Hollywood & Games: Kellee Santiago on Digital Distribution

Okay, hurrah, this was a refreshing change: a 20-something woman on the stage, talking about her giant success with fl0w. Brings some balance to the force. Her talk was brief - she was sharing the stage with the folks behind LonelyGirl 15, the three of them talking about the benefits of digital distribution, or in other words, Just Doing It All Online.

Kellee: “What digital distribution did for me”.

4 points keep coming up:

1. Speed of distribution
2. The internet is a vlid place to start a biz
3. Exposure
4. Experimentation

Speed had a real impact on Cloud and fl0w. Cloud was supposed to explore emotions that we can communicate through a game. We’re experimental, and we’re students. So we made it available for download, thinking no-one but academics would.

But it was mentioned in Edge, then in G4, so without PR – just making it available – we had 400,000 downloads in 4 months. It was easily accessible. See and play straight away.

Flow was the same: it was embedded in the browser. Within 10 days we had 300,000 players.

Starting our business – digital distribution has low upfront cost. It allowed the media and public to get access to us; but we could also exist solely online. We didn’t need a storefront.

Exposure: there’s no way we could have got a console deal without digital distribution. All the consoles are rolling out their digital distribution channels. Games are getting bigger and longer to make, but there used to be no alternative, until digital distribution. Small teams, shorter cycles, less upfront cost – all possible.

A bunch of kids – us – fresh out of college distributed a game on a console thanks to digital distribution.

We think of this as the game industry’s equivalent of raging bull and easy rider: graduates making their first features. Or Robert Rodriguez – movies got so cheap to do that anyone can jump in.

This is a really exciting time in the game industry!

Last, but no least – experimentation. Flow ‘s focus was relaxation and zen, maybe not a common emotion in games. But because we could make it cheap, we could make a concept, prove our concept: we continued working in an academic like environment with fast experimentation and fast turnover.

Flow was completed in 7 months.

You can test an idea or tech on a small project, if you have a giant idea you’re working on: challenges include:

Speed (can be a challenge)

• How do you stay on top of your PR, your marketing? The speed of information on the internet is amazing: you have to be flexible to survive.

The undefined marketplace (can be a challenge)

• Sometimes there’s a demo, or not. Unlimited time lengths. Pricepoints all over the place. No rhyme or reason in pricing. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot if we don’t take control here...

Vertical integration

• It’s sort of pending. With digital distribution we got rid of Walmart and Target, which is awesome. But we haven’t considered what it means to develop games on consoles made by companies that also develop games. We’ve got rid of shelfspace, some folk say, but we haven’t. It’s maybe even more limited – see the playstation store online for evidence. Who gets the limited shelfspace, if the shelves are owned by game developers?

But, despite the challenges and concerns, digital distribution FTW!

Comments

[Stephen E. Dinehart]

Yea Kellee! :) Excellent Job!