection of what indie 324 00:14:51,070 --> 00:14:52,580 is doing at the same time. 325 00:14:52,580 --> 00:14:54,350 Now that there's just so many people, 326 00:14:54,350 --> 00:14:55,520 the market sort of flooded. 327 00:14:55,520 --> 00:14:57,320 The novelty has worn off. 328 00:14:57,320 --> 00:15:00,394 So it certainly can help, but it's something 329 00:15:00,394 --> 00:15:01,560 you have to be careful, too. 330 00:15:01,560 --> 00:15:03,960 You can't put all of your eggs in one basket. 331 00:15:03,960 --> 00:15:07,490 But with indie, too-- so when I was at Harmonix, 332 00:15:07,490 --> 00:15:12,580 I ran a team of I think at our height 12 people. 333 00:15:12,580 --> 00:15:15,650 So that was 12 people doing just community management 334 00:15:15,650 --> 00:15:18,260 and just doing public relations. 335 00:15:18,260 --> 00:15:25,220 At Fire Hose, I do that, all of it, and I'm also a designer. 336 00:15:25,220 --> 00:15:28,311 So it's like a part of my overall job 337 00:15:28,311 --> 00:15:29,560 and I'm the only one doing it. 338 00:15:29,560 --> 00:15:33,720 So I have to choose what we do far more carefully 339 00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:38,060 and I have to do it without any money whatsoever. 340 00:15:38,060 --> 00:15:40,600 Certainly you can put money into buying ads or doing 341 00:15:40,600 --> 00:15:42,520 Facebook ads or that sort of thing, 342 00:15:42,520 --> 00:15:47,170 but I don't think that that's necessarily the best 343 00:15:47,170 --> 00:15:48,860 use of your time all the time. 344 00:15:48,860 --> 00:15:51,450 And a lot of companies don't have the budget 345 00:15:51,450 --> 00:15:54,580 beyond their salaries to actually buy these ads, 346 00:15:54,580 --> 00:15:56,320 so what do you do? 347 00:15:56,320 --> 00:15:58,590 And that goes back to what I was saying. 348 00:15:58,590 --> 00:16:00,397 It's community management, and I guess 349 00:16:00,397 --> 00:16:01,980 I should get into a little bit of what 350 00:16:01,980 --> 00:16:03,120 community management is. 351 00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:06,370 When I started doing community management in 2007, 352 00:16:06,370 --> 00:16:08,850 it wasn't a thing really. 353 00:16:08,850 --> 00:16:12,610 I think there was one video game company that 354 00:16:12,610 --> 00:16:15,810 wasn't an MMO, that didn't make MMOs, that actually 355 00:16:15,810 --> 00:16:17,800 had anything approaching a community team, 356 00:16:17,800 --> 00:16:19,890 and that was BioWare. 357 00:16:19,890 --> 00:16:22,030 Right around Neverwinter Nights, they put together 358 00:16:22,030 --> 00:16:24,910 a community team of two people, I think, 359 00:16:24,910 --> 00:16:26,800 and that was just to manage their forums. 360 00:16:26,800 --> 00:16:31,054 And let's see, that's probably around 2002/2003. 361 00:16:31,054 --> 00:16:32,970 And in that time, you really only put together 362 00:16:32,970 --> 00:16:35,210 a community team if you had a large multiplayer 363 00:16:35,210 --> 00:16:36,970 game, generally an MMO. 364 00:16:36,970 --> 00:16:43,660 So at the time, Asheron's Call had something or Ultima Online 365 00:16:43,660 --> 00:16:48,170 had it and early World of Warcraft all 366 00:16:48,170 --> 00:16:52,070 had these community teams. 367 00:16:52,070 --> 00:16:54,484 There was an element of promotion to it. 368 00:16:54,484 --> 00:16:56,150 There was an element of marketing to it, 369 00:16:56,150 --> 00:16:57,560 but it wasn't so much that. 370 00:16:57,560 --> 00:16:59,330 It was more customer service. 371 00:16:59,330 --> 00:17:01,760 They were really there to deal with problems 372 00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:03,350 that came up as they went. 373 00:17:03,350 --> 00:17:06,280 BioWare where they sort of broke the mold a little bit was it 374 00:17:06,280 --> 00:17:07,240 wasn't about that. 375 00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:11,640 It really was about the company having direct access 376 00:17:11,640 --> 00:17:15,940 to communicate with their fans, and vice versa. 377 00:17:15,940 --> 00:17:20,960 I once was half-joking that my job as a community 378 00:17:20,960 --> 00:17:24,490 manager at Harmonix was ombudsman 379 00:17:24,490 --> 00:17:26,611 because I felt like I had to represent 380 00:17:26,611 --> 00:17:28,069 the company to the fans, and then I 381 00:17:28,069 --> 00:17:31,530 had to represent the fans to the company, which 382 00:17:31,530 --> 00:17:33,610 involved being as honest as possible 383 00:17:33,610 --> 00:17:37,440 at all times with both, which is a real difficult tightrope 384 00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:37,960 to walk. 385 00:17:46,210 --> 00:17:49,320 So with community management, what you try to do 386 00:17:49,320 --> 00:17:52,390 is you try to build out the people who love your games. 387 00:17:52,390 --> 00:17:54,840 You're trying to make them into the people who 388 00:17:54,840 --> 00:17:56,850 talk about your games online. 389 00:17:56,850 --> 00:18:00,185 You're basically creating a kind of an ad hoc sales 390 00:18:00,185 --> 00:18:03,910 force, a word of mouth way of promoting 391 00:18:03,910 --> 00:18:07,660 your game because that's like if you read an article on Kotaku, 392 00:18:07,660 --> 00:18:09,720 do you immediately go out and buy a game? 393 00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:10,690 Probably not. 394 00:18:10,690 --> 00:18:12,671 You might do a little bit more research on it. 395 00:18:12,671 --> 00:18:14,420 You might read up a little bit more on it. 396 00:18:14,420 --> 00:18:16,461 You might go to Metacritic and check the reviews, 397 00:18:16,461 --> 00:18:17,320 that sort of thing. 398 00:18:17,320 --> 00:18:20,665 But if a friend tells you, like just a person 399 00:18:20,665 --> 00:18:22,790 you know is like, "Hey, I'm checking out this game. 400 00:18:22,790 --> 00:18:23,700 There might be multiplayer. 401 00:18:23,700 --> 00:18:25,075 We should check this out," you're 402 00:18:25,075 --> 00:18:27,070 far more likely to buy it. 403 00:18:27,070 --> 00:18:32,190 Community management is the art of managing word of mouth. 404 00:18:32,190 --> 00:18:34,190 You're getting people to tell their friends, 405 00:18:34,190 --> 00:18:35,273 the people that they know. 406 00:18:35,273 --> 00:18:37,900 You're getting people to tell the people who trust them 407 00:18:37,900 --> 00:18:40,270 that this game is good so that those people then go on 408 00:18:40,270 --> 00:18:41,820 and buy it. 409 00:18:41,820 --> 00:18:44,200 And join your community, hopefully, and then they go on 410 00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:44,960 and tell. 411 00:18:44,960 --> 00:18:49,070 So what started for Harmonix, a lot of what we did is because-- 412 00:18:49,070 --> 00:18:52,740 and there's a scalability aspect to it. 413 00:18:52,740 --> 00:18:58,210 When I created the Rock Band community site, 414 00:18:58,210 --> 00:19:01,220 that was 100% forums-based. 415 00:19:01,220 --> 00:19:02,360 We did Twitter. 416 00:19:02,360 --> 00:19:03,180 We did Facebook. 417 00:19:03,180 --> 00:19:04,950 Like I said, we did tons of live events, 418 00:19:04,950 --> 00:19:08,040 but everything was very much based around the forums. 