Tower Defence
Jon Hare details the Free for Freaks model behind new digital publishing venture Tower Studios
Best known for his work on classic 16-bit titles such as Sensible Soccer, Mega-Lo Mania and Cannon Fodder , Jon Hare has been working as a consultant with a number of developers as well as steadily chipping away at establishing his own digital publishing business, Tower Studios.
As the company finally goes live this week, Hare talks to GamesIndustry.biz about the new venture, how the 'Free for Freaks' business model is influenced by old arcade machines, and why indies need to play to their strengths and be honest about their weaknesses.
What we're doing is working on a series of games on a number of platforms. We're kicking off with iPhone, then we're going to go iPad, Samsung, Android and browser, and that's pretty much all the easy to hit, online downloadable platforms. I've been working with a team in Poland called Vivid Games and we're going to put three titles out with them this year, then more and bigger next year, with titles from other companies to follow.
With Vivid we're planning on a game every couple of months.
It's been frustrating for me for many years because I like doing original games and it's quite hard to find a platform and a publisher to support you on it. I've been planning self-publishing routes for the last year and a half and it's got to be done in a way that makes financial sense, it's interesting to run and the products are good.
These platforms allow me to work with some good teams and product, with innovative gameplay, innovative economic models and a mixture of classic licensed games and original games. We've got some licensed deals in place with the IP holders of the 16-bit era games that I'm well associated with, so there will be some of those alongside the more original stuff.
When you're in this market you've got to work out what your strengths and weaknesses are. I can manage development standing on my head. I can design games, I can draw licenses in and I can sign deals with people and I can make sure the accounts are managed properly.
But I'm not an expert in marketing and hitting the online market in a way that means something significant. It's quite obvious that you have to marry up people of different skills together. As an individual I could do a lot but some areas would be poor. Working with Vivid as a central developer I get a lot of technical support , and they can help on the delivery side. With IDE (Tower Studios' marketing agency based in San Francisco, whose clients Pik-Pok Games, makers of Flick Kick Football), they can help with the marketing, working with Apple and the other people we need to work with.
It's a more market savvy approach than just being totally independent. Depending on whether there's a license on top, we work on basic 50/50 deals with developers. If we can double the sales they would have got on their own, then it's good for them. And hopefully it's good for them on two fronts, because we can help generate more publicity and hopefully my design experience and consultancy means I'm able to dip in to projects and turnaround games to make them better.
We're working on something, an overarching plan, that really draws the games together, and we're seeking funding for it at the moment. It uses unique player icons, but that's something for the future. At the moment we're concentrating on great games. Also, the economic model is very interesting, no one has done it before.