Max Payne: The Making of a Franchise

Before I dive into a series of blogs on game design, I'll first give a quick overview of some of the thinking that went into the concept and design of Max Payne. In effect, Max Payne was purposely positioned for success right from the start. Here's how:

o A game's name is one of the most important marketing decisions to be made. It should be non-generic (avoid overused words, like "warrior," "shadow," "dark," "beyond," "legend," "combat," & "destiny") and memorable. A perfect name will convey something about the product (i.e. Doom, Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto), have good word-play possibilities for press and news headlines (i.e. "Maximum fun!" or "Duke it out!"), and have a good short-hand version that still tells people what game is being referred to (i.e. "Max" and "Duke"). The game should not be too long, or complicated -- avoid colons and dashes, as these are complications and often indicate a name that's too long (one of my favorite actual examples: Descent: Freespace -- The Great War). There are many more attributes good names should shoot for, and I'll cover them later in a blog on the art and science of game titles.

o Max Payne was conceptualized during Tomb Raider's peak run, and the design purposely avoids the special elements that made Tomb Raider unique and popular, such as swimming, the acrobatic moves, settings, horrible third-person camera, stuff like that. Yet, during this same time, other third-person action games more closely copied Tomb Raider's formula, and were therefore perceived as clones. (Space Bunnies Must Die comes to mind.) Games are labeled clones when they too closely copy previously successful games. One of the most important keys to being noticed and newsworthy is being unique, and this was a key design guideline for Max Payne. Being different is one of the most important principles of positioning. If you're not significantly unique, you're a follower, and by definition followers do not lead.

o Max Payne is a model of simplicity. This means that it's not a hard concept to communicate to press and gamers: You're a fugitive cop, everyone is out to stop you. The story is rampant revenge. The gameplay is straight-forward, too: Max shoots all enemies! Max Payne's gameplay verb is kill. It's not explore (Myst), or build (Roller Coaster Tycoon), or drive (GTA series). (Yes, games can have more than one gameplay verb, but for my point here I'm referring to the dominant verb.) Often, games that try to have more than one gameplay verb, like kill, sneak and negotiate (Deus Ex), can be too complicated for reaching the mass market. Simplicity rules.

o The game was designed with several interesting hooks to help it stand-out and generate buzz. The key hook is bullet-time, which I won't go into further. But perhaps overlooked are other important hooks: [1] The game's film noir style, [2] the game's graphic novel story presentation, and [3] the game's Hong Kong flick cinematic action. All of these hooks are dramatic and relatively unique within the game world, and that's what makes them buzz-worthy and news-worthy.

o The game was originally titled Dark Justice, as this well describes the game's theme. But, we felt it was more important to focus on the game's lead character like we had previously done with Duke Nukem. The comic book industry is smart about naming their comics the name of their lead character (or characters, as in X-Men, Fantastic Four), such as Batman, Spider-Man, Superman and so on. The idea is that when you have a character-focused franchise, it's trivial to put that character in new stories for sequels, or for exploitation in other media. But if you name you game with a setting, such as Tomb Raider, well, then you've a special setting that you must deal with each game. With Tomb Raider, every story you tell sort of needs to involve a tomb, otherwise the title doesn't fit. This is why I think it was a mistake not to name the Tomb Raider games after the lead character (Lara Croft) instead.

o Controversy. Max Payne had a little, though it didn't get as much press as we thought it might. Still, controversy that fits the context of the game is good for stirring up news. Duke Nukem, for example, had only one or two levels with strippers (and no nudity), and yet it generated endless controversy when the game was released in 1996. The bottom-line is that if you can build a little controversy into your game, do it.

o Positioning-wise, Max is the game industry's leading vigilante cop -- this is game category that he owns. The attribute Max owns is "bullet-time," like Volvo owns the word "safety" and McDonalds owns "fast." For a game to be successful, it's critical to have it be either the leader, or the alternative, in a category, such as Coke and Pepsi. It's also important to own an attribute. In fact, game designers would help themselves by thinking in terms of attributes rather than features. When you own an attribute then it's your brand that springs to mind when someone mentions the attribute. If I mention the attribute "cavity fighter," then the brand most people think of is Crest. If a say "document copier," then you think of Xerox. In the game industry, if someone talks about "bullet-time," the game automatically connected with that attribute is Max Payne. That's a very powerful positioning principle at work.

o We had a controlled, deliberate marketing plan for Max Payne, designed to ramp up the game's buzz and news-worthiness. A key way to make a game news-worthy is to give it a news-worthy attribute, and position it as a category leader. Second, do not hype the game -- let press and players do that for you. And third, keep the game exclusive by not releasing too many screen shots or too much news about the game. I've seen too many times publishers and/or developers flood websites with shots and info, and quickly news about the game becomes tiresome. With Max, we teased, but we didn't show too much. And when we did show, we knocked socks off by showing content and effects that were never seen before.

