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May
06
Small Developers Can Learn from the Square Enix IP Sale

Square Enix just announced the sale of everything related to Tomb Raider, Thief, Legacy of Kain and Deus Ex along with the studios that made them and a back catalogue of 50 titles. It’s a pretty huge change of direction for them and it got me thinking, when should smaller developers sell games or give up on some of their creations. We can’t all get the $300 million that Square Enix received but any sized developer or publisher that has been around for a while will have the same question.

Using examples from us, Glowing Eye Games – a plucky solitaire, dominoes, and casual game developer that has been around for 14 years – and supersized examples from Square Enix, maybe we can learn something here. While writing this, I was amazed that even on our tiny scale there are real comparisons even with the tenuous and somewhat ridiculous links to famous games. Also, it’s fun being an armchair pundit, and I loved some of these games.

Let’s start with the easier games first. The ones that really lose money. We’ve talked about Mahjong Seasons in a previous blog post, our attempt to break into that kind of game many years ago. It never found the traction that we as a small company needed to make it financially worthwhile. Did I say that it was easy to ditch that game? Well, I was wrong.

As a small company we had an existential crisis, on our development scale we built some useful bits of technology and spent lots of effort and wages on honing the game. We believed we had a great combination of level designs and the artwork. It hurt us, that this game didn’t find an audience despite a large (for us!) advertising budget. Those tens of thousands of dollars are totally a valid comparison to millions that Eidos and Square Enix have spent on marketing. (No need to send us emails about the previous line!). We added new levels, and for a little while doubled down on the advertising, all to no avail. We asked ourselves why it failed, but frankly I don’t think we ever got an answer to that, other than the players didn’t prefer it over other Mahjong games. We had other ideas around Mahjong (mild reinventions and invigorating concepts) and never moved forward with them, maybe rightly so. I still wonder if new iterations with the knowledge we had earned would be something that players could enjoy and want? I’m not sure anyone would want to try updating Mahjong Seasons, and even after all these years we don’t want to either!

Using the collection of IPs from Square Enix, the Legacy of Kain is their supersized version of our Mahjong Seasons. This collection of dark fantasy, action-adventure games was started in 1996 on PlayStation. There were four more games released by Eidos before Square Enix bought them out. The last attempt was the multiplayer game Nosgoth. It entered an open beta in January 2015, but never got officially released with the servers shut down mid 2016. For those players moving from a single player adventure to this multiplayer world, it just didn’t work. Negative reviews kept on coming, and they decided to cut their losses. The developers and Square Enix painfully accepted that what they’d created simply hadn’t captured a broad audience, despite changes and tweaks in a year of the open beta. I have no doubt that the dev team would have been hurt just like us with Mahjong Seasons, but I can only imagine that to them and Square Enix the audience numbers were painfully obvious. It would take a brave new company to resurrect this franchise without a concrete plan about attracting fans old and new. For purposes of this discussion, the Legacy of Kain is the lowest valued part of this sale. It’s not the franchise that encouraged Embracer to buy this collection.

With the Thief games, we here don’t have an amazing equivalent that we can shoehorn into this delightfully preposterous comparison of $300 million dollars’ worth of franchise but damn it I’m gonna try! I loved Thief, and Thief 2. I never played the third one or the final one released by Eidos in 2014. That final one seemed to lose some of the essence though, it became linear, and the reviews were mixed at best. Thief never got a Square Enix reboot, and it’s understandable why. Every iteration of Thief, whether it got good reviews or mixed reviews, never seemed to get the sales that Eidos expected. So again, Embracer probably aren’t considering this as a major item as part of their $300 million.

I’m going to go ahead and compare a little puzzle game to the Thief franchise as it’s my blog post and I’ve come too far to give up now. Brilliant Blocks was the name of a simple block dropping puzzle game that we initially made in Flash for online players in the mists of time, when mobile phones still had number keys instead of shiny, flat multi-touch screens. It was a time when Nokia still made phones and good money. It did well but not brilliantly (which is annoying given the game name). We got fan emails, we even sent a semi-official email to someone stating that he was the best Brilliant Blocks player in the world. A superb friend, saw how much his buddy liked the game, and contacted us so that we could tell him he was great. Let me be clear, his scores were good, damn good, so that accolade was well earned. I wish I still had that email and the artwork we created and sent. Must be great to have work mates like that.

