In early May, HeroCraft producer Sergey Kopov launched Publisher Wanted, a service designed to help developers and publishers find each other. We talked with its founder about why the project was launched and its first results.
Hi! In a nutshell: what is Publisher Wanted?
Sergey Kopov – Head of Publishing at HeroCraft
Hi! This is a place for developers to meet with publishers, a marketplace, as it is fashionable to say now.
What is the background of the project?
I’ve been in the industry for over 11 years. During this time, he performed in different roles, and had to look for a partner from both sides. As a developer, I used to look for a publisher, today as a publisher I am constantly looking for developers.
There is a search in both directions, as a rule, in two ways.
The first way is contests, showcases at conferences and other similar events, where developers get together, show their games, and publishers circle around.
The second way is to search for publishers via the Internet, pitch projects by email.
The first method is bad because it takes a lot of time: you have to travel around the world and pay for participation in events. It so happened in Russia that conference organizers often give places for free. Abroad is usually different.
Writing, if we are talking about direct mailing, also takes a lot of time, because you need to find contacts, you need to understand how publishers work (and with what projects), what they published before, what reviews about them can be found on the web.
How effective is this way of working with publishers in general? There is an opinion that it is useless for publishers to write, it is necessary to catch by the scruff of the neck and face the tablet with a toy.
It all depends a lot on the popularity of the publisher, on how much it is loaded. In Herocraft, we receive about 20 requests for publication per day. I have no problem considering them all, paying attention to everyone. In other publishers, the flow may be much larger and take longer to respond. Plus, perhaps not everyone puts their publishing work as a priority, since most publishers are developers. Maybe their release grid is packed for three months so that they are basically not ready to take anyone. It often happens that not all genres, not all types of games take, there is some kind of strict filter.
Like, we don’t take match-3?
For example. Or, on the contrary, we take something very simple, as, for example, Ketchapp does.
Anyway, I think this method is quite effective, because if a company is actually a publisher (and not just calls itself that), then all letters are carefully viewed, attention is paid to everyone, at least some kind of answer is given.
Do we need publishers today? After all, the publisher today is often an office that just pours traffic, looks at how it went – and if everything is fine, then pours more. Why such publishers, isn’t it better to look for investments?
Let me say this: you always need a publisher. The question is, do I need a third-party publisher or do I have to perform this role myself? It solely depends on the competence and desire of the developer himself. If he already has extensive experience in publishing games (for example, this is his tenth project); if he has already broken through the wilds of admin stores; if he is familiar with all representatives of platforms and can present his game well to them, get a feature for it; if the developer is able to effectively buy traffic, can build good analytics and not just to look at the numbers, but to draw any conscious conclusions from this; and most importantly, if he has enough money to finish the game completely, then he does not need a publisher. A publisher is someone who comprehensively outsources a set of competencies that a not-too-experienced developer does not have.
Are there many publishers who are ready to finance today, help to reach the final, adjust the balance? It just seems to me that there are very few people who pat on the head.
There are enough of them. There are publishers who work according to a strictly proven scheme. Under this scheme, they are initially looking for games. And if they see that the game doesn’t suit them, that it needs to be redone too much, it’s easier for them not to take it than to mess around. There are publishers who work as closely as possible with the game, who are ready to single out a producer, marketers.
And there are those that developers complain about, they say, they took their project, they try, then something does not suit them, they stop supporting, but they leave it in the portfolio.
That’s another question.
The first one is about two approaches to publishing. Either take what you have, apply your competencies related only to marketing (gone – not gone, if not gone, then closed), or an approach in which the competencies of not only marketing, but also production and development are allocated.
Which approach the publisher uses can be seen by the number of projects he releases. Usually publishers who work closely with games do not release, no matter how large their staff, more than three projects per month.
The question of taking the game, seeing that it didn’t go and throwing it is a broad question. It’s about the industry, about how complicated it is, how difficult it is for even professionals to understand. There is an opinion that if there are no terrible mistakes, obvious mistakes in the game, and it is released – and does not achieve success, then this means that no matter how much you fight, this situation will not be corrected. Most likely, the product, time, the current state of the market, luck did not converge. In 90% of cases – there really is nothing to do with it. And most often it means that the game really didn’t turn out well. It’s pointless to waste time on it.
Now all publishers that release not paid, but free-play games work according to the scheme with mandatory launch in a small market in a small country, where the product metrics are checked. And if the metrics of the product are unsatisfactory for several months, then the publisher simply does not undertake to release it around the world, because it is obvious that there will be no success. And there are more than 80% of such games.
Doesn’t this speak about the unprofessionalism of the publisher, his producers, who took the game that doesn’t go? Or are you saying that the result is always unpredictable even for an experienced producer?