419 00:19:08,040 --> 00:19:11,120 Part of that was because Twitter hasn't happened yet, 420 00:19:11,120 --> 00:19:13,340 or was just happening and not as many people 421 00:19:13,340 --> 00:19:14,320 were talking about it. 422 00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:16,360 This was early 2007. 423 00:19:16,360 --> 00:19:18,620 So everything we did, we build our this huge site. 424 00:19:18,620 --> 00:19:21,080 We had forums. 425 00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:23,860 I think I was managing at that time 426 00:19:23,860 --> 00:19:28,540 a registered community of about 350,000 people on the forums, 427 00:19:28,540 --> 00:19:30,130 and that's why we needed a team. 428 00:19:30,130 --> 00:19:31,057 It was big. 429 00:19:31,057 --> 00:19:32,890 And there was an aspect of customer service. 430 00:19:32,890 --> 00:19:35,990 You might remember-- I don't know how many of you 431 00:19:35,990 --> 00:19:38,280 guys were really playing that at the time, 432 00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:40,160 but when it first came out, there 433 00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:44,740 were issues and articles about the issues 434 00:19:44,740 --> 00:19:47,110 about the instruments. 435 00:19:47,110 --> 00:19:49,445 Any time you debut new hardware, there's generally 436 00:19:49,445 --> 00:19:51,570 going to be problems or there's going to be issues, 437 00:19:51,570 --> 00:19:52,860 and that happens. 438 00:19:52,860 --> 00:19:55,927 So leading up to it, it was very much 439 00:19:55,927 --> 00:19:57,510 like, Rock Band's going to be awesome. 440 00:19:57,510 --> 00:19:58,218 We're doing rock. 441 00:19:58,218 --> 00:20:00,870 And then as soon as it came out and those issues started 442 00:20:00,870 --> 00:20:05,810 coming up, the job just clamped down into 100% customer service 443 00:20:05,810 --> 00:20:08,200 all the time, just trying to manage all of that. 444 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:11,470 Which was something that having come from technical, 445 00:20:11,470 --> 00:20:14,440 I wasn't necessarily prepared to do. 446 00:20:14,440 --> 00:20:17,235 But I think with any game, no matter who 447 00:20:17,235 --> 00:20:18,610 your audience is, no matter what, 448 00:20:18,610 --> 00:20:22,529 it's very valuable to have some sort of protocol for customer 449 00:20:22,529 --> 00:20:23,570 service leading up to it. 450 00:20:23,570 --> 00:20:30,290 That's something I think that you should definitely do. 451 00:20:30,290 --> 00:20:35,060 At Fire Hose, we don't have forums. 452 00:20:35,060 --> 00:20:36,660 We have a Facebook page. 453 00:20:36,660 --> 00:20:37,830 We have Twitter. 454 00:20:37,830 --> 00:20:41,420 But forums, they're not what they used to be. 455 00:20:41,420 --> 00:20:43,350 The communities aren't forums, aren't the same 456 00:20:43,350 --> 00:20:45,240 as they used to be, and sometimes they're 457 00:20:45,240 --> 00:20:48,180 just more trouble than they're worth to manage. 458 00:20:48,180 --> 00:20:50,790 It could be it's very time-consuming 459 00:20:50,790 --> 00:20:54,080 to stop all the spam, to get in the middle of fights 460 00:20:54,080 --> 00:20:56,100 and stop people from hurting each other. 461 00:20:56,100 --> 00:20:57,710 And we were very hands-on. 462 00:20:57,710 --> 00:21:00,135 We weren't a website where it was 463 00:21:00,135 --> 00:21:01,410 like, say whatever you want. 464 00:21:01,410 --> 00:21:02,368 Post whatever you want. 465 00:21:02,368 --> 00:21:07,250 We were very hands-on about abuse and that sort of thing. 466 00:21:07,250 --> 00:21:09,870 At Fire Hose since we don't have as big of an audience-- 467 00:21:09,870 --> 00:21:13,150 we don't have 350,000 people who are following what we're 468 00:21:13,150 --> 00:21:16,220 doing who are registered users who are going to follow 469 00:21:16,220 --> 00:21:18,100 everything that we say and everything 470 00:21:18,100 --> 00:21:21,340 that we do and are really hugely invested 471 00:21:21,340 --> 00:21:26,810 in the company or our games-- so we have to find other ways. 472 00:21:26,810 --> 00:21:29,310 One of the things that's probably the biggest thing-- I 473 00:21:29,310 --> 00:21:41,600 should bring this up here-- is we started up a Twitch channel, 474 00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:47,020 and this was just as the live video and live streaming 475 00:21:47,020 --> 00:21:49,030 was starting to really become a thing. 476 00:21:49,030 --> 00:21:50,660 So it was a couple years ago. 477 00:21:50,660 --> 00:21:52,527 We had Go Home Dinosaurs, which you might 478 00:21:52,527 --> 00:21:53,610 have seen on the scroller. 479 00:21:53,610 --> 00:21:55,930 That was a game that we put out last year. 480 00:21:55,930 --> 00:21:59,460 That was coming out and we wanted to get attention for it. 481 00:21:59,460 --> 00:22:01,220 And we realized we wouldn't be able to get 482 00:22:01,220 --> 00:22:05,240 every the YouTube video star to feature our dumb game that 483 00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:12,330 was awesome-- it was awesome-- about dinosaurs stealing 484 00:22:12,330 --> 00:22:14,950 barbecue from early mammals. 485 00:22:14,950 --> 00:22:17,830 We knew we weren't going to get every YouTube star to cover it. 486 00:22:17,830 --> 00:22:19,630 TotalBiscuit did actually, somehow, 487 00:22:19,630 --> 00:22:22,860 but we realized we kind of had to build our own community 488 00:22:22,860 --> 00:22:25,570 and really kind of make our own press for it 489 00:22:25,570 --> 00:22:28,330 rather than spend all of my time. 490 00:22:28,330 --> 00:22:31,190 Our marketing budget is my salary. 491 00:22:31,190 --> 00:22:33,900 There's not extra stuff where I'm 492 00:22:33,900 --> 00:22:35,630 buying up ads and everything. 493 00:22:35,630 --> 00:22:41,030 So we started meeting with Twitch. 494 00:22:41,030 --> 00:22:43,711 Actually, they came out here to talk 495 00:22:43,711 --> 00:22:45,960 about how they wanted to get more indie games on there 496 00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:49,090 and we sort of struck up a relationship with people 497 00:22:49,090 --> 00:22:53,790 at Twitch, and that got us front page promotions. 498 00:22:53,790 --> 00:22:58,280 So for instance every day, Monday through Friday 499 00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:02,990 from 12:00 to 12:30 on Twitch, you 500 00:23:02,990 --> 00:23:06,270 will see my big stupid face staring out 501 00:23:06,270 --> 00:23:09,000 at you from the screen because we're on the front page 502 00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:11,320 right in the thing, and anybody who goes to Twitch 503 00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:13,870 is going to see our game first. 504 00:23:13,870 --> 00:23:17,980 That cost us absolutely zero dollars. 505 00:23:17,980 --> 00:23:19,940 As far as budget goes, all that takes 506 00:23:19,940 --> 00:23:22,985 is my time because we talk to them 507 00:23:22,985 --> 00:23:29,140 and we try to create good content that also 508 00:23:29,140 --> 00:23:30,410 helps their brand, as well. 509 00:23:30,410 --> 00:23:34,810 But that brings us-- you can see so far since we started up 510 00:23:34,810 --> 00:23:38,810 our channel, four million people have watched it. 511 00:23:38,810 --> 00:23:43,630 Four million impressions is way outside of our price range. 