The Digital Jungle

Easy Tiger is a new style of publisher, reversing the traditional publishing model to allow the new breed of developers that want to connect directly with consumers to get all the support they need to be able to do that - in other words get on platforms and market their wares effectively.

It's a bit like a record label for recording artists - this is doing all the ancillary stuff around making games, other than actually making them. We take completed games and put them on platforms, do everything else.

I think the economic climate is causing publishers who traditionally have the money to speculate on new IP to double down on their bets and concentrate on their existing franchises and licenses. Any speculation on new IP is going to be within wholly-owned or internal studios because they can control cost that way, and hopefully get more for their money - but it leaves independent developers in a difficult position.

Where developers are maybe used to feeding off publishers and treating publishers as their customers, making their money from advances and really disregarding royalties as a revenue stream, now they're able to connect with consumers - a lot of developers have enough money to make their own XBLA and PSN games, and they're struggling less with the finance, but more with the marketing and getting it on platform.

Well, the way in which developers currently go to market... without XBLA, PSN and direct-to-market models, the only options for console developers were boxed retail games. The business model was to go and pitch content, or on a work-for-hire basis, get an advance to make the games, and then a royalty on the back end.

So they get all their money up front, and developers realised quite correctly that in order to see that royalty the publisher is going to have to recoup the advance and all the marketing. People within the publishing organisation - who the developer have no relationship with in terms of sales and marketing - are going to have to do exceptionally well for them to see the royalties.

Quite sensibly the developers realise they can't put their company's profits in the hands of people they have no relationship with, or don't know whether or not they do a good job, and they make all their margin on the advance.

So the publisher takes all the risk, and the developer doesn't ultimately care - apart from professional pride, and there is plenty of that - whether the game sells or not. From the developer's point of view they've made all their money on the front end, not the back end.

What I'm trying to do for anybody moving to a model where they're deferring their profits to the back end - because they're doing direct-to-consumer and taking market risk - is to use my skills, knowledge and experience to help them do that, and be successful.

In the old model the developer takes a big chunk up front and a small percentage royalty on the back end - if they ever see it. Now they're taking no money up front, they're coming up with the money to make the games, and I'm supporting in any way possible. I finance and execute the marketing through the PlayReplay agency and I take a small percentage to put them on platforms and do all the publishing stuff which isn't their core experience or knowledge.

Publishers play a vital role in the value chain - it's just that traditional publishers aren't set up to do digital download games because the absolute returns aren't large enough yet, and they don't really get the online marketing. They're very much used to traditional retail markets, while online there are all sorts of other challenges, which is something that PlayReplay is very good at indeed.

Yes - PlayReplay just provides a service to Easy Tiger, but they provide a service to lots of other people as well.