Talking business here. Looking at skateboarding history and how their creators started their own stuff, own brand, developed them to great success.
Young adults, culture supposedly stupid and useless, born around the same time, same problems of “how to make a living out of this weird passion?” computer games and skateboard share some stuff. Also, they’re so hard to master.
But skateboarders thrive man. Creating their brands and selling them.
So why game developers are such crying babies (I include myself, chill) who cannot envision a world where they are having a hand on their shit and their future? It boggles my mind to see guys fight to be the bitches of whoever is going to tell them how it works (Sony, XBLA, Steam whatever) and complain about it at the same time, despite knowing how it works with middle men. WTF.
In late-1989, Mark Gonzales approached Rocco with the desire to be involved in his own company. Gonzales was riding for Vision at the time, which, at the time, was the largest skateboard company. Gonzales and Rocco decided to name the company Blind, in contrast to Gonzales’ former sponsor.
I think it’s genius. Skateboarders use to ride for big companies (usually divisions from even bigger sportswear companies). Then they started their own because you might want to have a bit more of a plan in your life than just riding a skateboard, right? Between one or three riders together would start their company. Create a brand. New riders coming in? Let’s create another company/brand! Repeat. One dies? Another gets a bit bigger or another one pop out. It’s fluid.
Independent, 35 year old sub-company From the Santa Cruz Skateboard mothership. Biggest brand in the game.
Now game developers. They used to work for big companies. Then they start their own because they want control and not just being chimps in a giant mechanism. But they do so, reluctantly. It’s almost not a choice, it’s by default if you want to keep your mind sane. It’s the first problem IMO. Then names! Hey how about we choose the weirdest, nerdiest name we can possibly come up with? Studio Pixel, Metanet, Mojang, Nifflas, Number None Giant Squid of course no one can remember that shit. Element, Real, Independent. Plan B. Now these stick, send some kind of message from seriousness to total goofy (Girl and Chocolate skateboard??? Apple anyone?) but you remember it. You associate. The brand. I never can’t remember Jon Blow’s Number None studio thing. I think it’s the second problem which follows the first one: no seduction, no “vibe”, weak concept you know? Just dead cold and almost auto-generated words that make no sense. The game studio name is so important, it seems like only Japan understood that a long time ago.
Skateboarders running businesses, they have to build shit! I mean, real shit with machines, wood, plastic, steel. Distribution issues, so many things to deal with. Game developers can just set up a website, use the awesome Humble Store and spread the word. That is all.
But for a very large part, we still fucking don’t do that. All the discussions these days are about how app stores are awful with curation problem etc. So let’s state the obvious: don’t go on them! At some point they’ll reconsider how they treat developers see Sony’s case these days. And maybe we can even not give a fuck because there are hundreds of millions of computers sold every year and we have the damn internet. Game developers, do you measure the luck we have compare to other businesses??? It’s mind-blowing. Minecraft should have started a massive shift in the game industry, it didn’t.
If skateboarders are eternal teenagers, sometimes I feel game developers are eternal 9 year olds. It’s a bit too young.
Documentaries to watch and analyze branding through: Bones Brigade, The Man Who Souled The World.