512 00:23:43,630 --> 00:23:46,660 It's just outside of our-- that would be tens of thousands 513 00:23:46,660 --> 00:23:50,254 of dollars to get that many people to get 514 00:23:50,254 --> 00:23:52,920 an impression of our product, to get an impression of Fire Hose, 515 00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:54,336 to get an impression of our games, 516 00:23:54,336 --> 00:23:57,110 to get an impression of the people who worked there. 517 00:23:57,110 --> 00:23:59,330 It would take that long, and part of the way we do 518 00:23:59,330 --> 00:24:02,230 is like I said, every day, Monday through Friday 12:00 519 00:24:02,230 --> 00:24:03,950 to 12:30, I put on a show. 520 00:24:03,950 --> 00:24:05,170 It's about Let's Quip! 521 00:24:05,170 --> 00:24:06,980 That's actually my game. 522 00:24:06,980 --> 00:24:09,950 I should mention Fire Hose, we have 523 00:24:09,950 --> 00:24:11,330 three games going right now. 524 00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,100 We also do outside projects. 525 00:24:16,100 --> 00:24:18,560 We take on contract work. 526 00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,540 Right now we're working on a project with DARPA 527 00:24:21,540 --> 00:24:24,170 that's pretty cool that actually teaches people not 528 00:24:24,170 --> 00:24:24,960 to shoot people. 529 00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:27,760 It's pretty fun. 530 00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:32,390 But we have three eventually commercially available products 531 00:24:32,390 --> 00:24:34,140 that we're working on right now. 532 00:24:34,140 --> 00:24:35,424 One is Let's Quip! 533 00:24:35,424 --> 00:24:36,590 That's a game I'm designing. 534 00:24:36,590 --> 00:24:39,860 That's a comedic debating game. 535 00:24:39,860 --> 00:24:41,800 That's what I do on the show Monday 536 00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:44,080 to Friday 12:00 to 12:30. 537 00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:46,760 Just I invite local comedians in and we just 538 00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:49,910 talk about different aspects of comedy while playing the game, 539 00:24:49,910 --> 00:24:54,650 and that has actually been wildly successful. 540 00:24:54,650 --> 00:24:58,860 I had Jackie Kashian, who's a very big touring 541 00:24:58,860 --> 00:25:00,700 comedian who I'm a huge fan of. 542 00:25:00,700 --> 00:25:01,980 She came in on the show. 543 00:25:01,980 --> 00:25:05,340 And on that show, I think, over the course of that one 544 00:25:05,340 --> 00:25:07,290 half-hour, we had something-- I want 545 00:25:07,290 --> 00:25:11,260 to say it was 24,000 people, which is great. 546 00:25:11,260 --> 00:25:15,120 Like I said, I would not be able to pay for that. 547 00:25:15,120 --> 00:25:18,620 I would not be able to afford that. 548 00:25:18,620 --> 00:25:20,630 But all it takes is my time. 549 00:25:20,630 --> 00:25:22,910 We also have three other shows that we do. 550 00:25:22,910 --> 00:25:25,230 So there's the Monday show. 551 00:25:25,230 --> 00:25:27,510 So that's 2 and 1/2 hours out of the week. 552 00:25:27,510 --> 00:25:31,240 And then we have a Tuesday show in the afternoon 553 00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:32,380 from 4:00 to 5:00. 554 00:25:32,380 --> 00:25:35,360 That's one of the other games that we're working on. 555 00:25:35,360 --> 00:25:37,530 Chris Chung, who's a local developer, 556 00:25:37,530 --> 00:25:39,790 he's working on a game called Catlateral Damage 557 00:25:39,790 --> 00:25:40,914 that you may have heard of. 558 00:25:40,914 --> 00:25:44,280 Catlateral Damage is really, really rad. 559 00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:46,450 You're basically a cat. 560 00:25:46,450 --> 00:25:48,590 It has first-person shooter controls. 561 00:25:48,590 --> 00:25:50,650 Your family's left the house for a little while, 562 00:25:50,650 --> 00:25:52,150 so you have a limited amount of time 563 00:25:52,150 --> 00:25:54,080 to just destroy all of their stuff. 564 00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:54,710 And it's great. 565 00:25:54,710 --> 00:25:57,050 You're just pouncing around knocking things on the floor. 566 00:25:57,050 --> 00:25:59,050 You get points for destroying people's monitors. 567 00:25:59,050 --> 00:25:59,810 It's great. 568 00:25:59,810 --> 00:26:01,230 It's exactly what cats do. 569 00:26:01,230 --> 00:26:08,880 It's very, very fun, and Chris is this lovely guy. 570 00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:13,650 He loves cats in a way that's sort of very honest. 571 00:26:13,650 --> 00:26:15,370 There's nothing ironic about, and he's 572 00:26:15,370 --> 00:26:19,090 kind of the perfect person to host a show about making 573 00:26:19,090 --> 00:26:20,980 a game about cats. 574 00:26:20,980 --> 00:26:24,010 So we gave him this spot, 4:00 to 5:00, where all he does 575 00:26:24,010 --> 00:26:27,040 is he sits there with Unity open and he shows what 576 00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:29,080 he's been working on that week. 577 00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,732 And he tells people, like, we do this, we do this. 578 00:26:32,732 --> 00:26:33,940 I just added in these things. 579 00:26:33,940 --> 00:26:35,580 This is how I did that in Unity. 580 00:26:35,580 --> 00:26:38,360 So it's one part demonstration of his game and one part 581 00:26:38,360 --> 00:26:40,960 tutorial, and that brings in people, too-- 582 00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:43,480 people who want to learn more about making video games 583 00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:46,170 as well as people who are just interested in a game about cats 584 00:26:46,170 --> 00:26:48,387 knocking your stuff over. 585 00:26:48,387 --> 00:26:50,220 And that really works for him, and it really 586 00:26:50,220 --> 00:26:52,060 fits the theme of this game. 587 00:26:52,060 --> 00:26:55,880 The other game we have is a game called 20XX, which we just 588 00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:57,130 announced two weeks ago. 589 00:26:57,130 --> 00:27:01,340 If you are a fan of games like Mega Man X 590 00:27:01,340 --> 00:27:04,096 or those sorts of platformers, it's a game very 591 00:27:04,096 --> 00:27:04,970 much similar to that. 592 00:27:04,970 --> 00:27:08,730 We're working with a team out of I believe Maryland. 593 00:27:08,730 --> 00:27:11,150 It's where they currently reside. 594 00:27:11,150 --> 00:27:16,300 So part of that is we-- I should clarify that Fire Hose 595 00:27:16,300 --> 00:27:22,270 Games late last year as opposed to just a studio, 596 00:27:22,270 --> 00:27:25,360 we opened up an incubator for independent games. 597 00:27:25,360 --> 00:27:30,190 So for the most part, local indie game developers 598 00:27:30,190 --> 00:27:32,660 who have good games that they really want to work on 599 00:27:32,660 --> 00:27:35,670 can come to Fire hose, get a monthly stipend, 600 00:27:35,670 --> 00:27:39,125 get office space, and we'll help them 601 00:27:39,125 --> 00:27:40,500 with the development of the game. 602 00:27:40,500 --> 00:27:42,458 We'll help them with the promotion of the game. 603 00:27:42,458 --> 00:27:44,160 We help them with kind of everything. 604 00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:47,930 And it's more like a partnership. 