Even though that first online version made decent (but remember not brilliant, sad face) money for us, the audience plateaued. We tried making another online sequel, it didn’t work out, but the original was still making money. Well, okay, it was just one of those things we thought, maybe next time. We tried rebooting it for mobile. Thank you Apple for the shiny touch screen and the marketing genius that changed all phones forever and ever and ever. That didn’t work either, so although we definitely had some lovely fans, enough to make a small profit on the franchise overall, we’ve been very reticent to bring it back. We started designing a similar game with a new name, but it didn’t get far before we thought we had better options. I’m not sure what needs to happen for us to try again, but this one hangs around in the background. I hope it get its chance to shine again, but maybe it’s like playing Sega’s Columns puzzle game today, it needs something that will make more people love it. I mean, oh yeah just like the Thief franchise, etc.

The real prizes are the Tomb Raider and Deux Ex characters and worlds. Oddly, despite selling 38 million copies between the three new Tomb Raider games and 12 million units of the two new Deus Ex games, Square Enix regularly complained about these games underperforming. That’s so wild, it’s become a meme. Maybe, and it’s difficult for me to know for sure, these franchises suffered from declining sales. The expectation is either going to be sell the same number or more! Maybe Embracer believe that these two franchises can rise again.

It’s time for a me to make another tenuous link to our games. Pyramid Solitaire (Ancient) Egypt, and Magic Towers Solitaire are my contributions. Naturally, being on mobile it’s a little different. For us it’s about the daily active users (DAU). If players are active, then they see adverts and that’s where we make our revenue. We have made lots of minor improvements to both games, but never really moved the games forward. Our DAU numbers have been declining over the years, less than half of their respective peaks but despite that there are still many loyal players which continue to make these games a massive part of our total revenue.

A few years ago, despite the numbers continuing to trace downwards, I turned down an offer to purchase these games outright from us. I saw a longer-term future for them, but we were working on so many different things we never had the time to turn our attention back to them. Recently, we’ve decided that what these fan favourites need is a proper overhaul and some effort and love poured back into them. When they were first released, they were absolutely some of the best solitaire games out there, with Apple featuring them on the app store. Even now, we know players still like them, but with so much choice out there they don’t stick around as much. More specifically, for an advertising supported game it’s about them coming back after they enjoy something different. That’s where we’ve stalled a little. Starting with Magic Towers Solitaire we’ve begun work to increase the variety and range within the game. For us, this is a major project, and it will be months before we’re able to release this update. The hope is that we’ll entice our fans back to play another round and gain new fans in the process. Once we release it, we’ll see what the players enjoy and try to repeat that for Pyramid Solitaire.

For me it’s been a great deal of fun writing this article, and through the light-hearted lens of these great franchises, there are connections that game creators of all sizes can benefit from in what they do.

Find Pyramid Solitaire – Ancient Egypt here!

Find Magic Towers Solitaire here!


Apr
12
We love the A500 mini

Here at Glowing Eye Games there’s a lot of love for retro games, I mean really what’s more retro than developing card and domino games anyway! To break up the news of our releases, updates and the insights into how Glowing Eye Games operates we wanted to write about the new A500 mini console (because we really like it, and it’s our blog so we can!).

I won’t dally too long talking about the original Amiga, but when it came out it was graphically and sonically the most advanced machine of its time. It could certainly handle serious software like 3D rendering (the first series of Babylon 5 used Amigas for their 3D graphics), but it really took off when the reasonably priced Amiga 500 was released 35 years ago. Games caught the majority of people’s imaginations, especially in Europe, and it’s games that are the bread and butter of this magical mini machine. You won’t be doing old school 3D renders with this thing!

The A500 mini is an amazing addition to the world of mini consoles. Just like the best of them it’s obviously been made with great attention to detail and contains a solid starting pack of 25 games. The mouse is a beautiful nostalgic reminder to Amiga owners. The plastic Amiga 500 replica shell is just as delightful as the dinky mini SNES, although it’s as big as a VHS tape. The controller is okay (the SNES one was much better!), but despite what some reviews say, getting the diagonals was easy after just getting used to controller. Those diagonals are so important because most games were made with a one button joystick in mind. We’re talking about a system where jumping is usually accomplished by pressing up rather than another button. Having said that I am absolutely devastated that my old Zip Stick joystick (with USB interface) didn’t work properly but overjoyed that my PS4 controller does. Naturally I blame this for my abysmal performance playing the classic Kick Off 2. Damn I forgot how much skill that game demanded, no wonder people started playing Sensible Soccer, it was so much easier to score.

