We continue the mini-series of interviews in the framework of the WN Dev Contest. In them, the jury of the competition shares tips on working in the games market. This time we talked with Pawel Olszewski, business development manager at the Polish publishing house Movie Games.
Pavel OlshevskyApp2Top.ru Q: Can you share if there is a connection between the costs of developing the game and the marketing budget?
Pavel: Usually marketing is an additional 30% to the production budget. Moreover, both the money that will go directly to our marketers and the potential costs of outsourcers are taken into account here.
App2Top.ru : Many companies, especially those that have received funding and assistance from the publisher, often overestimate their strength and make mistakes in the timing. What do you think you need to do to plan everything well?
Pavel: A difficult question. There are so many factors affecting the date of shipment that it will not be possible to answer unequivocally. I will only say that it is important to be flexible — both developers and publishers.
App2Top.ru : There is a common opinion: the publisher is not looking for a game, but a team. What do you think a cool development team should be?
Pavel: Independent. The best team for a publisher is people who know how to organize their own work. If they also have a decent track record, then the publisher will pay more attention to the developers, and not to the game.
App2Top.ru Q: Do you use task managers or other tools in your publishing house to check how developers are doing?
Pavel: Yes. We have our own workflow and applications. However, if the solutions chosen by the developers work well, we will not mind using them. Moreover, within the framework of the partnership, we are ready to apply them ourselves: the main thing is that mutual work should be as effective as possible. We are here to support developers, not force them to do anything.
App2Top.ru Questioner: And the last question: what projects are you looking for in the framework of the competition?
Pavel: We are looking for simulators, survivalists, first-person survival horror. We are also interested in 2D indie and isometric business simulators/strategies.