605 00:27:47,930 --> 00:27:51,980 Both Catlateral Damage and 20XX are part of that program. 606 00:27:51,980 --> 00:27:56,390 And it's great working because that's like Catlateral Damage 607 00:27:56,390 --> 00:27:59,380 and 20XX and Let's Quip! are three 608 00:27:59,380 --> 00:28:01,680 incredibly different games. 609 00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:04,370 Like I said, 20XX has a very sort of Mega Man X feel. 610 00:28:04,370 --> 00:28:05,440 It's very hardcore. 611 00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:07,370 It's very platformery. 612 00:28:07,370 --> 00:28:10,280 Catlateral Damage is about cats, so that 613 00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:11,970 has a completely different audience. 614 00:28:11,970 --> 00:28:16,340 I'm sure on a Venn diagram, there's some crossover. 615 00:28:16,340 --> 00:28:17,890 And then Let's Quip! is just a game 616 00:28:17,890 --> 00:28:19,560 where you write words down. 617 00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:21,780 Like you write tweets and then you 618 00:28:21,780 --> 00:28:23,340 try to be funnier than other people. 619 00:28:23,340 --> 00:28:27,486 The three games have almost no shared audience across them, 620 00:28:27,486 --> 00:28:29,110 so we have to approach everything very, 621 00:28:29,110 --> 00:28:29,830 very differently. 622 00:28:29,830 --> 00:28:33,530 I think showing Let's Quip! but actually showing comedians 623 00:28:33,530 --> 00:28:35,610 playing it, that helps because that actually 624 00:28:35,610 --> 00:28:37,800 plays into the narrative of the game, 625 00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,910 the fiction of the game, which is allowing you to be funny. 626 00:28:40,910 --> 00:28:42,370 And then we have comedians come in 627 00:28:42,370 --> 00:28:44,036 and kind of vote on whether you're funny 628 00:28:44,036 --> 00:28:49,020 or not, and that's creating sort of a cult of personality. 629 00:28:49,020 --> 00:28:51,490 And at the same time, they're also meeting the creators. 630 00:28:51,490 --> 00:28:53,240 So like I said earlier when I was talking 631 00:28:53,240 --> 00:29:01,350 about how people pushing the artist as opposed to the art, 632 00:29:01,350 --> 00:29:03,490 we sort of play into that a little bit. 633 00:29:03,490 --> 00:29:06,275 Having Chris Chung come in and just show development 634 00:29:06,275 --> 00:29:08,020 on [INAUDIBLE], it's so earnest. 635 00:29:08,020 --> 00:29:09,603 If you get a chance, you should really 636 00:29:09,603 --> 00:29:14,550 watch it because he's just the most likable, smart dude who's 637 00:29:14,550 --> 00:29:15,560 just going through. 638 00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:22,712 And for a live stream where he just basically has Unity open 639 00:29:22,712 --> 00:29:24,170 and he's just moving things around, 640 00:29:24,170 --> 00:29:28,440 he gets several thousand people over the hour watching him, 641 00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:29,415 which is nuts. 642 00:29:29,415 --> 00:29:30,040 But it's great. 643 00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:31,660 People love it. 644 00:29:31,660 --> 00:29:33,750 With 20XX, we've just started. 645 00:29:33,750 --> 00:29:35,500 I'm just working on the marketing 646 00:29:35,500 --> 00:29:40,910 plan for that, the marketing map for the next six months or so. 647 00:29:40,910 --> 00:29:47,020 And I should say that's when I'm just planning out this month, 648 00:29:47,020 --> 00:29:48,960 these are the things we need to talk to. 649 00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:50,640 We need this many screenshots. 650 00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,160 We need to have a trailer for February. 651 00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:54,370 We need to have this. 652 00:29:54,370 --> 00:29:58,800 And just coming up with those milestones in the same way 653 00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:01,240 that I'm sure you come up with your milestones 654 00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:02,272 for your project. 655 00:30:02,272 --> 00:30:04,480 We're doing the same thing, but on the marketing end. 656 00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:06,580 These are the goals we need to hit in December. 657 00:30:06,580 --> 00:30:09,160 These are the people we need to talk to in January. 658 00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:11,502 If we can get an exclusive for February, 659 00:30:11,502 --> 00:30:13,710 that means we're going to need to be talking about it 660 00:30:13,710 --> 00:30:15,940 in December and have a pitch for that, 661 00:30:15,940 --> 00:30:18,940 have some sort of PowerPoint presentation 662 00:30:18,940 --> 00:30:22,300 or just a really good email with good resource screenshots 663 00:30:22,300 --> 00:30:25,165 and videos and stuff that we can send out to different outlets 664 00:30:25,165 --> 00:30:26,790 to try to get a little bit of coverage. 665 00:30:29,470 --> 00:30:31,670 Even though I said that articles don't 666 00:30:31,670 --> 00:30:33,500 have a direct effect on sales, they 667 00:30:33,500 --> 00:30:35,960 do have a direct effect on zeitgeist, 668 00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:40,320 I guess I should say, so there is a sort of cultural cachet 669 00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:44,240 that comes from having a big article on your games there. 670 00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:45,990 It doesn't necessarily translate to sales. 671 00:30:45,990 --> 00:30:49,920 But if you know how to use it and take advantage 672 00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,020 of that cultural cachet, you can bring more people in, 673 00:30:53,020 --> 00:30:54,410 which I find useful. 674 00:30:54,410 --> 00:30:56,540 But every single one of these games, I 675 00:30:56,540 --> 00:30:58,290 have to market differently because they're 676 00:30:58,290 --> 00:31:00,860 marketed to different people. 677 00:31:00,860 --> 00:31:07,370 Like I said, 20XX, also that game is going to be on Steam. 678 00:31:07,370 --> 00:31:11,000 It's I think it was $14.99, and that game 679 00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:12,624 we put out in early access. 680 00:31:12,624 --> 00:31:14,040 That's one of the early ways we're 681 00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:16,480 trying to market it is getting it out on early access 682 00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:19,730 and getting people who are excited about Mega Man-style 683 00:31:19,730 --> 00:31:22,300 platformers really talking about that game 684 00:31:22,300 --> 00:31:24,790 and very excited about that game. 685 00:31:24,790 --> 00:31:27,710 Whereas with Let's Quip!, that's just going to comedy fans. 686 00:31:27,710 --> 00:31:30,260 All I'm doing is talking to comedians for the most part 687 00:31:30,260 --> 00:31:32,287 because comedians if they like the game, 688 00:31:32,287 --> 00:31:33,870 they're going to tweet about the game. 689 00:31:33,870 --> 00:31:37,640 And it turns out comedians have lots of fans who like comedy. 690 00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:39,730 Who would've thought? 