Our industry is such that it is impossible to predict success with a 90% probability. No one can do this unless we are talking about a proven scheme, like another sequel to some very popular game. If there were such people, everyone would know about them and everyone would go only to them. But there is no such thing. The competition is exorbitant. It’s hard to stand out and it’s hard to say what the audience might like. Which experiment will be successful, which will not. In this matter, an experienced producer will simply be right in a larger percentage of cases than an inexperienced developer.
In such a situation on the market, how can Publisher Wanted help?
The idea is to make the publisher search process itself as efficient as possible. We were just talking about finding a publisher through participation in conferences and about direct mailing. And this is the third way that allows you to do it faster and with minimal costs for both the developer and the publisher.
The point is that the developer just needs to put the game in the catalog, and all publishers who subscribe to the service will simply receive a letter that comes once a day with a selection of new games added. And the most important thing is that all these games and their descriptions are designed according to the template that is convenient for the publisher to look at the project.
One of the reasons why publishers often do not respond to emails is that they are simply incorrectly designed: it is immediately clear that you will not be able to have a dialogue with this developer.
There are basic things, like the fact that in the first letter you need to add a gameplay video. And you can not in any case write: “look, I made a cool game, download this exeshnik for 300 meters, you will definitely like it.”
Publishers reject 90% of games as soon as they see their gameplay. In view of this, I want to evaluate projects as quickly as possible. An experienced producer will not waste time on the build before evaluating the gameplay video.
Returning to the question: the description necessarily includes videos, promos, descriptions, platforms that exist.
And why aren’t there any screeners?
Because the video reflects the game in the best way. The screenshots are much less informative
What other functionality does the service have?
Developers can use the publishers’ catalog. It’s even easier here – you open the right section, get contacts and write directly to everyone who liked it. As in any similar service, reviews should play a big role in the end. Such functionality is also present, reviews appear. I encourage all developers to share their experience!
The studio can also receive feedback from experts in the form of comments under their games. If no one is interested in the game, they will at least understand why and take this experience into account when creating the next project. This functionality is still the least in demand, since for the most part publishers are too lazy to do it, but I hope this will change with the increasing popularity of the service.
What is your interest, do you want to monetize?
There is no direct benefit. The idea was born out of need. I reasoned that it would take a little effort, I told my colleagues the idea, most of them considered it sound, supported it. I decided to make a small contribution to the development of the industry. And then life teaches that any activity of this kind always benefits one way or another – you meet new people, projects, new ideas come, etc.
Why did I launch it immediately in English?
In fact, I didn’t even think about alternatives. I don’t see parochial sentiments in the industry. When a developer is looking for a publisher, he does not limit himself to local offers only. The publisher does the same. Here an important advantage of the service immediately comes to the surface – it works outside of geography. This is important, since a rare developer can afford to attend many conferences around the world.
On what and for how long did you do it?
It took two days to implement the basic functionality and two more to fill with the initial content (thanks to the May holidays). At the heart of WordPress, I have long loved this CMS for its simplicity, free of charge and functionality. I didn’t have to write the code at all, I managed with ready-made plugins. Hosting – Azure (Microsoft gives it for free for 3 years). Mail distribution – SendGrid.
Are there any successful cases?
The project was launched on May 4, i.e. a little more than two months have passed. During this time, I added 51 games to the catalog, which turns out to be around 0.7 games per day. It should be noted that applications come in about 8 pieces a day – most of them have to be thrown away, I try not to get games in the catalog that will not be interesting to anyone. Attendance averages 1,000 people per week.
I see that the games presented are finding publishers. For example, Creative Mobile recently announced the game Trigger Time, which was previously posted on the service. But I wasn’t interested in where they met. More importantly, people who come to Publisher Wanted click on the contacts of publishers and developers. The conversion rate is about 30%. That is, they communicate and communicate with each other directly, and this is the most important thing. A very well-known publisher recently wrote to me with a proposal for my game posted on the service.
Quantitatively, the indicators do not satisfy me yet. Few people know about the service yet, and I try to contribute to this process as much as possible to the best of my free time. I would also like to thank my colleagues who help, from Creative Mobile, Game Insight and Zeptolab.
The last question: how do you see the service in the next year or two.
The ideal picture of the world is when most developers and publishers know about the service. Then the potential of Publisher Wanted will be fully revealed. Developers will receive a detailed fitback for their games and in case of failure will know where to dig next. The need for showcases will decrease. There will be a lot of reviews about each publisher and it will be possible to make a decision based on them. Everything together should improve the market, make it more transparent, make developers more aware, which means there will be more successful projects!
Thanks for the interview!