Breaking The Wheel

Marketing

A photo of John Boyd, author of Destruction and Creation
– Posted Under: Art, Design, Management, Marketing, Operations, Production, Strategy, Tips for Indies Leave a comment

Destruction and Creation: John Boyd’s Analysis and Synthesis Loop

Here’s a question for you: is dog-fighting (the airplane variety, not the literal kind) an art or a science? It’s obviously an art, right? Two pilots, and a wide-open sky – the possibilities for maneuvers and counters are positively endless. Endless, that is, except for this funny thing called “physics”. Far from being limitless, a pilot’s options are severely restricted by his altitude, speed, weapon load, and aerodynamic characteristics. The man the world has to thank for codifying this realization is one of history’s great iconoclasts: United States Air Force pilot John Boyd. But Boyd’s gifts to the universe were not limited to the military, and one of his last major labors before he died was a paper and presentation he called “Analysis and Synthesis” or, alternatively, “Destruction and Creation.”

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A picture of a factory, which are parts of institutions, which sometimes create conflict of interest. Also, scrum.
– Posted Under: Management, Marketing, Operations, Production, Tips for Indies Leave a comment

Conflict of Interest: The Fancy Mess of Scrum, Part 3

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I talked about the functional issues of scrum. In this post, I want to talk about the larger, economic problem with scrum. Namely, what was once an idea designed to support other industries has become an industry unto itself. And with that comes what economists would call a “conflict of interest.”

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A rocket ship lifting off
– Posted Under: Guest Post, Management, Marketing, Operations, Practical Guides, Production, Strategy, Tips for Indies, Video Game Marketing Leave a comment

A Comprehensive Guide to Indie Game Pre-Launch Campaigns

In a day and age where new titles hit the market on a daily basis, being able to stand out from the crowd is super important. In 2016, 4,207 games launched on Steam. Steam doesn’t let you launch games on weekends, so that’s approximately 16 games per day. How do you differentiate yourself from the 15 other games launching at the same time as yours?

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An image of Bruce Lee who, to my knowledge never used scrum or experienced the flawed logic of sprints
– Posted Under: Management, Marketing, Operations, Production 2 Comments

The Flawed Logic of Sprints: The Fancy Mess of Scrum, Part 1

Back in the heady days of 2010, I was a newly minted scrum master, fresh off my training seminar. I was excited by scrum’s potential, but I also took care to maintain some agnosticism. I always told people that scrum was the best production framework I’d seen, but that I would happily kick it to the curb as soon as I found something better. With several more years of experience under my belt, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are, in fact, better ways of managing development. And with that understanding came the further realization that I want to leave scrum behind.

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A screen grab from one of Justin's GDC17 sessions
– Posted Under: Game Planning With Science!, Management, Marketing, Operations, Production, Soft Skills, Strategy, Video Game Marketing Leave a comment

GDC17 Feedback and Responses

GDC 2017 was my first GDC ever. So, I figured “Why not be an asshole about it?” and signed up to give two presentations. 6’ish months later I found myself at GDC, sweating bullets and shitting bricks. I should also mention that the longest presentation I’d ever given was about 10 minutes, and had signed up for a total of 90 minutes of speaking time. Anyhoo, both presentations went well and nobody died. And then, a month and half’ish later, my compiled speaker feedback arrived. It was largely positive. But, of course, there were a few people (4 in each session, based on the reviews) who took umbrage with ol’ Justy. And some of the negative comments bothered me. Not because people disagreed with me (that’s to be expected, after all) but because I couldn’t respond. But then I realized that not only could I respond (having a blog and[…]

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An image of a director, because they direct game advertisements
– Posted Under: Advertising, Management, Marketing, Partnerships, Practical Guides, Production, Strategy, Tips for Indies, Video Game Marketing 1 Comment

Game Advertisement Review: How To Effectively Critique Your Ads

In the corporate world, as a general rule, marketers and brand managers do not get involved in the creative aspects of advertising. Their job is to determine the strategy behind an ad campaign and then let the professional creatives do their thing. The job of the brand manager is to ensure that the ads are on strategy, but to leave the actual creation to the pros. Of course, as game developers, we are the creative pros. So that guiding principle just doesn’t sit right with me in the context of game development. Besides, I’d guess many or most indie studios probably can’t afford to hire professional creative agencies or trailer makers. So, to make the best use of the post, I’m going to walk through some of the important concepts behind ad creation. I’ll leave the decision as to who will craft the ad to you.

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A picture of a director in a chair, because we're talking about advertising strategy. Look, I'm tired, alright?
– Posted Under: Advertising, Management, Marketing, Practical Guides, Strategy, Tips for Indies, Video Game Marketing 2 Comments

Video Game Advertising Strategy: Ladders, Bridges, And Sniper Rifles

Everyone knows what advertisements are and why they are necessary to drive awareness. But making an effective ad is not as simple as just slapping some captured video into a YouTube upload and calling it a day. Your target audience is bombarded by ads all day, every-day. Your conscious mind spends much of its life practically bathing in them. So crafting a successful ad means assembling something that can cut through all of the noise and provide information that will stick. And the first step is determining a strategy for your ads.

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An image of a white space analysis diagram
– Posted Under: Design, Marketing, Practical Guides, Strategy, Tips for Indies, Video Game Marketing 2 Comments

White Space Analysis: Avoiding The Commoditization Trap

Marketing has the same basic premise as football, judo, and hacking: find the opening and exploit it. In terms of your competition, the opening is known in marketing as the “white space”: the area of the canvas without any color. How does one identify the white space? With a simple exercise called, appropriately enough, a white space analysis.

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A picture of lots of words, cause thats what a marketing communication strategy involves
– Posted Under: Marketing, Strategy, Video Game Marketing 2 Comments

Marketing Communication Strategy

Before you start an awareness campaign, you need to – say it with me now – develop a strategy. The first step was the positioning exercise from the last post. With that in hand, we can move to more esoteric, but ultimately vital aspect of marketing communication strategy.

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Composite image for the covers of Mass Effect 2 and Dark Souls, two games that featured expert positioning
– Posted Under: Advertising, Management, Marketing, Practical Guides, Strategy, Tips for Indies, Video Game Marketing 3 Comments

Market Positioning: The Art of Fighting Without Fighting

Perception is reality, as the saying goes. Market positioning is the act of managing consumer perception of a product. This doesn’t mean misleading people or bending the facts. It means establishing and controlling the context in which you want your customers to consider your product. And effective positioning can make a world of difference between standing out from or getting lost in the crowd.

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