691 00:31:39,730 --> 00:31:42,790 And then with Catlateral Damage, as far as I can tell, 692 00:31:42,790 --> 00:31:46,310 the audience for that game is every person on Earth. 693 00:31:46,310 --> 00:31:47,730 It involves cats. 694 00:31:47,730 --> 00:31:50,260 It involves mindless destruction. 695 00:31:50,260 --> 00:31:52,930 It's everything the world is asking for right now. 696 00:31:52,930 --> 00:31:56,070 It's just beautiful and I love Chris and I love the game. 697 00:31:56,070 --> 00:31:57,950 It's amazing. 698 00:31:57,950 --> 00:32:01,130 But since in a way that's a little bit more 699 00:32:01,130 --> 00:32:04,350 of a mainstream game, that also takes a completely different 700 00:32:04,350 --> 00:32:07,680 approach because we're not selling that game 701 00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:09,080 to hardcore gamers. 702 00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:11,370 Hardcore gamers are certainly invited, 703 00:32:11,370 --> 00:32:15,360 but this is a game that I can give to my mom 704 00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:19,942 or I could give to a friend who already likes video games, 705 00:32:19,942 --> 00:32:21,650 and both could get something out of that. 706 00:32:21,650 --> 00:32:23,108 And that takes a different approach 707 00:32:23,108 --> 00:32:26,210 because you don't want to come up with a-- like, 708 00:32:26,210 --> 00:32:28,400 I wouldn't want to come up with an ad 709 00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:33,810 or a promo for the game that was like, this 710 00:32:33,810 --> 00:32:35,230 is the baddest game ever. 711 00:32:35,230 --> 00:32:38,650 It's going to destroy your life. 712 00:32:38,650 --> 00:32:41,490 I'm not going to be advertising that way 713 00:32:41,490 --> 00:32:43,140 because that'll turn off the people who 714 00:32:43,140 --> 00:32:45,435 are not hardcore gamers. 715 00:32:45,435 --> 00:32:46,810 They're not going to want to play 716 00:32:46,810 --> 00:32:50,930 something that acts like it's going to destroy them. 717 00:32:50,930 --> 00:32:54,027 Whereas also if you go too soft on the other side, 718 00:32:54,027 --> 00:32:55,610 that's going to turn off other people. 719 00:32:55,610 --> 00:32:58,160 So you're going to find sort of a midway line between that, 720 00:32:58,160 --> 00:32:59,980 and that's another thing I'm working on right now 721 00:32:59,980 --> 00:33:00,480 with Chris. 722 00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:02,900 But as far as video goes on Twitch, 723 00:33:02,900 --> 00:33:04,450 I think that's very, very helpful. 724 00:33:04,450 --> 00:33:06,885 I should probably start getting ready to take questions, 725 00:33:06,885 --> 00:33:08,440 I think. 726 00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:11,190 But I guess one of the things you asked me, too, 727 00:33:11,190 --> 00:33:14,540 is about IGF in the IndieCade. 728 00:33:14,540 --> 00:33:18,190 For me, it's a hard thing because I do certainly 729 00:33:18,190 --> 00:33:23,840 find value in marketing for as far as award shows and stuff, 730 00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,330 like the IGF getting awards. 731 00:33:26,330 --> 00:33:29,700 I personally have a whole lot of problems with the whole 732 00:33:29,700 --> 00:33:33,160 how awards for any art. 733 00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:36,460 I guess I think I just have personal problems. 734 00:33:36,460 --> 00:33:38,170 I think it's very, very valuable. 735 00:33:38,170 --> 00:33:40,940 And I think especially for young developers 736 00:33:40,940 --> 00:33:42,920 who are trying to their name out there, 737 00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:46,630 getting your game into as many festivals as possible is great. 738 00:33:46,630 --> 00:33:49,050 Don't break the bank doing so. 739 00:33:49,050 --> 00:33:52,560 A lot of them require submission fees. 740 00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:57,624 So if you can find festivals that fit the genre of the game, 741 00:33:57,624 --> 00:33:58,540 just do your research. 742 00:33:58,540 --> 00:34:00,550 Know what you're submitting to. 743 00:34:00,550 --> 00:34:05,040 Like IGF has something like 7,000 people submitting 744 00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:09,110 every year, and that costs money for you to submit. 745 00:34:09,110 --> 00:34:12,250 So if you think you can compete, definitely do it. 746 00:34:12,250 --> 00:34:15,600 Otherwise, put your efforts into a different festival 747 00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:19,440 which still you could win something 748 00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:21,159 and then you can put that on everything 749 00:34:21,159 --> 00:34:22,810 that you market the game with. 750 00:34:22,810 --> 00:34:28,670 Like, the winner of the 1989-- I don't 751 00:34:28,670 --> 00:34:31,040 know why I went with 1989. 752 00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:32,481 I'm old. 753 00:34:32,481 --> 00:34:32,980 So, yeah. 754 00:34:32,980 --> 00:34:34,170 You just put that award on there. 755 00:34:34,170 --> 00:34:35,900 I'm sure you've been on Steam and you've 756 00:34:35,900 --> 00:34:39,340 seen they have a section where you can actually just put links 757 00:34:39,340 --> 00:34:41,630 to every award you've got, and then it shows up 758 00:34:41,630 --> 00:34:42,929 and there's a little graphic. 759 00:34:42,929 --> 00:34:45,449 That's really good and that can get your name out there. 760 00:34:45,449 --> 00:34:47,600 And even though I have a problem with it, 761 00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:49,770 I can still see the value in it. 762 00:34:49,770 --> 00:34:53,250 IndieCade is one of the funnest things I've ever been to. 763 00:34:53,250 --> 00:34:59,480 And every time I get really down on this industry, which 764 00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:03,410 happens, going to IndieCade makes 765 00:35:03,410 --> 00:35:06,630 me remember why I love working with the people I love. 766 00:35:06,630 --> 00:35:10,400 I love this industry, and I love the weird crap 767 00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:13,220 that people come up with because it's a great place for games 768 00:35:13,220 --> 00:35:17,230 that were completely outside the mainstream to exist and live. 769 00:35:17,230 --> 00:35:19,670 That's how I found out about this game last year 770 00:35:19,670 --> 00:35:21,240 called Dominique Pamplemousse. 771 00:35:21,240 --> 00:35:24,300 I don't know if any of you have played it. 772 00:35:24,300 --> 00:35:25,080 It's a musical. 773 00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:29,970 It's an opera game, which is adventure singing. 774 00:35:29,970 --> 00:35:34,011 It's nuts and it's great, but people never 775 00:35:34,011 --> 00:35:36,510 would have found out about it if it weren't for just winning 776 00:35:36,510 --> 00:35:40,095 the IGF Award, for noticing weirder games that 777 00:35:40,095 --> 00:35:43,880 are outside the mainstream like that. 778 00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:46,380 But I think I should open things up for questions if anybody 779 00:35:46,380 --> 00:35:47,296 has anything specific. 