For the Love of the Game…Part II

Crafting the Perfect “Property”. 

Brent Evans here.  Today’s instalment of For the Love of the Game starts off with a twist right off the bat.  Everyone I know of who’s read fiction, comics, watched StarWars or played games has thought about crafting the perfect story.  Be it a movie, TV show, book – whatever – we all seem inexplicably enthralled with the idea of coming up with something really cool that entertains ourselves and others.  As we here at Creative Juggernaut are about to release our first ever very-own-created fictional universe, I thought our fans would appreciate my shedding a little light on this part of ‘the Craft’ of creating new Intellectual Properties.

It all started from an unexpected direction…

I spent a lot of years on the outside of the Gaming Industry looking in.  Just a die-hard fan with a ridiculous amount of in-universe franchise knowledge and no insights whatsoever about what it was like to actually create (and publish) a game.  Since becoming an insider I’ve been asked what it’s like to work behind the scenes on a top-tier Intellectual Property. I can honestly say that – I hope you’re all okay with me drawing this parallel – people really don’t want to know how the sausage is made.  It may seem fun and fanciful from the outside, but the reality from the inside takes a very special kind of crazy.  When you get to know the minds behind the creative genius, you’ll usually discover a very colorful cast of strange, semi-functional personalities who are all weird in oddly incompatible ways.  Putting together teams of these misfits is usually an exercise in herding cats worthy of a reality series, like Deadliest Catch but with more ranting and less literal falling overboard (though emotional falling overboard abounds.)

There really is such a thing as having too much success.  Most people from the fan side of things don’t see that, but an understanding of working in gaming requires this paradigm so I’m going to share it with you.  The process behind creating most games usually takes between 2-4 years.  From pitch, concept, design, development – and then you have author/artist content generation, Layout, production agreements, printing, shipping, distribution – there are a whole lot of steps between the stages of “I have a cool idea” and the product-on-store-shelves.  There’s usually an additional 2-4 month delay in receiving any revenues after a product has been delivered to market.  So when you’ve sunk all of your funds into paying for the production of your game, you’ve waited 2-4 years for any return on your investment whatsoever, but your first printing sells out in 7 days and you need to pay for a reprint knowing you won’t receive a dime of it for another 45-60 days  – that’s when reality sinks in and folks grasp the meaning behind the concept of ‘too much success’.  That’s just the start of the snowball effect because once you’ve got a hot new game there are expansions, sourcebooks, plotbooks, supplementals, special editions, scenarios, adventure packs, errata and indexes… easily adding up to 2-3 more years’ worth of products.  Most products that qualify as “Hot Releases” are like this, and frankly it’s one of the reasons why so many promising game companies crumble.  It’s a good problem to have, don’t get me wrong, but the business side of the industry is not for the faint of heart. 

I’ve been incredibly blessed during my career to have been part of Hot Releases more times than I can count, but for the creative team this event is usually like being strapped to a tiger with its tail on fire – you’re along for the ride and there is no way to get off once it’s moving.

Which is where I was coming from when I came up with the concept for LAND&SEA.  I wasn’t just creating a game; been there done that.  I endeavored to create a franchise so cool that once it took off, I would never want to get off the proverbial fiery-tailed tiger.

It had to be relatable, something everyone could sink their teeth into regardless of whether they were into scifi or mecha or monsters or mystery.  I wanted it to feel futuristic, but not so far that we lost readers who couldn’t relate with stories much beyond the here and now.  I wanted space battles without being derivative like so many of the space-themed knock offs that abound in gaming, movies, television.  I wanted mecha that felt realistic, that would be believable to our real world brother and sisters in the military.  I wanted a property that was accessible to fans around the world, that was respectfully inclusive of the many peoples and cultures – accommodating all our strengths and faults without candy coating or glossing over them.  I wanted characters that made fans want to play them.  I had a desire to confront those characters with believable creatures that made sense to people over the age of 12.  Finally, I wanted to create an open sandbox playground so cool that I could be happy playing in it for the rest of my life.

You know… no pressure.

I am happy to report that LAND&SEA pulled it off.  The feedback from the editors and reviewers alike has been incredible.  With the official release of SPLASHDOWN on Jan 12^th, readers will get to dive in (see what I did there) to the first novel in an ongoing series that will bring this amazing world to life.  And I can’t wait for you all to experience it, knowing full well this is just… the… beginning. 

Bring it on!

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