Defining a “Game Store” as neither a Publishers nor Affiliate

[James C. Smith]

Someone asked if Big Fish Games in an affiliate and someone else said they are more of publisher. I wanted to start this thread to not discuses Big Fish specifically but just discus the terms publisher and affiliate as they relate to downloadable games. There are many big (and small) web sites who sell online games without being an affiliate of another company. Places like MSN Gaming Zone, Yahoo Games, Real Networks, Shockwave, Pogo, Big Fish, and Reflexive all make agreements with individual developers and publishers to sell their games. These stores provide a destination web site where customers come to find games. They stock their stores with contents from publishers and developers. To me “publisher” is too strong a word for what these web sites do.

What is a publisher?
In my mind “publishing” implies that they will do at least some (but not necessarily all) of the fallowing:
Have an exclusive on the game
Arrange distribution agreements with other “game stores” (such as Real, Shockwave, Yahoo, Zone)
Provide input during the development of the game
Pay an advance (rare for downloadable games)
Advertise the game in places other than inside their own store (rare)

Some examples of publishers
I mostly think of Real Networks as operating a “game store” but they have been known to occasionally publish a game. Especially recently since they acquired Game House. Game House and Pop Cap have each published many games. When Pop Cap published Insaniquarium they provided feedback to the developer, got an excusive on the game, sold it in their own web site, and then made distribution agreements with other game stores such as Real Networks to sell Insaniquarium in Real Arcade. Real (or was it Game House) published Feeding Frenzy by doing many things including paying an advance to the developer and control distribution in other channels such as Yahoo Games. In other words, it was Real Networks and not the developer of Feeding Frenzy who negotiated the deal with Yahoo to have Feeding Frenzy appear in games.yahoo.com. Reflexive published Crimsonland but all the other games the Reflexive Arcade “game store” are not published by Reflexive. PlayFirst (John Welch) is dedicated to being the fist full service publisher of downloadable games.

In my mind there is a huge difference between being a publisher and simply selling other peoples game to your customers. If someone could come up with a better name than “game store” or “portal” I would like to hear it. But don’t call them a publisher.

What about affiliates?
There is a finer line between being a “game store” and an affiliate. The main difference in my mind relate to who process the orders, who handle customer support, and most importantly, the nature of the relationship with the developer/publisher. An affiliate does not need to process order or make agreements with developers. They can select any game out of a large catalog supplied by 3rd party such as Reg Now or Reflexive Arcade without negotiating with the developer or publisher or those game.

[James Gwertzman]

I agree - I think these are good terms. There is a big difference between developers, publishers, stores, and affiliates.

As you point out, we (Sprout Games) are in a "publishing" relationship with RealNetworks/GameHouse and are very happy with it because it lets us focus all of our efforts on the things we are good at (making games) and let them do everything else. We considered doing those tasks internally, but realized it would require essentially building up our own internal sales & marketing team, and after looking at the cost of doing that (either the actual $$ cost by hiring someone, or the opportunity cost of doing it ourselves) we decided that at least for now "outsourcing" it to Real was the right decision.

Some other examples of the services that I believe a publisher should provide:
- full QA/testing of your game, including all configuration testing across multiple hardware/software configurations
- localization to other languages
- customer support
- port to other platforms (e.g., Mac or Celphone)
- distribution deals with all the various stores & channels (presumably at higher royalty rates than we would receive on our own since they have more leverage)

This is not to say that we're not doing any of these activities ourselves... We recently launched a much nicer website (http://www.sproutgames.com) for Sprout Games and we are selling our own games on that website, but we are using Real's infrastructure on the backend for the actual fulfillment rather than build our own e-commerce back-end. Again, why waste the time building our own e-commerce when that time can be spent much more profitably building games?

[Jack Norton]

The main difference for me is that with an affiliate I am in complete control over sales :D
Even if I must admit that reflexive control panel is very useful. I think any publisher should provide a tool like that.

[Sirrus]

I think in many ways it is completely pointless to have a strict publisher relationship when working with downloadable games (unless they are funding an expensive project, unlikely).

Let me go through a few of your points James...

- full QA/testing of your game, including all configuration testing across multiple hardware/software configurations

> This is one thing that is definately nice. Did Real actually handle this for you? Compability testing is pretty vital for independant developers...this is why I would like to stress another 3rd party service offer this (Lizardsoft, come on!)

- localization to other languages

> How often does this honestly happen? How does this actually affect sales?

- customer support

> Not a huge issue...Order customer service handled by your order process company, and technical issues shouldn't be extensive

- port to other platforms (e.g., Mac or Celphone)

> Never seen a publisher actually do this for titles that are not amazing sellers

- distribution deals with all the various stores & channels (presumably at higher royalty rates than we would receive on our own since they have more leverage)

> I don't buy the 'more leverage' comment that publishers push on you in the Downloadable world. While it may take some time for RealArcade, Big Fish,e tc. to respond to a game that lacks good marketing potential, this is not impossible.
This isnt the retail market (where YES you need a publisher, only way to make it)...
MOST downloadable developers are unknowns...when portals see games, they don't really look at the developer and more at the games.
The barrier to entry for downloadable games is smaller.