To sum up, Max Payne benefited from deliberate positioning-powered design, with several positioning principles baked into the game's design that were calculated to make the game newsworthy, compelling, unique and properly branded. In a nutshell, this is how to build a franchise, and how to build news-worthiness and buzz. Of course, execution and polish are also paramount, and Max Payne excelled in those areas, too.

Just to be clear that I do not hijack improper credit, Max Payne was developed (all content and code) by Remedy Entertainment (they did all the hard work!), and produced by 3D Realms (meaning we funded a significant portion of the game, handled the publishing agreements, helped guide the game's design, helped play-tested and polished the game, handled the shareware release, and oversaw and co-designed the game's marketing).

3D Realms is currently working with another developer, with a very similar relationship that we had with Remedy, to create another hit series (or so we hope!). In 2004 this game will be announced and it will make a good case study in the making of a franchise, allowing me to discuss our key decisions prior to the game's release, and eventually seeing if we made the right calls.

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Unrelated note: Thanks to the many kind words from people who have somehow landed on this blog (including a lot of industry friends), and to the other industry blogs that have sent them here. My plan is to update this blog once or twice per week. And speaking of "plan," I've had it pointed out to me by several people that this blog is just a fancy resurrection of the the ".plan files" that were so common ny developers in the late-90's. Can't argue.

Comments

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

Looks like you delivered on your earlier promise, Scott. Good man.

After reading your overview to the relationship between marketing and design I'm struck with some observations and questions.

1. A short and snappy name makes for a distinctive pattern that easily fits within short term memory. How does that explain the success of IP's such as "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?"

2. You're quite correct in pointing out how an originator can be preferred to a perceived follower. That's why we pay gold bricks for a Picasso and bent washers for a copy. Doesn't this position fail when a competitive product is perceived as being better?

3. The common attribute of the brands you mention that own a particular IP territory is that the brands have achieved critical mass and are being maintained in customers and competitors minds by continuous exposure (including this Blog). What happens when this stops?

4. The psychological foundation that underpins your blending of marketing and game design is a formal approach to the common wisdom "know your audience." The film and music industries are saturated with techniques to grab the audience. Given the scarcity of truly great works and the past few decades gradual dumbing down of the mass media, how can you guarentee your methods won't accelerate this trend in the games industry?

5. In a century "Dr. Strangelove" will still be a great film while "The Matrix" may arguably be forgotten. No amount of careful positioning will alter this. A work is great or not great, regardless of short term commercial success. Could you explain how your methods might encourage better quality rather than just better selling games?

Phew. That's me done.

[Jamie Fristrom]

I've never had to name any IP, but if I did, something that I think might be important for a name is for it to be unique, for a few reasons:
One: you can track your mindshare by doing a Google search. When you first come up with your name, a search on Google should come up with under 1000 hits.
Two: it's good legally. You can own it.
Three: when people talk about it, you know they're only talking about one thing, and that's your IP.
Unfortunately, it's tough to come up with a name that's both sticky *and* unique. I think most sticky names are sticky partly because of their familiarity, but if something's familiar it's probably because somebody already came up with it.
Two word combinations are good: "Final Fantasy" "Mortal Kombat" etc.

[Scott Miller]

Charles, you're gonna make me work too hard on this blog! ;-) Answering your questions...

1. Long names *can* work, especially if they're memorable like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Shorter names are still preferred, if you can create a good one.

2. Being "better" is one of the great myths of marketing. For example, we've often heard the phrase, "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door," yet it's entirely untrue. There have been many new, better mousetraps invented, yet the common wooden spring-trap design is still the one people use most. Same holds true for 1000's of other better-than-the-leader's products.

Being *first* in a category is far more important to a product's success than being better. If you create a product that's designed to be better than the leading competing product, usually you'll fail to overtake the leader.

When better products DO overtake competitors, it's usually because the leader made a killer mistake somewhere along the line, or the "better" product actually introduced a significant innovation that revolutionized the category. For example, Tivo is far more than just a better VHS recorder--it's a revolution that will soon overtake and replace the VHS entirely (go buy Tivo stock!).

3. Of course, if the brand fades away due to lack of exposure and/or availability, then another brand can, and most likely will, replace it.

4. Regardless of the quality of techniques available to the movie or game industries, execution, politics, funding, project leadership, etc. still play determinant roles in being successful within these industries. Good techniques alone cannot save the day.

5. I think The Matrix (the first move at least!) will be long remembered, as it was ground-breaking in its special effects and overall fresh concept. But more to your question: The techniques I advocate encourage developers to be original and innovative, because being otherwise is being a follower, and as I've stated, following only gets you to places other games have already been. People remember leaders, not followers. Who was the first person to step onto the moon? And who was second? ;-)

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

Jamie, you make some excellent points about the search value of having a unique and memorable name. Making it easier to identify and find the product removes disincentives for potential customers.

