Talk by Dave Lang about their indie publishing business from GDC 2017

This video where Dave Lang talks about their publishing side projects (Dive Kick, Capsule Force and Videoball) and why they failed just showed up on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0nyMD830tc.

It's a really interesting and honest look into the world as a game publisher which is not usually seen by us consumers. And since Dave Lang is "a friend of the site" I assume people here might be a bit more interested than at other places as well.

Ever catch Team GFB?

He's got a podcast with another gentleman from Iron Galaxy - they usually talk about a bunch of different game publish/dev stuff.

Thanks for sharing! I always find this stuff fascinating. I also didn`t realize GDC where putting up talks on Youtube, so I have to check out some more of those.

@odinsmana: They have been putting up more videos recently. Before it used to be a video a month or something but these days they post quite a lot and quite fast. There's weeks worth of really good stuff there for anyone to dig into.

@markem: Thanks for the tip. I haven't listed to it before but I usually enjoy when Dave is on the podcast due to his frankly quite brutal honesty.

I go back to this Bombcast because I like how he talks about business: https://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/giant-bombcast-03-18-2014/1600-799/

Still laugh whenever I hear Jeff say "Chicago double."

Talking about failure sure is something different than the usual stuff, therefore this is a curious talk. I remember the desperation in his words on that Videoball quick lock, and the fake enthusiasm on the GB side . It really is hard to predict what will be successful, probably some lowest common denominator, very exploitative, viral, simplistic and emotionally resonant bullshit game (Divekick?). Also in large markets some games will be massively successful without merit, the big publishers already found out and staked their claims on all of that mind share. Also how big is the audience that is open minded and seeking new games really? People who haven't found their poison/crack/clicker (their Dota, WoW, CS) and who haven't pledged allegiance to a franchise or company. Even a success like PUBG can only be so big. We've witnessed, RTS, FPS and platformers being invented, but new ideas for games are kind of rare these days.

This talk made kinda sad because anytime I would see Videoball and these other games or see an Iron Galaxy stream pop up on twitch around that time I would turn it on but lose interest so fast. Sorry three pack of games :(

Dave Lang's famous last words: "...but I'd been in a few meetings. How hard could it be?" XD

The three pack of games seems wrong somehow, call it the Orange Box approach. Dave Lang says that's the only thing they got right, but I'm not convinced.

Also publishing is a terrible business, basically there are two dirt bag approaches: (1) how many copies of a (popular) game can you sell if you increase it's advertisement budget (2) how much profit can be made with minimal but efficient advertisement. Then there is also the right approach where the publisher picks winners from the deluge of games, helps pick up the tab for focus group testing and QA and brings the game to market to maximize customer satisfaction.

Oh wow I didn't know they released some of this stuff for free. Thanks for the heads up!