Developing On The Down Low
Independent Game Companies Go For Quality On A Budget
Despite the presence of the word ‘Arts’ in the company’s name, Yan Pepin found his time at Electronic Arts creatively stifling. The hulking company, the clear financial leader amongst video game developers, was too risk-averse and was suffering from sequel fever.
Walking away from a secure paycheck, Pepin left EA to start Artifice Studio, a move he said freed him to pursue avenues that he could not at a gigantic company.
At Artifice, rather than develop another football game with a numerically larger title and a hidden hipster-themed mini-game, Pepin embraced the opportunity to explore territory that might not appeal to all gamers.
The company’s first game, Sang-Froid, is still a few months away from release, but it promises something different. With a story scribbled up by the pen of popular French-Canadian author Bryan Perro and unfolding in 19th century Quebec, the PC-based game is inspired by Canada’s long and rich history of werewolf legends.
“Our games reflect more what we are,” said Pepin. “We can make games for a more specific, niche audience. We don’t have to be as mainstream.
“This couldn’t have been created in a big company; they don’t really bother with the small legends of a small place like Quebec. For a company like EA, it doesn’t appeal enough to a large audience.”
Artifice isn’t the only small game developer springing up around here, though.
Speaking to Concordia design professor Santo Romano, who has dabbled with creating his own games, you’d be hard-pressed not to hear the word “MineCraft” repeatedly.
Romano cites the 2009 game, which was created by a single Swedish programmer and became one of the most popular games of the new decade, as evidence that indie developers are able to compete with the giants of the gaming world.
“One of the things that’s really great about indie developers is the fact that they often produce games that are not within the same genre as the AAA games,” he said, referring to the industry’s jargon for the highest-budget games. “They have more room to be creative.”
“[The big] developers are always going to have more money than God, so they’ll have larger teams and a better turnaround time, but that doesn’t mean indie developers wont be able to produce games of quality.”
Of course, money is still a concern. Pepin said that even a game like Sang-Froid, which is being developed by a team of six who work from home, requires over $100,000 to produce.
Funding for any business can be hard to come by; Artifice’s founders had to dip into their own savings to fund Sang-Froid’s development, and combine that with a statistic Pepin cited, which says that only one out of every 10 games turns a profit, and you’re looking at a pretty daunting challenge.
You’d think a company like Artifice would therefore spend a significant amount of time and money looking at the market and trying to figure out how to design and market their game to maximize their chances for success—but you’d be dead wrong.
“When I was at EA, I saw the marketing department guys and I’m not sure of the usefulness of those departments for video games,” said Pepin. “They’re really useful to analyze the trends once they occurred, but they’re not so good at predicting the next trends.
“I think the advantage we have is that we can be ahead of the times. We don’t analyze the trend to make the next game, because [if you do that] you’re always late. If we really work hard and create something new, there’s that one chance out of 10, then we created a new trend.”
Luckily, Artifice has a secret weapon. Perro is well enough known in Quebec that his connection with Sang-Froid is drawing attention; not all companies have the advantage of being associated with an author that has sold over a million books.
Romano said that one way to go around this visibility problem is to avoid competing with large developers on the graphics front. Instead, indie developers can shoot for something too small for EA and its ilk to bother with, like a basic game app on smartphones or iPads.
Until recently, indie developers had to rely on a business model that was heavily reliant on revenue from online advertising.
“People with a background in online flash games are making the switch to working in app development and mobile app development in particular. Which is great, because it gives many indie developers the opportunity to make money that’s not necessarily generated through advertisements.”
As for the future of small game companies, Pepin envisions a day when the big boys help them financially, but let them develop organically.
There will likely never be a time when Call of Duty: Anglo-Zanzibar War doesn’t rake in a billion dollars, but as hardcore gamers tire of the same old point and shoot, the big guns will realize the money to be had in the niche markets as well.
One day soon, we might have a utopian era of game collaboration between the mega-successful and the obscure.
