Secrets of the Game Business, Second Edition unveils the inner workings of the flashy, but very serious game development and publishing industry. If you are thinking about creating a game development company, want your existing company to prosper for a long time, or just want to understand how and why the business evolved to its current dynamics, you have come to the right place. This new edition is a compilation of the wisdom of dozens of industry insiders, publishing executives, veteran producers, independent studio owners, and writers. The book includes several new articles, and has been reorganized and updated to thoroughly cover the current state of the industry. With the insights provided throughout the book, you’ll have a solid understanding of the business and find valuable ideas to get you started in the business or improve your own company.

KEY FEATURES • Covers new topics, including middleware, licenses vs. original designs, serious games, psychological profiling of consumer types, and corporate management techniques • Provides an insightful look at the current state of the industry and future challenges facing developers • Examines the publisher/developer relationship and explains how games get from developers to players • Describes how to plan and create a new game company • Includes tips to help get games on the shelves • Teaches contract negotiation skills • Contains advice for improving the production process

used for research

I bought this book as research for a class, but it was not as informative as the description led me to believe.

It’s a good book if You know nthing about marketing and management side of gamebusiness

I would say that if You are planning to take part in Gamebusiness this is the first book best to read: it gives You the sense of how homplicated on a marketing side, on a game success side business is. I’d say that After Ive read it I got a little bit scared of spending my time in game business. There’s also a chapter that is called smt like: Don’t try to Compete with half-life 2 - haha that killed me! But I have studied management in UMISt in Manchester and the book lost all my interest after Ive read exactly half of it: All i did then is list the topics and only read what is particularlyt interesting to me. This book is talking broadly and veen though it gives examples of some downs and ups it gives little info on how to solve in particular some of the problems! It just says: do this do this do this but it really does not specify very concrete things like e.g. what step # 1 involves (it would ahve been nice to aleast add tables that include the very specifics of development). e.g. it says step #3 is process (but it does not specify that engine is made here and so on) basically its more managerial and is very low suited book for individuals who wnat to make games in small groups or alone. But for non freelancers it does give good overview of teh business!

Helpful overview of the industry

This book was helpful for the development of perfectcompetition.net. It provides a great overview of the industry and some tips and tricks for those new to the industry.

How to Start Your Own Gaming Software Company

Note the title carefully, this book is about the Game BUSINESS. It is not a programming manual, it is not on how to design games, it is about the business aspects of the gaming industry. It is written by professionals in that business.

This book is a collection of some twenty-six essays written by professionals in all aspects of the game business. They are broken down into five sections:

The Game Business Then and Now
Publishers and Developers
Startups
Bringing Games to Market
Managing Game Production.

The essays vary in quality and content. Some are much better written than others, some don’t seem to have much in either quality or content. All in all, a professional in the gaming industry probably knows all this, but that’s not who the book is for. If, on the other hand, you are thinking of starting a gaming software company, there’s a lot here.

This is the second edition of the book, updated and expanded.

Great for the startup developer!

There is a review already on here claiming that the book is poor because he was an industry veteran and the book didn’t teach him anything new. I find that rather like picking up a 2nd grade "learn to read" book and claiming that it is not valuable because you already know how to read. Obviously this book is not targeted to industry veterans.

However, the book IS targeted at people who are new to the game development industry and want to know it works from a business, legal and production standpoint. In that role, it performs admirably. The writers are all established voices in the industry and share their insight well. As the president of a small development studio, I have 7 or 8 little flags poking out of the top of my copy for topics that I want to reread or reference once in a while.

I believe that the book will be of help to anyone thinking of starting a new studio right up through their first year of business. As long as you believe that your time is worth money, the price of this book it is worth spending so as to save yourself the time and headache of trying to figure it out on your own.

Save your money

I wouldn’t say there are any secrets in this book. I’m an experienced product and marketing manager in the high tech industry. There was some interesting information that pertained to licensing terms and some breakouts of budgets, that was it.

Definitely not worth $32. Maybe half the price.

Excellent Collection

Reviewing a collection of essays isn’t easy, because they are by definition a hodgepodge of widely-varying subjects, similar to a restaurant reviewer who’s charged with reviewing a buffet. A buffet that is mostly excellent could get an overall mediocre rating if there’s a really frightening tub of vegetable mush that wrecks the whole experience, and a review of a mostly mediocre buffet could scare people away from a truly excellent entrée hiding in there. The only buffets that are easy to review are the ones that are 100% good or 100% bad, and those are a rare thing.

Thankfully, the editor Francois Dominic Laramee has made my job easy by editing together a uniformly excellent collection of essays on the game business. The essays are all well-written, and Mr. Laramee has done a terrific job of editing them together into a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts (along with contributing four essays himself). The authors represent a good cross-section of independent developers and game company executives, all of whom appear to be quite willing to impart their own business wisdom to the reader.

One thing I liked right away was that the material is all presented in concrete terms and not some nebulous motivational-speaker gibberish. The authors, on the whole, are more than happy to provide real numbers and case-studies to back up their claims. The subjects covered are wide-ranging, going from do’s and don’ts of dealing with publishers, putting together a business model and business plan, managing a project that won’t get cancelled, and specific "wrap up" topics like managing customer-support in MMORPG games.

Another pleasant surprise (likely due to Laramee’s Quebecer heritage) is that the essays are not USA-centric, as you see in most books about business. While there are certainly plenty of case-studies of US companies, there are also some essays about the game industry in Europe and how to deal with offshore contractors.

_Secrets of the Game Business_ should be required reading for anyone with plans to become an independent game developer. While it’s far from a complete guide on how to get into the business, lacking things like the legal minutiae of obtaining copyrights and trademarks and making work-for-hire agreements, this book is a terrific overview of how to build a product, work with a publisher/producer, and get your product on the shelf. Happy reading!

Excellent for understanding the publisher better!

I’ve acquired a few books about game development and the game business, yet this is the first one that truly gave me the information I had wondered about for some time now. Many questions regarding royalty rates, the process of going from a game in its gold copy all the way to the retailer’s shelves, and more are explained here.

This book helps to clear up any misconceptions that developers often have about the publisher, as well as keep future and startup development teams primed and with a good guideline of what to expect.

Definitely worth having in your collection, especially if you’re a new developer like myself, or are intending to get involved with the game industry.