Investing in Games: Broad or Deep? | Hacker News Reader

Investing in Games: Broad or Deep?

techcrunch.com

42 pointsprostoalex16 comments

Very great article. Another thing I would love to see established is that there is no such thing as a game industry. Using the same analogy, it would be like saying: the startup industry. It's nonsense obviously.

That's a weird claim. Are you suggesting to bundle it into the "tech industry", unless you deny that exists either? Or into the "software industry"? Maybe the "entertainment industry"? Perhaps "art industry"?

Your hypothetical "startup industry" doesn't make sense because they're not tied together with respect to products. But there is a "tech industry" or "software industry" or "web tech industry" where the constituent players actually are related by product/service sector.

I don't see why you find that the most important thing that needs to be established. Why does it matter and how is it negatively affecting those (or any) businesses to refer to the games industry as such?

I think game development, publishing, services, esports, conventions and such are enough of a mature ecosystem to be considered it's own "industry."

The "tech industry" is a subset of everyone building technology. Just as most software is developed outside of the "software industry" Sure, some Airlines may write more lines of code than Apple in a given year, but there not software companies.

As to games it's not broken down in the same way. For example some commercially generated games may be advertising for other products or even training tools so lumping those in with Call of Duty is pointless. Thus, rather than focusing on how their produced people break things out based on how their used and who pays for them.

Even among what you might call "consumer-targeted games", investing seems quite different among different budgets and audiences as well. For example IndieFund has been quite successful as an investor by picking a specific niche that the people running it understand well enough to pick promising games, and provide relevant advice to the companies they fund. But this list of games is hardly a random subset of games in general: http://indie-fund.com/games/

Other investors I've run into also seem quite specialized. A bunch focus on mobile games. One that I've had second-hand contact with invests only in simulation games sold in boxed copies in Germany (this is a surprisingly large market). And then the console market is a whole other kettle of fish, because the console makers themselves have a pitch and funding process, which changes the dynamics a bit.

Are you arguing that industries themselves don't exist? Yes, they are an artificial construct with very fuzzy boundaries, but you need to sort companies some way or another.

> Are you arguing that industries themselves don't exist?

I think an industry exists when there's large-scale production associated with predictable returns. Like say the car industry.

Using your argument you can say that the only industries that exist are the service industry and the product industry.

Such a great article. The subject of connecting with an audience is really key. Connecting and building a relationship with one's audience is a lot of hard work, and once you've released something - maintaining that momentum can be a serious challenge. This has been my own experience.

In terms of marketing, it's my understanding that two metrics really matter on the success-side: engagement and the gold-standard - participation. Motivating players to buy the game is one thing, however - I think platforms that have inbuilt participation by design - really create a lot of free and ongoing marketing value (e.g. Minecraft, iOS, Little Big Planet etc.) Content creators have to promote the platform in lock-step with their own content. In my opinion, inbuilt participation mechanisms make things so much easier in terms of marketing. You can switch from "I've created something cool" to "look at the cool stuff others have made." Shared aspiration is very powerful.

Interestingly, this concept is something that anyone in the dot com, web 2.0, or whatever we're calling the tech scene these days knows. It's almost like the game industry is an island separated from mainstream startup tech (or perhaps I don't read enough).

What do you guys/gals think?

Even most large game companies are supported by one or two franchises. It's always been that way. Activision was supported by Tony Hawk, then Call of Duty, then they bought Blizzard and did Skylanders. Without Blizzard (which is very autonomous) Activision is the Call of Duty / Skylanders company. They understand the principle very well.

The whole article is based on an inefficient offer. The second offer is wrong by definition. The article should have been about one game VS several games + infrastructure if needed not one game VS infrastructure + several games. Games are not regular startups - they don't solve your everyday problems. Games are rather about experience. A small game that requires "not that big" investments might be much better experience-wise than a game which has "very much" money pumped in it.

Yet few successful game companies started off trying to build a single big hit. Most game companies that today are viewed as successful got lucky with the first one which turned into a big hit, then simply redo the same game ala King or Rovio. You never hear about the ones who built a single game that flopped and then gave in. I'm not sure you can tell the difference up front.

relevant: YTD Revenue for A Dark Room iOS, a game that made the #1 spot in the App Store http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/2ok3r7/ytd_revenue_...

Would you invest in a high-quality MOBA on tablets (e.g. Vainglory by Super Evil Megacorp)?

No. Long time (6+ years)DoTA player, I can't see this type of game working without a mouse and a keyboard. I've tried FPS's and MMO's on tablets and they are always dissatisfying, I doubt this would be any better.

It plays quite well actually, that's the thing.

Neither. It's a hits business.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com