GDC 07: Lessons in digital distribution

SAN FRANCISCO--As broadband Internet connections have become more common, digital distribution has become more and more important as an alternate means of getting games in front of consumers. The pioneers of this medium gathered Wednesday afternoon at the Game Developers Conference for a panel discussion on "Early Lessons in Digital Distribution."

Moderated by Newsweek technical editor N'Gai Croal, the panel included representatives from all levels of the digital distribution chain, from Telltale Games CEO Dan Connors, whose company produces the Sam & Max episodic adventure games, to Rick Sanchez, vice president of content for game subscription service GameTap. Other panelists included BioWare chief executive Ray Muzyka; Valve director of business development Jason Holtman, and Microsoft Casual Games studio manager Chris Early.

This year's panel continued the discussion from last year's GDC panel, emphasizing some of the things that had changed in the ensuing year. The session opened with the most surprising lessons of digital distribution, with the panelists discussing issues from bandwidth to retail sales to specific best-selling games.

"I think the most surprising thing we've learned about digital distribution is that our users are surprisingly tolerant of large files," said Muzyka. "Our fans are willing to invest the time required to get extra content, including extra voice, or extra cinematics."

Early and Sanchez focused more on the unpredictability of the popularity of games. "It was no surprise to us that Geometry Wars was popular--the surprise was that Uno overtook Geometry Wars as the number one game," said Early.

Sanchez first joked, "Absolutely nothing has surprised us," drawing a laugh from the audience before concurring, saying that since GameTap was a subscription service, it was impossible to know what would do well. "It's very hard to predict consumer behavior when they have access to any content."

Connors and Holtman discussed the mechanisms of distribution themselves. Connors talked about the unintuitive nature of the beast. "It's not about getting your content to as many portals and delivery sites as possible, but to be much more selective. Our approach has been to put it in the right places at the right time. There's still demand for content that has some exclusivity."

Holtman identified what became a central theme of the panel, saying, "The myth of digital distribution cannibalizing retail sales isn't true. We can see the effect of running promotions in the digital world on the retail world as well. It's two channels that are complementary."

He later expanded on this point after a prompt from Croal, who joked, "Jason, you talked about retail promotion. You're among friends here--you want to kill retailers, don't you?" Holtman responded, "No, we love selling our boxed products, and we love selling our products digitally too. People have preferences about how to shop, some people like to go to stores. Retail is here to stay. The two of them working together has made PC titles better, and some of our partner titles succeeded at retail because they started on Steam."

Others on the panel agreed, emphasizing the need for both to work together. Muzyka said, "It's a good thing for people with episodic content to have a retail presence. It's difficult to imagine a scenario where you wouldn't want to have a retail presence for the consumer. You could certainly sell that product digitally only, but you're leaving money on the table, and a large number of fans who would buy it in the store. I don't see them as being mutually exclusive; in fact, they're complementary."

Digital distribution brings a unique spin to traditional retail policies. While retail games are generally complete when they come out, games that rely on an episodic format have to work to keep gamer interest. This lesson was especially important for Connors, who relies on customers who want to keep buying episodes, and has settled into a schedule of three weeks of content followed by one week for a game. "We haven't used it as much, but always having content coming out on a regular basis on YouTube or various sites is a good thing. It's real easy for us to do it as part of a regular process, and it keeps us in the public eye."

Connors also clarified the difference between episodes and expansion packs. "Expansion packs are riffs on a game. When we thought about episodic, we weren't just thinking about the size or the price. It was a new way of thinking of games, like the difference between making big-budget TV and big-budget movies."

Muzyka presented an alternate view, emphasizing the need for episodic content to have a solid foundation. "I don't know if it's accurate to say that true episodic gaming can stand alone from a foundation that's akin to a full product. There has to be some base level of investment, like Half Life 2. Without that necessary foundation investment, you can't build the follow-up with episodic or user-generated content which could be episodic in some way."

But once this foundation is built, success is still not assured. Sanchez suggested asking any potential distributors how they plan to market each game, and Holtman stressed the importance of PR, saying, "You're going to build buzz around this game, getting the word out. The first thing is to cut through the clutter, and part of your job is to market it so it stands out. The second thing is you need to build a customer base. How do you make an IP, so you can go and make a 2.0 and a 3.0? You can build a company if you publish the right way."

Muzyka echoed his comments, saying that developers should integrate PR and marketing, making sure that the online and offline experiences were integrated and that users could be part of the community early on.

In the end, though, digital distribution is only a way to get a game to players. As Holtman points out, "This all assumes that you have already made a good game that stands out."