Marketing of Video Games - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 46

in the article could be described by Akrich's (1992, 1995) methodology.
In that approach it is stated that all designers of new products anticipate
and represent the envisioned user. In ef ect, the constructers of these games
are users. 7 It was tempting to accept this suggestion because elements are
present in any development process that meets anticipated wants or needs.
Certainly one could not deny that developers had no idea of fi nal design
and envisioned users. We proposed at the time, however, that a more appro-
priate model for describing the process comes from Simon (1996, 162-163).
In this model he suggests, “Making complex designs that are implemented
over a long period of time and continually modifi ed in the course of imple-
mentation has much in common with painting in oil. In oil painting every
new spot of pigment laid on the canvas creates some kind of pattern that
provides a continuing source of new ideas to the painter”. Video game
development as observed in our model fi rm appeared to follow this type of
approach for two reasons. First, there was the fuzzy front end. The game
was sketched only roughly as an initial step. Developments were centred
upon features that the games would provide and not some fi nal design. The
reason for this being that it is hard, if not impossible, to defi ne in the outset
of a game development project what will create a fun game. Secondly, both
technology and expectations of consumers were likely to change over the
two-year period it takes to develop a game. Consequently, progress was
driven by the ten-day evaluations, where the interim build became Simon's
pigment on the canvas to which the development team reacted.
MARKETING DURING DEVELOPMENT
So much money is required for development and commercialization that
marketing is needed during initial development and has evolved to the state
among larger publishers where product managers are used. We are getting
ahead of ourselves here. The marketing process commonly starts with the
proposal to develop a game. In general, developers come up with ideas
and pitch them to publishers. One particular fi rm we studied was a solely
owned subsidiary and provided pitches to the parent alone as a form of
internal marketing (Zackariasson, Blomquist and Wilson 2006). The par-
ent, however, received pitches from other developers as well. In this “pitch-
ing process” the captive has a much closer dialogue with the parent than
an independent studio has. There are times, however, when the publisher
parent may take ideas to developers, both internal and external sources.
Likewise, a publisher may turn to developers for concepts of specifi c games
when they have a brand, franchise or other intellectual property they think
is potentially useful for a game. In general, a publisher would go to several
dif erent developers with this possibility, asking them to come up with a
concept for a game. Deciding what studio to go with involves individual
pitches, track records, costs and available technology.