Retro Games Ltd, who made the A500 mini, certainly learned a lot from their release of the incredibly popular C64 mini especially; the criticism of the joystick that came with it. The hardware and controllers absolutely do justice to this system. Also, just like the C64 mini the firmware can be updated and with the support the company gave the C64 mini I expect there will be a few updates for the A500 mini. The creators have also stated if they think there is a demand for it, they’ll create a full-sized version with working keyboard just like they did for the C64.

The A500 close up

The games are a good collection of predominantly UK and European made classics from the likes of Team 17, The Bitmap Brothers, Gremlin Graphics and more. Twenty-Five included games was never going to be enough for a machine where people have argued and battled about the top 100 games in their list, so unlike the majority of other mini systems you can sideload games relatively painlessly. As most of those games are abandonware, they are fairly easily obtained online. Technically the original rights holders could stop this, but with little commercial value to them they turn a blind eye so you won’t have to search too hard to find them. Of course, if you own the games in question, then those technical legal issues melt away.

Unlike the original Amiga, one of the most helpful features with the A500 mini is that games can be saved easily while playing them at any point. Given how intentionally challenging games used to be in those days, that’s incredibly useful for an old timer like me with a job, responsibilities, and slower reflexes. It makes these games so much easier to pick up and play than they were in the mists of time. Smashing the leagues of Speedball 2 and burning rubber with Super Cars 2 have been great fun in the few days that I’ve owned it. I forgot how good Stunt Car Racer was, even if the 3D graphics look simple. I’m looking forward to completing old favourites again and trying a few games that have been on my ‘to play’ list.

I’m still amazed by classic games that are fun to play more than two decades later, considering every one of us are spoiled for gaming options in this day and age. For some games it’s true that they trigger happy, nostalgic memories, but for the masterpieces made back then something about the game mechanics, the timing, and the honing mean that they are still pretty awesome to play today. Some games were just born perfect, although it’s not included with the A500 mini, Lemmings is a prime example. It’s just as fantastic to play now as it was back then; it was the first sideloaded game I searched for and I’m so glad I did!

I wasn’t surprised looking into the Amiga forums, that for hardcore fans of the platform, they want a full-sized version with a working keyboard (today!) that can boot into the Amiga operating system Workbench. This machine isn’t that and without firmware updates to allow simulating an Amiga hard disk it won’t even come close. However, it is a fantastic way for Amiga fans to quickly hook up an Amiga games console to their giant TV and enjoy a trip down memory lane. After you download one of our games, you should get it!


Mar
15
The Power of the Back Catalogue

Glowing Eye Games has been making games for 13 years now which makes it positively middle aged in the fast paced games industry. This achievement has been made by creating niche card games and board games, with the not so secret idea that we port our games to all viable platforms (and some that aren’t so viable!).

Recently we’ve been working on our more niche games, the games that aren’t super popular but have dedicated fans. The games that just won’t fly but definitely don’t die.

The first one I’d like to talk about is Forty Thieves Solitaire Gold, which we’ve just released for Android phones and tablets. Originally we released it as an online game in 2012, happy 10th birthday! It’s one of the most difficult solitaire games ever made, where even the easy mode we introduced is as tough as dancing on ice in smooth shoes. Despite perennially low download numbers, some folks just love it, they keep playing it. Infact we know some haven’t stopped since it was released. It’s their daily go to game to wake up the brain, just like sudoku for so many others.

From a business perspective, its definitely profitable because its kept on going for all these years, even after rewriting it three times because of changes in technology. It’s a great example of what looks a marginal game, being well worth the effort just because it’s so consistent in its performance.

Android Phones – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=glowingeye.forty_thieves_solitaire_gold

iPhone and iPad – https://apps.apple.com/app/forty-thieves-solitaire-gold/id584786618

Online Version – https://www.solitaireparadise.com/games_list/forty_thieves_solitaire.html

We sold the online version a while ago to concentrate on mobile games, but its part of our history, so if you’re reading this on your PC or Mac you should totally give it a go. See if you can beat it!

