Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A Company with Passion

This 2-parter digs into what it means to be a company with passion and even a person with passion. Even if you think your company has it together or that you personally have it together, I think you might still find something to sink your teeth into or at least something interesting here.

The dynamics of developing a product line by yourself, with just 1 freelance artist to assist is far different than working together with a full team. I knew this when I set about to pull together a large team of talented artists, designers and others to develop not one game book, but an entire line of gaming products. With relentless determination, despite a questionable budget, unshakable devotion, despite knowing that my competitors include big names like Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, Mutants & Masterminds and others, we are moving forward, finding our way, and going against the odds to publish the Cosmothea Roleplaying game. We are driven, passionate, and excited!


Are we nuts? Are we stupid? You may have your own opinions on this matter, but we're pretty sure we're neither nuts nor stupid. Don't you realize how hard it would be to compete in the game industry? Haven't you researched the market, trends and cost factors? Don't we realize how few people break even; much less make a serious profit when they enter the industry with goals as ambitious as yours?


Those are reasonable questions, and I'll address them, but let's take a step back for a moment. Just what are our goals?


Having designed over two dozen board and card games that I'm still dreaming of getting on the market one day, you would think that QT Game's first offering would be a board game, especially when we do plan to publish board and card games. Nope. Our focus is currently on our initial release, a complete roleplaying game. Not some 30 page mini RPG either (not that there's anything wrong with those), but we've got our sights a lot higher. Is this unrealistic? We don't believe so.


WotC is not the only ones who know how to put out a good product. Paizo, Green Ronin, Steve Jackon Games and others have made a name for themselves, and we believe that with a quality product, passion, good marketing strategies, the right timing, and a host of other factors, even a small-time game company can follow their dreams, and put out a high quality product line. Drawing on the combined experience of a large team, insisting upon high quality art and design, despite a tight budget, we're not willing to back down just because it's hard work. And we're not starting from scratch either. The Cosmothea RPG is not a new game, as I discussed in a previous post.


The game may be rough around the edges, like any game still in its Alpha stage, but we have faith, are working our tails off, keeping our eyes open, and believe the game has the potential to be something great. Maybe not the best game ever made - it's too early to make such claims, and we'd rather the public makes such claims for us, once the game's been on the market awhile. There's plenty of room for multiple games on the market. Every game on the market from the smallest to the most popular, has people that love it and people that hate it. We aren't asking ourselves questions like, "Can we really topple D&D 4E? Can we go toe-to-toe with Star Wars?" Such questions are neither necessary, nor truly helpful. Instead, we ask ourselves questions like, "Does the market have a need and room for a game of this type, one that covers fantasy, science fiction, superheroes and all the sub genres in one huge setting when there are already so many games out there?" and "Is Cosmothea the sort of game that a large number of people could get excited about?" To these and others we've asked ourselves, the answer in each case has been, "Yes, and in some cases, "Heck Yes!" Or something to that effect.


Ok, back to the top - if you're still with me ... we know that this is going to be hard - very hard. Yes, yes, the odds are stacked way against us! Are we wrong to follow our dreams? Don't answer too fast! It's more complicated than you might realize! People have become very successful (millionaires in fact), with far less visible potential than we have as a game company. There are many factors that go into having a dream, and then seeing it fulfilled, having potential, and realizing that potential to its fullest – becoming truly successful. Heck even the definition of "success" is way more devious than one might imagine.


Success to one person is making a million dollars. To another, it's being happy. Oh, wait. That's it - Bob's basing his definition of success on the notion that he's easy to please. He'll put out a pdf of Cosmothea, let it languish on RPGNow or some other Indie Store for a year and half, sell a dozen copies to friends and family, know he's done his best, and find satisfaction in that; his definition of success. Ok, next blog - no, wait! That's not what I mean - not exactly. I do believe that you can be poor and more successful than many rich folk, and I do believe that doing your best is something to find satisfaction in, but we are not interested in publishing a game to stroke our egos or put something on our resume in hopes of getting a "real job."


Then why are we doing this when we know the odds are stacked against us, and that there are smarter, richer and more experienced people out there?

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