Mimicking for Success in the Video Game Developer World
Every leading video game developer has a problem to deal with nowadays that uniquely lies to this day and age – the age of the pocket computer a.k.a. the smartphone. Consider a major video game developer – someone like Electronic Arts or Bungie that makes major computer game blockbusters like the Crysis or Halo franchises. These are corporate giants who utilize thousands of programmers and creative artists who imagine and execute truly amazing creations. Their products do very well for powerful desktop and laptops. The problem is though, that they sort of hinge upon a customer base that has very much of computing power on tap. Today, there are far more people who are fascinated in getting their gaming jollies on a smartphone with a puny processor and screen instead of a superduper computer. The established video game makers do not actually know what to make of this market were making a sale depend not on creating a title that delivers magical immersive environments but on doing something clever than a device with a nonexistent processor can handle.
However, this is not a story about how the established video game developer companies are having a rough sledding adapting.
It is just that there are others – companies like GameLoft, for example. These are companies that squarely address themselves to the smartphone market. They don’t have giant collections of creative programmers on their roles. And yet, they somehow manage to announce quarter-billion dollar profits annually. How do they do this? It’s pretty simple. They steal gaming concepts from the video game developer majors. All they do is, they take a really great concept that’s actually worked for gamers utilizing a computer, strip the game down to its au naturel essentials so that it can function on a smartphone, have programmers put something together rapidly that will operate on the major smartphone platforms and release it. And they sell millions. They have approximately a half-million downloads every single day. They are nearly as successful as Electronic Arts’ mobile division.
Naturally, GameLoft does not merely copy other’s games; they also create their own games. Only, they do not produce original games from scratch. They try to do versions of movies and TV shows. However, their primary source of profits, of course, comes from their copycat games. Have you seen anybody playing Sacred Odyssey on their iPhone? You will discover that it bears a remarkable resemblance to the Legend of Zelda. How about Halo? The avatar on the smartphone is called N.O.V.A.. They have one for everything, and it makes for some pretty good profits.
What GameLoft wants to know is, how is what they are doing any different from what everybody else does in the video game world. For example, when Guitar Hero turned a hit, a different company lifted the concept and tried to provide another sort of experience – in Rock Band. Do you see all the admiring press that Angry Birds generates? They, in reality, lifted the concept from an online game called crush the Castle. When Crush the Castle tried to eventually move itself to the iPhone, not that many people cared. They really wanted the copycat differently called Angry Birds. It is just the way of industry.