The other game we’ve just brought to Android is The Golf Card Game.

This one is a lot younger released in 2017. We made it simply because we thought we could do better than the other versions of this classic card game that were available. Initially it grew so slowly we wondered if it was going to be worth supporting. It took three years and an effort to streamline the user interface to get it to a point where it was making some worthwhile revenue.

Naturally we respect our competitors because they inevitably provide inspiration, but we absolutely wanted it to be best one out there. We put more game variations in, made it look great and it’s now become another one of those nice, niche games that just seems to keep on going. Frankly I reckon it’s because college students want to practise playing it before using the real life version as a drinking game and now with a return to socialising they’ll get their chance!

Android Phones – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=glowingeye.the_golf_card_game

iPhones and iPads – https://apps.apple.com/app/the-golf-card-game/id1114415982

Again from a business perspective, it definitely didn’t make its money back in the first year, maybe not even in the second. It did however just keep on growing with a minimal advertising effort, and in its third year started to show its worth.

It’s just one of those games, that keeps on going. It gets new players each year, simply because it fills their need. As far as we can tell, almost every player has played the game in person, and then they search on the app store and download it straight away. Because we tried to make it as best we can, they play for quite a while (months) before the inevitable boredom kicks in and they find something else using the adverts in the game itself.

Both these games show that making games isn’t just about topping the charts, for some games there is a long tail. There are games worth making and playing that scratch an itch. The hardest solitaire game or college student popular card game aren’t the largest niches, but they’re loyal when presented with the right product.

Both Forty Thieves Solitaire Gold and The Golf Card Game, took a while to earn back their development costs but by luck or design they found a specific audience and continue to be supported, updated and ported by us. They offer a little bit of business stability in a world where every developer thinks they have to make a hit. That for us or any game publisher has got to count as a win. Hope you enjoy the games, we know some of you will just keep coming back!


Mar
03
Mexican Train Dominoes Gold has Just Pulled into the Switch and Steam Station!

 

Announcing our first ever Nintendo Switch and PC game release: Mexican Train Dominoes Gold! It’s a deserving family favorite that we’re happy to launch into the world for your gaming pleasure.

 

Mexican Train Dominoes Gold has been available on Apple and Android devices for a while, and more recently on Mac. However, we noticed that while there are other domino games around, there is definitely a gap in the market for Mexican Train Dominoes and it is one that we are well equipped to fill. Only time will tell how successful this venture will be, but the team did a great job with both the Switch and Windows ports. I thought this would be a good time to share some of the differences between touch screen phone development and developing for the Nintendo Switch. All aboard for several train-based words and puns as I steam ahead with this post… sigh…

 

Firstly, the PC version works well. One finger, one-touch games are fairly easy to translate to both PC and Mac. The normal changes were made while making sure menus work better for the mouse interface. The biggest effort was always going to be making our engine work on the PC and within the Steam framework a difficult job, but necessary.

 

The Nintendo Switch on the other hand was much tougher! It’s a fantastic console (that I love dearly, it’s no train wreck like the Wii U), but because we couldn’t rely on the touchscreen, we had to completely rework the control mechanism to efficiently support the controller. We created a grid system to place the dominoes and hoped that would be it. Nope! Of course, the management of the dominoes needed a lot more conducting than that.

 

Mexican Train Dominoes strategy involves the player creating chains of dominoes that they can lay on their row. This meant we needed a good way for the player to manage the dominoes. We had to get creative. When players moved the dominoes around, the arrangement of all the other dominoes was affected. It took us a while to create our domino inventory system, so it was quick and easy to use! It now shunts along the other dominoes when the chain is interrupted, keeping the order even when the player makes changes.

 

We had other challenges making the Switch version compared to the phone versions. Saving the game state on the Switch slows the whole system down to the point where we were experiencing a drop in frame rate that caused the game to temporarily stall. I mean dominoes is an intense game but should still do better than just chug along! We had to rework the save and resume game system to better fit the console. Most players won’t even notice the difference, but it showed us that we had been a little bit spoiled in the way mobile phones work with their seamless usage of the SSD.

