#2. Five learnings from NZGDC 2023
September 26, 2023 - post by Jono
Kia ora, folks!
As promised, here is our monthly edition of the blog. We’re hitting two from two.
So at the end of August, JPK attended the New Zealand Game Developer Conference and it was probably the best one yet. We’ve been to a few NZGDC and GCAP conferences over the years, and they do kind of start to get a bit similar and blur into each other. We’re not sure what it was this year — maybe it was the new venue or maybe the industry is excited that there is finally a tax incentive that is going to allow the NZ games industry to really grow - but there was a real buzz around the place. Kiwi gamedevs are freely sharing their information and committed to helping each other succeed.
Now this isn’t a post about how we met lots of cool indie developers (we did), or how the quality of talks were very high (they were), or that we had too many beers at the after party (actually, we were very responsible, thankyouverymuch). Instead, today’s blog post is about some of the realisations or tidbits of information that stuck with me, long after the conference has finished.
No. 1: “Narrative as vegemite”
One talk I enjoyed was Naphtali Faulkner’s narrative design talk “Shut up or shut off”, aimed at getting indie designers to get to the point. He made a great example that narrative begins at the start screen, using the example of Ico’s start screen as a way of setting time and place.
But the real ‘a-ha’ moment was his idea that designers should apply narrative to their game, much like they spread vegemite on their toast. Now, Kiwi’s know that Vegemite is pretty strong stuff and should only be applied to your toast sparingly. However, overseas visitors don’t know this and will spread it on their toast like peanut butter and are shocked when their mouth is stuck together. Same goes for narrative - players only have limited patience, so don’t feed them yeasty, viscous and overly salty spread. Use it sparingly.
Of course, I can’t look at vegemite anymore without thinking of this advice.
No. 2: “When Chinese?”
Whenever Jon Cartwright talks at NZGDC or GCAP, I always make a point of attending, as his talks are always full of “you-need-to-hear-this” reality checks as well as lots of actionable advice that you can apply right away.
Jon had two talks this year; one titled “If you think games are expensive to buy, you won’t believe what they cost to make” (excellent), and another called “Localisation: Speaking in tongues” which explained in detail the costs and benefits of localisation and the need to do it right.
The main takeaway was that you need to launch your game with Simplified Chinese language support. The Chinese market for Steam is as big, if not bigger than the English-speaking market, so if you don’t support Simplified Chinese as one of your launch languages, then, your first review will literally be two words; “When Chinese?” but more importantly you are seriously limiting your earning potential. Now the review might be written in Chinese, or it might be written in English, but the message is the same, make sure you support it.
Luckily for us, Hour of Reckoning is not a dialogue-heavy game, so this should be pretty achievable.
No. 3: “The Art of the Shitty First Draft”
I also really enjoyed Rick Stemm’s talk titled “The Art of the Shitty First Draft”. Rick is a very engaging speaker and this was a very lively talk. The main takeaway I derived from this talk was “get out of your own way” and get started on your work, so that you have something to discuss with your team. Something is better than nothing and the discussion that arises will often yield newer and better ideas than you would have come up with on your own.
It’s very easy for creative types to want things to be perfect before showing others, but it’s time-consuming and you never get things perfect first time anyway - so just get started.
No. 4: “Games are sold, not bought”
We attended the Hill Farrance investment workshop which started before NZGDC and it was a real eye-opener. As expected, there was a lot of info and detail around games investment that was extremely useful. So much, that I’m not going to write about it here. Instead, if Hill Farrance do another workshop at NZGDC next year, I’d suggest going to it.
However, there was one off-the-cuff comment that stuck with me where they mentioned “Games are sold, not bought”. It seems obvious, but the more I think about it, it feels quite profound. Everyone knows that making a good game isn’t enough - you need to be able to target it, sell it and make it appealing, but the above quote feels like the most succinct way of expressing this.
No. 5: “Don’t say everything at once”
I’ve been to a few marketing talks, and a lot of them tend to say a lot of the same things. “Make sure you spend enough time marketing your game…” “Make sure you’re using social media correctly” “Make sure you employ me as a marketing consultant” — but this talk from Michal Napora’s “9 Marketing Lessons from 9 Years of Marketing Games” stuck with me.
His comment was that marketing is a marathon, not a sprint, so you don’t need to say everything about your game at once. Michal used the example of Grand Theft Auto V’s marketing - for the first trailer, they didn’t show any characters, just the city where the events take place. You see the sunny climes of Los Santos, you see beaches, skyscrapers, golf clubs, planes, rich apartments etc… Then you see fast cars, dodgy citizens, rough neighbourhoods and criminals getting out of a van and you know that THIS IS GRAND THEFT AUTO. It’s not until the second trailer they introduce Michael, Franklin and Trevor. Smart.
Like all great advice, it seems obvious once it’s explained to you but it’s really given us a lot to think about. And, I suppose like training for a marathon, don’t leave your training marketing until the last minute.
Well, that’s this months blog, hope you got something out of it, like we did. See you next month!