Business and Gamers - on the same page of the industry

Making games is a business process, so this should become a profitable activity. At the same time, making games is an exciting creativity, a joyful adventure of the same kind as playing games. We can’t be really successful in the gaming business if we can’t deliver an exceptional experience to players. Developers and publishers of the game industry should be on the same page with their end customers, gamers.

Is it possible to build a business model where gamers and their interests are at the forefront?

Some companies don’t choose such an attitude, feeling their power of giants in this particular area. Thus, some weird decisions come to the scene - like issues with exclusivity that create waves of discontent even among fans of some game series.

(I talk about this topic in the article “Is exclusivity good for the game industry?”)

Another extreme is to care not about the efficient methods of monetization for your product and be totally concentrated on the playing experience. Such an attitude might sound great in theory, but in practice, it often ruins brilliant ideas and stop exceptional initiatives.

Finding harmony between the business interests and the viewpoints of gamers is a nice way to make games. Arguably, it’s the best one. For me, this harmony is not in the middle between extremes - it’s rather closer to the “gamers extreme”.

The task for business in gaming is to prepare the basis for a win/win situation. We should make possible channels of the money income for the development process and support of existing games. Then, those channels should be filled naturally as a sequence of excellent gameplay, astonishing storytelling, and breathtaking visuals.

The trend of adding the gamers’ attitude to the business process becomes stronger all over the industry. I welcome such shifts sincerely. Masterpieces of the game culture appear when they are made by those who really enjoy playing games, who are gamers themselves. Let money make this magic possible, but don’t let it take the leading role here. I see no conflict in this conception.

Two of the possible models are discussed in my article “Apex Legends / Anthem - two business strategies to learn from”. Still, these examples are rather about how polished games should be for their final releases. For the topic of business/gamers harmony, I would mention:

• free-to-play games with paid cosmetic items, which don’t affect the gameplay but provide players with the method to support their favorite entertainment;
• paid games that carry no hidden tricky intentions to take from players even more money.

It’s so nice to have a chance to implement progressive ideas to life not just talk about them. Paracosm Project is our place where business remains on the same page with gamers. We do this for our games and we encourage other developers on our platform to stick to this strategy. 3rd-party developers on the Paracosm platform get a big variety of useful tools for making the game creation a profitable activity - even with such innovative ones as phygital collectible objects (thanks to the Tangle technology).

The game industry is an evolving structure. Many people here have powerful gaming enthusiasm that helps to move this evolution in the right direction. Let’s boost our common progress with healthy and effective business models.

More information on Paracosm Project is available on this official site: CaerSidi.net