 

After all this work, navigating Nintendo’s developers’ pages to get the game into lotcheck and arrange the marketing pages was surprisingly difficult. I do have to say that the people in Nintendo themselves especially in Europe would fix small errors without setting us back and their replies got us back on track quickly. That being said, the lotcheck went through pretty smoothly and it’s a vast improvement from the last Nintendo system I worked on which was the GameCube.

 

Of course, I’m talking like I ran this project, but I’m just the guy writing about it. The hard work was done by the team. Jasmine, Gregg, Steph, and Katie all pulled together to make Mexican Train Dominoes Gold a thoroughly enjoyable experience for the players on whatever format they want to play it on.

 

If you fancy taking a look yourself, you can find direct links to all the versions here!


Dec
04
M1 Macs and the Future of Apple Gaming

 

In the last few weeks Apple have released their very first MacBook with their self-designed CPU. This is the start of them moving away from Intel chips inside their laptops and desktop computers. We want players to be able to enjoy our games on as many machines as possible, so we got a MacBook Air to try it out. We were delighted, our games play well. One of my personal favourites, Mexican Train Dominoes Classic, plays perfectly. The iPad compatibility is impressive. Apps work and some productivity applications don’t even betray their iPad roots. This machine absolutely deserves the glowing reviews it’s been getting!

 

As for the iPad compatibility, I’ve found it a great bonus. The iPad has ended up getting its own collection of productivity software and games which I can now use. Anything that can be played with a single touch is perfect. Not all games and apps have been made available by the developers, but there are many that have. Previous purchases can be restored and the experience once you’ve found the apps that you want is, in most cases, seamless.

 

Of course, after work this shiny new gadget begged to be played with! So, I installed a game that I love: BattleTech. It does have a few bugs, but I was amazed it ran at all! What astounded me was how good the graphics were on this entry level laptop. I’ve tried running AAA games on Apple laptops before, but they’ve never been worth effort. Even my perennial favourite game of Worms runs terribly on a machine without an additional graphics card. It was a jerky, awful experience, even with time spent changing to the lowest settings.

 

Now business trips away will be filled with gaming goodness! Real high-quality games running well at good resolutions. I did some studying and found that the built-in GPU of Apple’s M1 chip is as powerful, maybe slightly more so, than the 1070Ti NVidia GeForce graphics card. Now granted this graphics card was released a few years ago, but epic games can finally be enjoyed. That’s the first time that’s ever happened on a basic Mac!

 

Now I don’t see this necessarily changing the world, but for many people owning a good laptop that can play games has traditionally meant buying a Windows PC. There’s really been no choice for anyone who needs and can only afford a single portable machine that they want to play blockbuster games on. That’s changed now, and of course, Apple’s design is beautiful and their products are reliable. I never thought I would see the day when I could recommend a basic Mac (well, do spend the extra $250 to get the machine above the very lowest one) to anyone who wanted to a play Call of Duty sometimes! It looks like Apple have just expanded the number of players that game developers will be able to offer their work to on the Mac. It’s a subtle change, one that I can’t imagine will yield immediate results, but in the long run it makes their machine more viable for many more people. It might start nudging consumers towards Apple computers, and I wonder if it will increase Apple’s market share?

 

With the iPad compatibility and stunning speed of new MacBook Air I can imagine these machines selling exceptionally well. However, things only start changing for game developers if more Macs are sold and enough users of the new Macs start using their machines more often to play games. Many games aren’t ported over from their Windows PC originals, but I expect the balance to shift.


Nov
19
Solitaire is For Life, Not Just For Christmas

 

Sing it with me! ‘Tis the season for a themed game, fa-la-la-la’ – Too soon? Alright, I’ll stop, but for some gamers, holiday themes are what get them in a celebratory mood. From festive Christmas to bunny-bouncing Easter, there seems to be no end to the party with games transforming month after month to suit the season.

 

Glowing Eye Games knows its customers love a game to stay familiar and at its best, so we never adopt seasonal skins. We do, however, provide whole games devoted to specific holidays. For example, Halloween Solitaire is beloved by all those who fancy a horror themed card game to get their spines tingling. Christmas Solitaire Tripeaks also suits the cozier, more festive feel that we all love about Christmas.

