Presentation counts for a lot
Recently on my (near-) daily website reading routine, I've picked up a blog by the name of "Coding Horror." Old hat to those who frequent geeky news-aggregation sites like Digg or reddit; Coding Horror posts are routinely picked up and make it to the main page. And for good reason: the author, Jeff Atwood, is pretty darn smart, and writes well- thought out posts multiple times each week. Today he wrote a bit about how presentation can make loads of difference in a piece of software. He even uses games as an example: Guitar Hero 3 vs. Frets on Fire (an Open Source GH knockoff).
Interestingly enough, Jeff's observation really struck home when, later in the day, I visited the website for Aquaria, a soon-to-be independently published game developed by just two guys. Now, I have little doubt that this game will be successful... it's gotten tons of buzz, and was the winner of the grand prize at the Independent Games Festival. However, I was mildly shocked to see that the asking price of the game at its' release will be $30. That's a bit high for an independently published game. The interesting thing is that people probably will pay that $30. Why?
1. The game looks good. Even if the functional gameplay was the same, no one likes ugly art. From what I've seen of concept/promotional art and gameplay videos, Aquaria looks very well-polished – high production values and everything.
2. The website looks good. My opinions on websites might have to be taken with a grain of salt, since I have such a skewed view of the internet. However, when it comes to buying stuff online, a nice-looking website will get you more sales. I base this only on the anecdotal evidence of... myself. If a website has some work put into it, I pretty much assume that the product behind it is also worth something. A great example: Panic. Their website is pretty nice, it makes me want to buy their stuff. A contrary example: <a href="http://www.chroniclogic.com/" title=Chronic Logic">Chronic Logic</a>. Their game Gish won the 2005 IGF grand prize, but their website looks like crap. I bought their game... it's pretty good. But how many more people would have purchased it had the website looked a little better?
3. Well, this goes without saying, but Derek Yu (the illustrator behind Aquaria) is a pretty large presence in the independent gaming community, which means his game has a decent amount of publicity, even without all the IGF hoopla.
"So, what can I take out of this?" I hear you saying. Well, first, if you're looking to make any money off your independent game, for God's sake hire (or somehow otherwise shanghai) a decent artist. Tough noogies for those programming types, but unless you're very good at pretty geometric graphics, the game just isn't going to be as appealing as it could be. Second, take your promotional venues seriously. If that means a website, take some time to ensure that it's more than just a bare bones hunk 'o junk.
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