- E-commerce

> These days this is a snap. Setting something up with BMT Micro, Digital Candle, etc. takes less than 20 minutes. They handle everything and only take a 10% cut (much less than a publisher)


Not basing publisher relationships, but I feel that in the online/downloadable world, this is much less needed.

As a side note, great new site for Sprout Games :)

[James C. Smith]

I wasn’t trying to explain why a developer should or should not use a publisher. I was trying to make it clear that a developer is NOT using a publisher simply because they let Real Networks sell their game. In other words, a game store is not a publisher simply because they have a direct relationship with the developer. Real Networks is NOT the publisher of most of the games they sell. Feeding Frenzy is one exception. I get annoyed when I hear people refer to these game stores as publishers. They may occasionally publish some games, but their primary function is a retailer.

James is right, there are a lot of good reason to let someone else publish your game such as letting you focus on what you are good at (making games). There are also lots of reason you may want to retain that control and not let a publisher own your game. But you don’t have to give up all your control to a publisher just to get your game in the store run by a big portal. I am not saying one way is better than the other. I am just trying to make it clear that that is a difference between having your game published and getting your game in a big portal. Although I must admit, it is getting harder and harder for small developers to get direct relationships with big portals. Yahoo and MSN would rather talk to your publisher that talk to individual developers. But that doesn’t mean that a smaller portal/store such as Big Fish as a publisher just because they talk directly with developers.

[Sirrus]

Actually I was referring to the other James ;)

[Chaster]

I think of companies like Real, Yahoo, Pogo, etc as "Distributors" (even though I often refer to them as "Publishers" out of habit...)

Publishers help you make the game and they (should) help you market the game too.

Distributors don't help you make the game, and while one could say that they are "marketing" your game when they put them on their portal, I don't see them doing much true "marketing" (through other media channels) unless a game is an incredible hit (and even then, very rarely... How many commercials for "Bejeweled" have you seen on TV/Radio/Newsprint?)..

So, that's my opinion - they are distributors to me.

[James C. Smith]

I would not call Yahoo a distributor.

I think distributor is a good term for companies like Reflexive and Oberon who have non-exclusive agreements to distribute games to many different web sites and affiliates. (It gets confusing because Reflexive and Oberon also develop their own games and run their own game stores but I am referring here to the distributions parts of their business.) It is though Oberon that Ricochet appears on MSN Gaming Zone and Xbox Live Arcade, and some other non-Microsoft oriented web sites. But I don’t consider Oberon the publisher because they did not provide funding and they do not have an excusive on the game. They don’t own Ricochet. Usually a publisher owns the game but a distributor does not. Similarly, Reflexive distributes many games made by other developers to web sites run by other companies.

I would not consider Real, Yahoo, Pogo, etc to be "Distributors”. They are just retailers. The only people they distribute to is the end customer. Traditionally, the term distributor is used to describe a company who proves good to the retails.

[James C. Smith]

I guess the only time the terms retailer or store or portal fall short is if you are trying to make a distraction between a games web site that sources its content from an affiliate program vs. a games web site with more directly relations ships with the developers. And their probably isn’t any good reason to try to make that distinction.

[James C. Smith]

In other words, my title up there is wrong when it says “Defining a ‘Game Store’ as neither a Publishers nor Affiliate”. A ‘game store’ could be built out of nothing but being an affiliate. But if you want to try to have a special term that means a game store that is not built on top of someone else’s affiliate program then I do not think you should use the terms publisher or distributor.

[Dan MacDonald]

I like the "Game Store" term, another interesting model to try and describe is the sites that do a lot of free web-games like grab.com, miniclip, arcadetown etc. I think they have been classically considered "destination sites", but that's a really clunky term. Also the line of distinction between these "destination sites" and "Game Stores" is rapidly being blurred as more of them are starting to utilize downloadable games on their sites.

[James C. Smith]

I guess it hardly matter what I personally think is a logical or appropriate name. Everywhere I looks I am noticing people and documents and web sites referring to places like Real Arcade or Yahoo Games as distributors and publishers. I am only kidding myself if I try to make up a new name or convince people that they are not analogues to publishers or distributors of books or retail software. It doesn’t matter if it is accurate. It has become common use and the acetated standard to call these web sites “publishers” and/or “distributors”. I give up.

[svero]

I think game store is the right term. That's exactly what they are. I said as much in a post on this very board a few weeks ago. I may have used the term game shop. They're analogous to real stores except that they deal with developers directly instead of wholesalers. But shops do that some times as well.

[Kai Backman]

Thank you for starting this thread James. I think the most valuable point is to try to understand the distinction of these different types of business. To name things for the first time, or even the attempt to name them, helps us clear up and understand new concepts.

I'm not ready to settle for any single definition just yet, but just debating the different viewpoints gives us a better understanding of the overall field. So thank you! :)

[david_nixon]

I suppose its even more confusing when you add in a company like Oberon who runs "Game Stores" all over the internet for other parties, distributes games into these stores and others, as well as publishing games in the "traditional" publisher role.

It makes it even harder to catagorize when many companies seem to be involved in multiple aspects of the business.

--David