 

We have had our share of experimentation. Our green-themed St Patrick’s Tripeaks Solitaire never did us any favors and no one seemed to be interested enough to get fully on board. What we found from that experience was that our customers are led by a need for atmosphere. A seasonal game is not just a selection of themed images, but it has a specific feel. Halloween Solitaire is so popular because it is drenched in gothic iconography, spooky sound effects, bespoke cards with beloved legendary figures and eerie animations. Similarly, the soft jingling of bells, snowy landscape and a welcoming, rosy-cheeked Santa Claus give a perfect sense of Christmas. They are also accessible. From grandparents to children, and everyone in-between, these games are for everyone.

 

Both our Halloween and Christmas solitaire games are just another element of a person’s life that they can integrate into their celebration. Bake some gingerbread, pour a festive tipple, decorate your home, stick on a festive film or play some Christmas tunes. What would top that off better than settling down to a winter wonderland you can hold in the palm of your hand?

 

Seasonal games slot into a certain time, but we’ve found they are actually played all year round. Maybe it’s the comfort of a familiar game, perhaps they appreciate the artistry, or maybe they like to, now and again, unlock the sensation of a time they feel most joyful. We don’t think there should ever be a time limit on that.


Aug
05
Review: Control

Okay, before we begin, let me give you a chance to get very angry. I have never seen X-Files (I was young, okay?) and the extent of my science fiction education came from intermittent episodes of Star Trek and Men in Black, not (and duck for flung debris) Star Wars. And I apologise. I just wasn’t there.

 

The gateway drug into the weird and warped was probably from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with a large array of monsters, demons and otherworldly creepy-crawlies to frighten and unnerve. After that, a few doses of Doctor Who and dabbling in horror sent me happily over the edge into everything from Alien to Signs. It didn’t really matter what monstrous form reared its head at the end, as long as I was unsettled and unnerved throughout.

 

This is exactly where Control comes into play.

 

There’s a lot to love about Control and mostly I can only think of good things. The design, the gameplay, the world building – it all blends into a delectable paranormal enthused slushy fit for slurping. Just watch out for the brain freeze.

 

The premise is simple: Jesse Faden arrives at The Oldest House in search of her brother. Years of hunting have led her to this exact moment in this exact deserted foyer. She calls out and, as the player, you wonder who or what might respond. That feeling never goes away. Like Theseus tying his thread to the post and entering the labyrinth, you just feel compelled to descend ever further. Only thing is, you expect answers and a lot of the time, they just mean more questions. This is the kind of deep-dive immersion I love. It’s mind-boggling, frustrating and completely addictive. With no other game have I sat and spent the time to read the documents you pick up along the way, indulging in their SCP vibes. (Don’t know it? Look it up and prepare to get lost).

 

Control isn’t explicitly a horror game, but science fiction always has a habit of falling into horror tropes such as body horror. Fear is in the unknown, the future is unknown, and it’s totally plausible that knocking on that door to the future you’re going to invite in things you never expected – or necessarily wanted. Such in Control, that is The Hiss. A disembodied presence that mutates its targets into unthinking soldiers bent on killing you.

 

Usually, the brutalist structure of The Federal Bureau of Control is a simple stark grey monochrome with a red carpet. The more you play the game, the more you’ll find ‘red’ means ‘The Hiss’. When first witnessing its impacts on the space, it’s like seeing a parallel universe crunching its jaws over the brickwork and trying to take a bite out. What results from this are a series of flinching, overlapping cubes, encroaching into the mundane office space like geometric tumours.

 

Control plays with this architectural ‘glitching’, fusing humdrum elements of normal life, like boring toilet cubicles and desks littered with paperwork, and suspending them in the glowing white Astral Plane – an empty space filled only with black cubes and the office debris. That’s not the only thing that’s suspended though. You also have Hiss infected employees, chanting in mid-air. Some of them, you’ll never be able to save.

 

Control gives you the sense of déjà vu. Maybe it’s heavy 60s design, 70s equipment of slide projectors and pneumatic tubes, or Jesse’s very modern-day leather jacket. Maybe it’s the normality of the stark office space, the professional jargon, the complaints and reports you can sift through. Maybe it’s just the gentle disconcertion that nothing is as it seems. As quickly as the monsters appear, they vanish, and you’re left in an empty room as if nothing happened.


May
19
On The Importance of Brand Consistency

Don’t judge a book by its cover – or, perhaps, you should.

 

You can tell a lot from a business from its consistency of branding. It’s more than quality pictures, games and text, it’s about style and how that carries on through the company from the game itself to the artwork.