780 00:35:54,460 --> 00:35:55,106 Yeah? 781 00:35:55,106 --> 00:35:58,090 AUDIENCE: So you mentioned about how articles don't directly 782 00:35:58,090 --> 00:36:00,718 translate [INAUDIBLE]. 783 00:36:00,718 --> 00:36:04,533 Do you think that's also starting to be true for AAA, 784 00:36:04,533 --> 00:36:07,980 or is it more of a direct [INAUDIBLE] 785 00:36:07,980 --> 00:36:10,446 expect to get [INAUDIBLE]? 786 00:36:10,446 --> 00:36:12,070 SEAN BAPTISTE: I think there's probably 787 00:36:12,070 --> 00:36:16,240 still some value to for AAA, and part 788 00:36:16,240 --> 00:36:22,480 of that is because the one thing that's great about being a AAA 789 00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:27,250 developer is you have resources, and lots and lots of resources. 790 00:36:27,250 --> 00:36:30,970 So one of the things we would do any time you 791 00:36:30,970 --> 00:36:33,400 talk about the launch of a game, it'd be like, 792 00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:39,520 OK, so let's say Assassin's Creed. 793 00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:44,610 The next one supposed to come out on September 9, 2015. 794 00:36:44,610 --> 00:36:48,020 You want to own that Newsday, and that 795 00:36:48,020 --> 00:36:51,530 means you are planting articles on it for September 8 796 00:36:51,530 --> 00:36:54,670 and September 9 at every outlet in the world 797 00:36:54,670 --> 00:36:59,240 so that that day when every person who checks video game 798 00:36:59,240 --> 00:37:02,340 blogs, reads a video game blog, the only thing they're 799 00:37:02,340 --> 00:37:04,530 going to be reading about is your game. 800 00:37:04,530 --> 00:37:06,840 It's basically like playing a commercial 801 00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:09,730 on a loop for an entire day until you've subliminally 802 00:37:09,730 --> 00:37:11,730 made that person buy your game. 803 00:37:11,730 --> 00:37:13,350 That's sort of the whole idea. 804 00:37:13,350 --> 00:37:17,270 Independence-- we cannot own a Newsday. 805 00:37:17,270 --> 00:37:22,630 It's very difficult because it's expensive and time-consuming-- 806 00:37:22,630 --> 00:37:24,350 really, really time-consuming to own 807 00:37:24,350 --> 00:37:28,540 a Newsday as an independent because just planting 808 00:37:28,540 --> 00:37:32,330 one major article in a big thing, like say a cover 809 00:37:32,330 --> 00:37:35,610 article for GameInformer-- that's so many 810 00:37:35,610 --> 00:37:39,590 man hours between the person who's negotiating that deal 811 00:37:39,590 --> 00:37:43,820 and making it happen, coming up with a story like the narrative 812 00:37:43,820 --> 00:37:45,700 for the game you're trying to sell. 813 00:37:45,700 --> 00:37:48,990 Plus also art resources, like getting your artists 814 00:37:48,990 --> 00:37:51,030 to deliver a whole bunch of screenshots, 815 00:37:51,030 --> 00:37:55,720 but also Photoshops of all of the characters. 816 00:37:55,720 --> 00:37:58,400 That's so expensive in time and money, 817 00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:00,190 and indies can't do that. 818 00:38:00,190 --> 00:38:02,480 So I think for us, we can get articles. 819 00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,550 But really getting an article in everything simultaneously 820 00:38:05,550 --> 00:38:10,340 on the same day-- the funniest thing that ever happened 821 00:38:10,340 --> 00:38:12,780 is when Go Home Dinosaurs came out, 822 00:38:12,780 --> 00:38:14,990 I was sending review codes out to things. 823 00:38:14,990 --> 00:38:17,030 And I was like, so we have an embargo for this, 824 00:38:17,030 --> 00:38:22,070 and one reporter literally wrote back, Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. 825 00:38:22,070 --> 00:38:23,870 We don't have that. 826 00:38:23,870 --> 00:38:27,210 We don't have the muscle to be like, 827 00:38:27,210 --> 00:38:29,330 we can back up this embargo. 828 00:38:29,330 --> 00:38:32,020 AAA places have a hard time backing up an embargo, 829 00:38:32,020 --> 00:38:33,970 but they have the benefit of being like, well, 830 00:38:33,970 --> 00:38:36,630 if you don't adhere to this embargo, 831 00:38:36,630 --> 00:38:39,070 we're not going to give you coverage of the next game. 832 00:38:39,070 --> 00:38:42,890 Whereas if you're an indie, you would be cutting your nose 833 00:38:42,890 --> 00:38:44,360 off right there. 834 00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:46,470 Like, fine, you don't get to do the next game, 835 00:38:46,470 --> 00:38:49,720 and they'll tell you won't have a next game. 836 00:38:49,720 --> 00:38:51,840 So like I said, there's certainly 837 00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:53,439 cultural cachet I think for indies, 838 00:38:53,439 --> 00:38:54,730 but it's more valuable for AAA. 839 00:39:02,325 --> 00:39:03,700 AUDIENCE: So community management 840 00:39:03,700 --> 00:39:08,910 as you described it is a word of mouth deal for a lot of it. 841 00:39:08,910 --> 00:39:10,810 Is part of your purview then doing 842 00:39:10,810 --> 00:39:15,271 bundle sales and other types of sales where if you get somebody 843 00:39:15,271 --> 00:39:17,270 to play the game, maybe they'll talk to somebody 844 00:39:17,270 --> 00:39:18,100 else about the game? 845 00:39:18,100 --> 00:39:18,933 SEAN BAPTISTE: Yeah. 846 00:39:18,933 --> 00:39:21,630 Doing bundle sales-- see, that's another one 847 00:39:21,630 --> 00:39:25,090 I'm torn on because I see the value in bundles sales, 848 00:39:25,090 --> 00:39:30,060 but I see that that value is diminishing day by day. 849 00:39:30,060 --> 00:39:33,256 There are so many bundles out there, 850 00:39:33,256 --> 00:39:34,880 Humble Bundle being one of the biggest. 851 00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:37,650 But then there's, like, 70 other ones that you can go to. 852 00:39:37,650 --> 00:39:39,320 And Humble Bundle's great to work 853 00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,170 with because they're very protective of the Steam keys 854 00:39:42,170 --> 00:39:45,166 that you put out, whereas a lot of the other bundle places, 855 00:39:45,166 --> 00:39:46,540 they don't have as much security. 856 00:39:46,540 --> 00:39:50,820 So what happens is you put your thing in a bundle. 857 00:39:50,820 --> 00:39:53,590 That bundle sells 10,000. 858 00:39:53,590 --> 00:39:59,270 You get $0.13 on the dollar for whatever people paid, or less. 859 00:39:59,270 --> 00:40:02,190 Probably less-- probably much less. 860 00:40:02,190 --> 00:40:04,170 But you're not getting that much money. 861 00:40:04,170 --> 00:40:06,840 You're selling at a discount to try to get a huge amount. 862 00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:10,120 The thing is what a lot of the people buying those are, 863 00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:12,519 they're overseas. 864 00:40:12,519 --> 00:40:14,060 And what they're doing is they're not 865 00:40:14,060 --> 00:40:16,351 buying the game because they're fan of you or your game 866 00:40:16,351 --> 00:40:18,460 or they want to play it or your game was just one 867 00:40:18,460 --> 00:40:19,700 other thing in the bundle. 868 00:40:19,700 --> 00:40:21,430 They're buying up Steam keys and then 869 00:40:21,430 --> 00:40:24,720 they are selling them on their own sites overseas. 