OneBigGame's Martin de Ronde
Non-profit label's founder reveals iPhone and console dev plans as first game is unveiled
We're open to anything. Because I think if you look at games like Line Rider, Zuma, World of Goo - the more innovative games of the last few years haven't necessarily come from the established names. What they've done is perfected their trade and made sure that they've innovated within an existing genre. So we very much welcome the indie development scene to come onboard and to give us innovative titles where they can experiment and we can promote it. We've already been approached by a number of indie developers - they see the opportunity there. We still have to find our structure - it's been a learning process. I've always said to myself that whenever I do any business that you should always take one risk and all the other five or six aspects are non-innovative. Now we're doing six or seven new things at the same time.
Soon we will have our portal and will be able to offer developers a solid structure in a couple of months time, and hopefully we will become established so that people will almost see us as a default option to turn to for launching new innovative IP that would normally not get a chance. Perhaps we can become the non profit art house cinema for games - something like that.
Yes, we have a board of directors and a board of advisers that can help out in that respect. We actually ran into that issue a couple of months ago when some of the games weren't of the right standard. Not the more high profile games, but some of the indie developed ones. Some of the games were too small, or not of the right quality - yet. So we're setting QA guidelines and making sure they're a certain process in place to deal with that.
Still, it is very difficult. It's like when you have your birthday and somebody gives you a present - you're not going to say to their face I don't like it. But this is also where the collaborative nature comes in. You can say 'guys, you've created an interesting game but I don't think it has enough quality yet to stand on its own two feet. But here's your favourite games designer who we've approached a couple of months ago - he's still looking for a concept, he's interested in this genre, why don't you work together?' Or 'someone is doing this game, they still need resources, would you guys like to work together?' So hopefully we can use the collaborative nature to go from 'sorry it's not good enough' to 'not this but this'. So you take the gift on your birthday and say, 'I don't like it but my mother likes it'.
No. There are two sides to that story. First of all it's important that OneBigGame... I'd rather it became a label than a charity label. Obviously it started as a charity project, but it's a label associated with being innovative or out of the box or with really original games. And then it's a charity. So that's one thing. We're not going to go out and say 'charity game'. I think also, if I say to someone we're building a charity game it sounds awful. We're making games that raise money for charity - that's different to charity games. So we're not going to be going out branding ourselves with the charity angle. Although legally it needs to be on there, so all the games will carry the charity message.
It's also important that we shouldn't forget that ultimately the stars of this initiative are the developers. So we don't want to be too much like 'this is a game by OneBigGame'. It's OneBigGame presenting a game by Zoe Mode, David Perry, Charles Cecil and the other 10-12 we now have working on concepts for us.
Obviously we don't have massive budgets to start promoting the game - that's difficult. At the same time we have two industry PR companies helping us. There's a social medium PR specialist in the US that's helping us. Then there's the charities that have their own supporters, which we're going to reach out to through newsletters. So there's plenty of activity, it's just we don't have the budget for a full campaign.
Having said that, I know a lot of developers out there doing XLA and PSN games who don't have the budget, who don't do any marketing and some games become big hits, others not so much. I think in terms of PR we're doing everything we can. We're also not ashamed to just ask for coverage. People have said, 'thank god it's a great game'. Otherwise they would have thought because it's for charity they have to mention it.
When I tell people who are not in the industry that I work in games, then six out of 10 times they say they're full of violence and shooting and this and that. And they ask what I like about games and I tell them my favourite moment in Metal Gear or some defining moment, and I explain it with passion so they can see there's more to games.
Luckily I have the ammunition to do that - I have the arguments and examples. But I think when you're attacked from the outside, the more things we can show - this is good and this is good - the better. So we're hopefully giving people the ammo to show people that the games industry is a beautiful one, because I think it is.
Not yet. But I think that's also because we're mostly working with independents. We've spoken to a few high profile non independents and they have said they need to ask their publisher. So their projects, although we've defined the concepts, are still a little bit on the back burner because there's another commercial project being finished. But that's why we haven't run into problems yet. Because there hasn't been a demo that's had to be approved by publisher X, who might say, 'oh this is similar to one of our own franchises'.
But I think the best way to deal with that is by being successful. So if you say famous designer A has been very successful with a game and then you go to famous designer B whose publisher is giving him a bit of a problem, then at least you can show how it all works and how it comes back and where the money goes and everything. Instead of starting and going through complex legal situations to get it out of the way, I think once we've established ourselves, while those problems will be there, they'll be smaller.
Yes. The way OneBigGame works is that we donate a minimum of 80 per cent to our two charity partners, which are Save the Children and Starlight Children's Foundation. Having said that I think that 20 per cent as an overhead for a charity is pretty high, but we're not a charity, we're non profit. So what we'll do with the 20 per cent is to cover costs, so if for instance we need to do a certification process and it's USD 1500 or something. We need to have some funds there. But we can also take a part of that 20 per cent and reinvest it.
We could use it to do a conversion of a successful title onto DS, hopefully sell many units of that game and generate even more money. There's a risk involved and we won't make rash decisions at all. But yes, sometimes we could reinvest it and build it bigger and bigger - do a DS or PC title - and at some point there might be one big hit that allows us to do an even bigger game. But the big game doesn't necessarily need to be a big game on the big platforms - it could just be a game that's got ten people working together on one 'bigger' game.
Martin de Ronde is the founder and director of OneBigGame. Interview by Kath Brice.