For us at Glowing Eye Games, we love attention to detail and we love the little things. They are those subtle little morsels you might not even notice – and that’s the best part. Most of the time, you’re not meant to notice each that playing card is tailored to the theme of the game or how the load screen images have their own take on our logo. It’s just part of the overall experience and allows the game to be seamlessly immersive. You’d definitely notice if the background wasn’t quite right or if the sounds were discordant to the images.

These delightful details are handmade at the point of the game’s origin. Halloween Tripeaks has Dracula as the King, the Witch as the Queen and Frankenstein’s Monster as the Jack, whereas Magic Towers has a regal King, majestic Queen and princely Jack. Our most popular card game, Pyramid Solitaire: Ancient Egypt is entirely Egyptian themed with appropriate cards, font and background. It’s all about building the scene and creating an atmosphere our customers want to spend time in. This level of detail reflects the consistency to our brand and within our company, as each game is completed to the highest level of quality.

But it’s not just about logos and artwork, it’s about our players and respecting their own individuality. You may have noticed by now some of our games are the same game, just in different coats. Let’s take Tri-Peaks solitaire for example. Halloween, Magic Towers, Christmas and classic are all versions of Tri-Peaks with the same principles and same gameplay, however the key difference is that they target different types of people. We want everyone to enjoy the game and we don’t want anyone to feel they have to conform, bear flashy themes they don’t want or experience the game in any other way than how they would want to play it. We respect those who love the simplicity of our classic version of Tri-Peaks solitaire, just as much as our customers who love Christmas and jump on the chance to have a festive theme. It’s lovely that people still play it during the summer months! Similarly the same goes for Halloween, with ghoulish backgrounds and spooky sounds, and Magic Towers, which is the most calming of the four with an animated sky of passing clouds and twittering birds. Whichever game our customers prefer, they can guarantee they’ll be getting the same attention to detail and consistency of brand, as they would with any of our other games.

The point here is this: customers love to be immersed and they can tell immediately if something is made with care. If you’re a game developer or even a marketer, remember to pay attention to the little things, because, after all, they make up the whole. If you look after those details, they can help make your game an overall success.


Mar
18
The Perks of Being Social

 

When you think of gamers, you often think of a bored commuter, tapping away to pass the time, or someone holed up in a room with a plate of snacks and a headset. But actually, gamers come in many guises and from many different places. How to reach all these people? Well, social media is the answer, but don’t expect a one size fits all. Let’s go through the advantages of different social media sites.

 

Facebook

 

Facebook is huge! It caters for a wide range of ages, so it’s a great way to communicate with your audience, both young and old. They can comment, review and message, which allows us to maintain friendly customer service in a social space. Whenever we have news on our game, updates or something to share, Facebook is a great way to get that information out there in a quick and accessible way. It’s really lovely to see an array of emojis, comments on reviews and to get personal messages on how our players love the game. We can also take on their feedback and fix glitches if ever they arise.

 

Twitter

 

Twitter hosts a different type of follower. Unlike Facebook, where most, if not all, of our followers are actual players, Twitter is more of a gamer centre of independent game developers, sound technicians, artists and animators. Twitter has more of a business like feel, and our posts of our games, which we use on Facebook, just weren’t right for the cliental on Twitter. Instead, we show our awareness and appreciation of the wider game industry by posting linked articles from popular game websites to keep us in the current mindset. It’s also a great way to stay in the know of trends and how our fellow game devs are going.

 

Instagram

 

Games are image and video heavy, so Instagram is a perfect place to pitch. A picture tells a thousand words in this case, and when you have a professional feed of consistent artwork and details, it gives your followers great insight into your style, professionalism and popularity. The viewer can choose just to admire the picture or read on in the description. Most of the time we explain how or why we chose such an image to post. Sometimes it’s an update on something we’re proud of or an error to show we’re all human in the game dev world. Most of all, it’s giving advice on how to promote yourself as a business and a games company in the right way. Everyone loves the little details and you don’t need to write an essay to get your point across. Plus, it’s just lovely to look at.

