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Aw, honey, you dressed up all proper!

© Dan Caines

"Come, as you are, as I want you to be" - so sang Nirvana, and in doing so I believe that they summed up one of the main problems game designers face today. How should they raise interest in their game without making claims that the product quite clearly will not be able to fulfil? It is no use claiming that your game will blow a user away with stunning graphics, revolutionary artificial intelligence and trim his nose hair while he plays when all your program really delivers is a nice way of boring us gamers into a coma. But, to quote the last editor of the International Herald Tribune "column inches is bucks, baby": you have to get glowing preview segments and praise from all and sundry just to earn the money to run the adverts to sell enough copies of the game to get enough money to start work on a new game which you then have to hype to.... (oh, you get the idea). And it doesn't make it any better that young developers are being screwed by the big publishers, who are instigating financially sensible (for the publisher) but fairly demeaning 'pay on completion' contracts (i.e. we will say now that we will pay you $2 million for this game. If it ends up costing you more because we demand that you put in new features, then screw you!) and then change product specifications, making it impossible for the developer to be financially viable. So, what can an up-and-comer do to ensure that they get their money without over inflating hopes for their baby?

Well, firstly they can sign on with a publisher who rates its development houses more highly than those little creamer packets you get in hotels that no-one ever uses (yeah, I'm talking to you, Canderel). Make sure they offer you maximum support for what you are giving them (hopefully a great game). Make sure that you retain the contractual rights to define what you produce in the way you want to (most famous case of product re-definition occurred when a developer making an adventure game which just happened to include an underwater section was asked to remould its product as an 'International Swimming Simulator. Yipee-ya-yey!). And make sure that they buy really good, Italian roast coffee.

Next, while you should never ignore the press completely (after all, no coverage can be worse even than bad coverage) do not tell them that your game is something it isn't. Journalists have a habit of quoting directly what ever you say ("Game of the Year?" appears about every three paragraphs in PC Gamer) and then being miffed when you don't deliver. This ties in with another point: don't set unrealistic targets for your game. Don't aim to make the first ever "Whole World Simulator" when the best technology can handle is Sim City. It's true, you see more games criticised for being lacking in scope than you do for being too ambitious, but that's only because the over-ambitious ones never make it to market in the first place.

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