870 00:40:24,720 --> 00:40:29,390 So basically they're buying your game and 15 other games 871 00:40:29,390 --> 00:40:33,100 for $5.00 total in the bundle, and then they're selling all 872 00:40:33,100 --> 00:40:36,220 of those at half off of retail price. 873 00:40:36,220 --> 00:40:39,330 And that cuts into your sales so bad 874 00:40:39,330 --> 00:40:42,040 because when people actually do want to play your game, 875 00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:43,190 they're looking for a deal. 876 00:40:43,190 --> 00:40:46,620 So they end up going to this off-brand site that's 877 00:40:46,620 --> 00:40:52,160 selling Steam codes from it, and it's rough. 878 00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:54,790 There's a lot of indies who've shot themselves in the foot 879 00:40:54,790 --> 00:40:56,530 by going to Bundle Crazy and then 880 00:40:56,530 --> 00:41:00,520 really killing the long tail on their sales in my opinion. 881 00:41:03,071 --> 00:41:03,570 Yep? 882 00:41:03,570 --> 00:41:05,403 AUDIENCE: How big an impact did TotalBiscuit 883 00:41:05,403 --> 00:41:07,300 have on Go Home Dinosaur sales? 884 00:41:10,110 --> 00:41:12,970 SEAN BAPTISTE: I think a few more people found out about it. 885 00:41:12,970 --> 00:41:16,680 I don't think it had on sales, not much. 886 00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:17,362 Not much. 887 00:41:17,362 --> 00:41:18,820 And even at the time, that was when 888 00:41:18,820 --> 00:41:20,010 that was sort of happening. 889 00:41:20,010 --> 00:41:25,257 And it wasn't the most glowing play-through of all time 890 00:41:25,257 --> 00:41:26,840 that he's ever played it, but he liked 891 00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:29,717 it and he said it was really fun and dumb, which 892 00:41:29,717 --> 00:41:30,800 is what we were going for. 893 00:41:34,820 --> 00:41:37,120 But in the end as far sales goes, 894 00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:40,050 it wasn't as big of a driver as one would think. 895 00:41:40,050 --> 00:41:44,490 I do know of games that TotalBiscuit 896 00:41:44,490 --> 00:41:47,860 has covered that has had a pronounced effect on sales, 897 00:41:47,860 --> 00:41:50,780 but they're multiplayer games. 898 00:41:50,780 --> 00:41:54,180 Like our game, it was single-player. 899 00:41:54,180 --> 00:41:56,740 Whereas if you have a multiplayer shooter 900 00:41:56,740 --> 00:41:59,530 or if you have something like Hearthstone, 901 00:41:59,530 --> 00:42:01,840 a game where people are playing together online, 902 00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:03,140 that's his audience. 903 00:42:03,140 --> 00:42:06,660 His audience does care about e-sports 904 00:42:06,660 --> 00:42:11,090 and does care about big multiplayer games, 905 00:42:11,090 --> 00:42:12,140 and ours wasn't that. 906 00:42:12,140 --> 00:42:14,050 So I don't know if that was necessarily 907 00:42:14,050 --> 00:42:17,240 the best fit, but still nice that he liked it, 908 00:42:17,240 --> 00:42:18,224 nice that he played it. 909 00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:25,308 Oh, yeah? 910 00:42:25,308 --> 00:42:25,808 Go ahead. 911 00:42:25,808 --> 00:42:26,308 No problem. 912 00:42:26,308 --> 00:42:28,293 AUDIENCE: Do you also manage the Steam forums 913 00:42:28,293 --> 00:42:30,780 for any of the games, or do you solely do just-- 914 00:42:30,780 --> 00:42:36,430 SEAN BAPTISTE: I do you manage the Steam forums a little bit, 915 00:42:36,430 --> 00:42:40,049 mostly for customer service because that 916 00:42:40,049 --> 00:42:41,590 would be the first place people would 917 00:42:41,590 --> 00:42:42,800 go rather than emailing us. 918 00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:45,175 We had a link inside the game where people could email us 919 00:42:45,175 --> 00:42:48,120 if they had problems, if there were 920 00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:49,740 bugs or something like that. 921 00:42:49,740 --> 00:42:50,781 [INAUDIBLE]. [INAUDIBLE]. 922 00:42:50,781 --> 00:42:53,200 But a lot of people went straight to the Steam forums 923 00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:56,910 and would talk about their problems on there 924 00:42:56,910 --> 00:42:58,120 and do direct sort of stuff. 925 00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:00,090 But as far as building up the community there, 926 00:43:00,090 --> 00:43:02,280 some games work for that and some games don't. 927 00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:06,990 I think games that are multiplayer 928 00:43:06,990 --> 00:43:10,390 just do better as far as Steam forum communities. 929 00:43:10,390 --> 00:43:13,820 It's just easier to grow a community like that, 930 00:43:13,820 --> 00:43:15,760 build a community there. 931 00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:17,620 But where for single-player games, 932 00:43:17,620 --> 00:43:19,820 people are less interested in, I think, talking 933 00:43:19,820 --> 00:43:21,280 to other people about them. 934 00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:23,780 Maybe Skyrim, that sort of a single-player game 935 00:43:23,780 --> 00:43:26,532 where there's a huge expansive world and there's more to share 936 00:43:26,532 --> 00:43:27,990 and it's less linear, I think there 937 00:43:27,990 --> 00:43:31,730 might be more room for community on Steam. 938 00:43:31,730 --> 00:43:34,130 Yeah? 939 00:43:34,130 --> 00:43:37,010 AUDIENCE: Can you talk about IndieCade as an event 940 00:43:37,010 --> 00:43:41,070 [INAUDIBLE] rejuvenation. 941 00:43:43,499 --> 00:43:44,832 On Monday, we had Jenna come in. 942 00:43:44,832 --> 00:43:46,290 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 943 00:43:46,290 --> 00:43:50,180 She was talking about how she spends so much on events. 944 00:43:50,180 --> 00:43:54,240 And I'm wondering how do events factor in 945 00:43:54,240 --> 00:43:56,865 and how you think about events in terms of sales, in terms 946 00:43:56,865 --> 00:43:57,490 of [INAUDIBLE]? 947 00:43:59,090 --> 00:44:01,640 SEAN BAPTISTE: So events are difficult for indies 948 00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:06,220 because events by their very nature cost money 949 00:44:06,220 --> 00:44:09,620 to travel to, to stay at. 950 00:44:09,620 --> 00:44:11,030 Luckily the independent community 951 00:44:11,030 --> 00:44:15,490 is great because we'll just call up 19 other companies 952 00:44:15,490 --> 00:44:17,490 and be like, hey, you guys are going to this? 953 00:44:17,490 --> 00:44:18,140 Cool. 954 00:44:18,140 --> 00:44:19,590 Want to get an Airbnb? 955 00:44:19,590 --> 00:44:22,319 And then we just share it and try to keep costs down, 956 00:44:22,319 --> 00:44:23,360 but it's still expensive. 957 00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:27,136 You can't do that for a flight or to get places. 958 00:44:27,136 --> 00:44:28,260 Well, you might be able to. 959 00:44:28,260 --> 00:44:28,843 You shouldn't. 960 00:44:32,110 --> 00:44:34,680 But I will say this-- if you can go to an event, 961 00:44:34,680 --> 00:44:37,300 if there's any conceivable way you can go to an event, 962 00:44:37,300 --> 00:44:40,030 and I mean just about any event where 963 00:44:40,030 --> 00:44:42,490 there's other game developers there talking 964 00:44:42,490 --> 00:44:46,280 about games, any sort of game-based conference or expo, 965 00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:47,280 go to it. 966 00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:48,220 Absolutely go to it. 967 00:44:51,197 --> 00:44:52,780 I've been talking about word of mouth. 