 

Pinterest

 

An interesting social site to take advantage of, and this is mostly tailored to our cliental of men and women over 50. Pinterest is a haven for family fun, craft ideas and aesthetic pinboards. It’s also a great place to showcase videos of how our games work, as they automatically play when the viewer is scrolling through their feed. Pinterest users are interested to learn new things or gain new ideas. Tutorial videos or taster videos allow these users to realise there are many forms of solitaire they can play. A useful link and a handy space to explain the video reels in potential players.

 

Imgur and Reddit

 

These are two social media sites we have yet to figure out and see if they are worth the time. What steers us from using them, after a few test-runs and trials, is their lack of market. There are definitely people who use it who would be interested in our games, but they are harder to reach. Both are casual and eclectic. In order for find your tribe, there’s a medley of images and trends to wade through and even then, it’s not clear cut enough for our posts to gain much traction at all. It might also be due to the sheer amount of content being posted daily. However, we never say never, we’re just in-tune to their rhythm yet, so maybe we will try again in the future.

 

Use each social media’s assets to your advantage.

 

  • Facebook has great customer service potential and communication. Send messages, make reviews, like and comment. These are all helpful ways your players can get in touch with you, tell you what’s working within the game and what’s not.
  • Twitter relies on hashtags so start to understand where your market is looking. #Screenshotsunday, #fridayfeeling and #mondaymorning all posted on the right days and times allow a little more traction to hit. If there’s a new game out or some games news, check the trending hashtags to find more likeminded followers. Avoid bots!
  • Instagram also relies on hashtags, so be as niche or as general as you like, depending on who you’re trying to find. However, be aware that your images must be bright, accessible and understandable. Make sure none are too dark to see what is going on, blurry or jarring. Followers often take a look at the entire account to see if you’re worth following and that you’re not going to clutter their feed with ugly and irrelevant photographs or images.
  • Pinterest loves videos. If you have a landscape or portrait orientation video, it doesn’t matter, Pinterest will happily put it out there. Most of the time, we get over 1K views. Make sure your videos are professional, clean and as slick as your game actually runs. Sometimes people won’t watch for more than 10 seconds, so you have your chance and you better run with it.

 

Using different social media accounts just goes to show the diversity of your players and also the game industry you are a part of. It may seem overwhelming at first, but get into a good rhythm and become consistent with your posts, and over time you’ll start to see followers rack up. There’s also so many handy sites and tricks that can teach you when, what and where to post. Good luck!


Feb
07
Credit Where Credit’s Due

Orient Express Dominoes Credits

 

Okay, okay, you may scroll past the credits in games and films (fair enough, they take forever!), but we all know they’re important and we’d miss them if they weren’t there. It’s truly amazing and humbling to see how many hands go into making something so enjoyable to play or watch, so it’s only right their name is there!

 

In the games industry, credits to the creators and support staff sadly seem to be a thorny issue. Some companies, such as Rockstar Games, have what I consider to be an unfair draconian policy. For example, if a creator leaves the company before the game they have been working on is shipped, they won’t be mentioned at all. That’s pretty severe and it happens even if they’ve been working for years on it! I wonder how many developers on Red Dead Redemption 2 suffered that fate?

 

Other companies are even more lax and let their staff fall through the net without a blink of an eye. Back in the day, I worked at Glu Games on mobile games, long before the smart phones and iPhones came out. The policy was quite haphazard, so much so we often weren’t credited at all. There were always excuses, including lack of memory on those very old phones and fear of co-workers being poached by other developers. I’m understanding to a certain point, but, like the title of this piece, I always believe credit is owed where it is due, no matter how small the contribution. I gave a cursory glance over at Glu Games recently, downloaded one of their games and was disappointed to find none of the developers were credited. If there’s something good to be taken from my experience, it helped me make the decision to never act in such a way to demoralise our team.

 

Here at Glowing Eye Games, we have a different problem and that’s only come over time. Our games have stayed popular and are regularly updated to this day. This means they’ve had loads of different contributors over the years. Some of the team are no longer here and people have moved on. While some are still prominently displayed in the credits, others have been removed after a very long time has passed. There’s no solid policy at the moment on this, but I’m keen to create one that’s fair. Fair for me is noting that someone contributed in the past, and that current team members who are working on those games are prominently displayed. So, in the future, we’ll be adding a new credit title: – Previous Contributors. Right now, I don’t think we’ll list what their job was, but I want to make it known to them that their efforts were valued and remembered. Sometimes, it’s just the little things that can make someone’s day.


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