968 00:44:52,780 --> 00:44:53,910 One of the best ways of word of mouth 969 00:44:53,910 --> 00:44:55,784 is going out and meeting other developers who 970 00:44:55,784 --> 00:44:58,550 have other communities supporting their games-- 971 00:44:58,550 --> 00:45:00,340 talking to them about their game, 972 00:45:00,340 --> 00:45:02,215 you talking about your game, and just sort 973 00:45:02,215 --> 00:45:03,355 of sharing because then they are going 974 00:45:03,355 --> 00:45:04,840 and they're going to be probably be, hey, check out 975 00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:05,798 this new friend I made. 976 00:45:05,798 --> 00:45:07,970 He's making this game and it's pretty cool. 977 00:45:07,970 --> 00:45:11,880 And you're getting more people noticing it. 978 00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:15,702 And it's better to be part of the overall game development 979 00:45:15,702 --> 00:45:17,410 community than it is to be outside of it. 980 00:45:17,410 --> 00:45:19,118 But by the same token, sometimes you just 981 00:45:19,118 --> 00:45:23,855 don't want to talk to people, and that's fair, too. 982 00:45:23,855 --> 00:45:26,220 AUDIENCE: Actually, it made me think, in the past, 983 00:45:26,220 --> 00:45:29,299 did you play other people's games on your FireHost? 984 00:45:29,299 --> 00:45:31,090 SEAN BAPTISTE: Yeah, I should mention that. 985 00:45:31,090 --> 00:45:34,409 So when we first started out, like I mentioned, 986 00:45:34,409 --> 00:45:36,200 we did it because we wanted to sell Go Home 987 00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:39,760 Dinosaurs and another game that we had made a port of it called 988 00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:41,260 Slam Bolt Scrappers. 989 00:45:41,260 --> 00:45:45,090 And so we started off with that, and it became very apparent 990 00:45:45,090 --> 00:45:48,070 after two weeks that we only had two games, 991 00:45:48,070 --> 00:45:50,450 and that's not a good show. 992 00:45:50,450 --> 00:45:51,450 That's not a great show. 993 00:45:51,450 --> 00:45:53,800 So that was our Wednesday show. 994 00:45:53,800 --> 00:46:01,910 That was our inaugural show on our live stream channel. 995 00:46:01,910 --> 00:46:06,445 So after those two weeks, we were like, what else can we do? 996 00:46:06,445 --> 00:46:08,070 We shouldn't give up on this because we 997 00:46:08,070 --> 00:46:09,280 don't have two games. 998 00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:11,327 How do we build our audience more? 999 00:46:11,327 --> 00:46:13,910 And then we were like, what if we played other people's games? 1000 00:46:13,910 --> 00:46:17,340 And then we realized, well, what if we bring in other developers 1001 00:46:17,340 --> 00:46:20,280 and then they bring in their games with them? 1002 00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:22,200 And then we play their games while they're 1003 00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:25,090 standing next to us, and then we just talk about it? 1004 00:46:25,090 --> 00:46:26,780 And I have a standing desk at work 1005 00:46:26,780 --> 00:46:29,610 and it's just two of us standing there and playing games. 1006 00:46:29,610 --> 00:46:31,907 And we just interview and talk to them about the game 1007 00:46:31,907 --> 00:46:33,490 that they made while we're playing it. 1008 00:46:33,490 --> 00:46:36,510 And I've called that sharing. 1009 00:46:36,510 --> 00:46:38,820 You create it, you bring your own spotlight, 1010 00:46:38,820 --> 00:46:40,140 and then you share it. 1011 00:46:40,140 --> 00:46:41,420 And that helps. 1012 00:46:41,420 --> 00:46:44,450 We help get other, smaller-- because we 1013 00:46:44,450 --> 00:46:45,720 don't do a lot of big games. 1014 00:46:45,720 --> 00:46:48,880 It's very rare. 1015 00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:50,390 We did Super Smash Brothers, I think 1016 00:46:50,390 --> 00:46:53,304 is the biggest game, the biggest marketable game, that we've 1017 00:46:53,304 --> 00:46:54,720 had on our live stream, and that's 1018 00:46:54,720 --> 00:46:57,874 just because everybody at the office is addicted to it. 1019 00:46:57,874 --> 00:46:59,415 But largely, we have other people in. 1020 00:46:59,415 --> 00:47:06,220 Like in January, we had Zoe Quinn in. 1021 00:47:06,220 --> 00:47:08,071 We had people before that, like just a bunch 1022 00:47:08,071 --> 00:47:10,570 of other developers throughout the country because sometimes 1023 00:47:10,570 --> 00:47:12,653 they couldn't come in, so we'd have them Skype in. 1024 00:47:15,945 --> 00:47:17,320 And it's helped them, but it also 1025 00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:19,720 helps us because it gives us content for our show. 1026 00:47:19,720 --> 00:47:22,429 It helps give them exposure and it helps build our audience 1027 00:47:22,429 --> 00:47:24,720 over time because they're tuning into an exciting show. 1028 00:47:24,720 --> 00:47:27,610 And watching game developers talk about game development 1029 00:47:27,610 --> 00:47:31,140 and seeing that sort of inside baseball is for some reason 1030 00:47:31,140 --> 00:47:33,260 exciting to people. 1031 00:47:33,260 --> 00:47:37,390 I don't know why, but there's something 1032 00:47:37,390 --> 00:47:42,345 that people enjoy tuning into about it. 1033 00:47:42,345 --> 00:47:44,779 PROFESSOR: Anyone else have comments, question? 1034 00:47:44,779 --> 00:47:45,279 All right. 1035 00:47:45,279 --> 00:47:47,179 Thank you so much for coming. 1036 00:47:47,179 --> 00:47:48,220 SEAN BAPTISTE: All right. 1037 00:47:48,220 --> 00:47:49,636 Thank you very much for having me. 1038 00:47:49,636 --> 00:47:50,413 Thanks, guys. 1039 00:47:50,413 --> 00:47:52,686 [APPLAUSE] 1040 00:47:53,185 --> 00:47:55,620 Good luck on your projects this week. 1041 00:47:55,620 --> 00:47:57,550 I look forward to seeing them. 1042 00:47:57,550 --> 00:47:59,110 PROFESSOR: Are you going to be able to just stick around 1043 00:47:59,110 --> 00:48:00,090 for a little bit, or you have to run off? 1044 00:48:00,090 --> 00:48:01,070 SEAN BAPTISTE: Yeah, I'll be around. 1045 00:48:01,070 --> 00:48:01,165 PROFESSOR: Cool. 1046 00:48:01,165 --> 00:48:02,990 So if anybody wants to talk to him now, 1047 00:48:02,990 --> 00:48:04,010 feel free to come on down and talk to him. 1048 00:48:04,010 --> 00:48:05,760 We're going to break for about 10 minutes. 1049 00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:06,860 Come down and sign up. 1050 00:48:06,860 --> 00:48:09,030 Other thing I should note-- [INAUDIBLE] 1051 00:48:09,030 --> 00:48:12,220 is coming today at around 2:30 to talk to some of the teams 1052 00:48:12,220 --> 00:48:13,890 if you want to talk to her. 1053 00:48:13,890 --> 00:48:17,070 If you have burning questions about your game 1054 00:48:17,070 --> 00:48:21,700 that you need to get answered by one of our clients, she's here 1055 00:48:21,700 --> 00:48:22,910 and available to talk you. 1056 00:48:22,910 --> 00:48:25,370 Otherwise, the rest the class period is for yourself. 1057 00:48:32,870 --> 00:48:35,920 [CHATTER]