Scott, you've done a good job of addressing the most obvious questions that flow from your presentation. I've still got my doubts about it, and as you've demonstrated yourself there's always an exception to the rule. Rather than drill that into the ground I'll pick the two strongest points that have emerged; your method does encourage innovation and isn't a substitute for quality. Everyone's a winner! ;)

If I can pick up where you left off in "The Game Industry Needs Help", the two points I ended on indirectly strike me as being the reasons for the current weak state of British game development. Products tend to lack a pitch and a polish, to coin a phrase. The positives are obscured by the negatives, whether this be at the marketing or design level. I'll also go further and say it goes deeper than individual game studios and publishers. It's systemic to the British economy.

[Aubrey]

"Max Payne's gameplay verb is quicksave."

I fixed this for you!

[JP]

"Often, games that try to have more than one gameplay verb, like kill, sneak and negotiate (Deus Ex), can be too complicated for reaching the mass market."

Kill, sneak *OR* negotiate. Thus, the key verb is "Decide".

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

The Independent has an article focusing on the technical superiority of Asian manufacturers mobile telephones when compared to the offerings by Nokia, the current number one.

"Not only is Nokia facing intense competition from rival manufacturers, but its relationship with its customers, such as Vodafone and mmO2, is becoming increasingly tricky too. Yesterday the Finnish press was full of comments made by Peter Erskine, the chief executive of mmO2, who claimed 3G handsets starting to appear from Asian manufacturers were generally superior to Nokia's."

Curious.

While I think you're definitely onto something with your marketing let argument, I'm still not convinced being first is enough to trump quality. That said, I can't disagree with any of the substantive points you do make. Any disagreement is in the structure and emphasis rather than the detail.

Just for a bit of fun I'll throw in the three pillers I think are important; know your audience, build it right, and don't screw up your aesthetics. This can be condensed, with a little stretching of the thesaurus, into three bullet points:

1. Marketing.
2. Method.
3. Majesty.

It addresses the one area I find lacking in your presentation, the issue of materialism versus spirituality, the instantaneous versus considered, the crude versus the sublime, gratification versus... I think you get the point.

Enough of me. What do you think?

[Jeffool]

For what it's worth, I've always thought of 'games' much as I have 'art'.

Art being 'anything not done for the sole purpose of basic human survival', and games being 'choice(s) made with a set of bounding rules'. Sure, that could mean rules of time and space, etc... But that was kinda the point.

Jeffool.
I strive for vagueness.

[Mark]

Just read your blog on Max Payne: Making a franchise. I really enjoyed reading it, was simple and to the point as things should be. The one section stood out though, when you stated:

"For a game to be successful, it's critical to have it be either the leader, or the alternative, in a category".

Good statement, although I would assume as it being an alternative you mean something which follows that line or type of game but has one set unique feature that sets the game itself into a new category. That would make sense to me at least otherwise it would just be another clone.

Anyway, good luck on the new game development I can't wait to hear more about it.. and of course Duke. :)

[Scott Miller]

Mark,

Being the alternate in a category is often tricky, because it's easy to be seen as a clone, rather than an alternate, as you say. Pepsi verses Coke is a good example of a successful alternate. Coke is the original, and has heritage and leadership on its side--one of the most powerful marketing advantages a product can own. Pepsi correctly positioned itself as the alternate by claiming to be the choice for a younger generation. In effect, Pepsi is saying that Coke can have the older market for cola drinkers, while Pepsi is the choice for the younger, cooler cola drinker. Meanwhile, how has Royal Crown positioned itself? As a clone. The makers of RC cola have given us no reason to see it as anything other than a low-rent copycat cola.

In the game market, Duke Nukem 3D could have been a clone of DOOM, but we positioned Duke as a alternate, for people who like humor and an over-the-top character. There were many other fairly well made FPS games released after DOOM, before and after Duke 3D, but how many caught on? The reason practically none did is because they were generally all clones trying to duplicate the same key qualities that made DOOM so popular. Duke 3D was one of the few from that era to do a lot of significant things uniquely.

[Scott Miller]

>>> While I think you're definitely onto something with your marketing let argument, I'm still not convinced being first is enough to trump quality. <<<

Charles, IMO, "quality" is not always synonymous with "better." Car A might be higher quality than Car B, but it might not be any better at its main function, getting from here to there. And back to mousetraps, plenty of better mousetraps have been built, but their quality is generally the same as the fairly well made wooden ones that are so common.

In any case, "quality" is almost a worthless attribute to own, because practically every company claims to have quality products. Generally, people only buy into claims of quality when the price suggests that it's true. Pricing, prestige, and quality are all very closely related attributes. Lots of products advertise quality as one of their key selling points, like Rolex, Lexus and fine restaurants, but prestige, customer service, and other factors are also at play. Very, very few products truly own the word "quality" in consumer minds.

[Jay]

JP -- damn you, you stole my line. ;) I was going to say that Deus Ex's verb is "choose".

The mind-blowing thing, to me, is that Eidos actually *recognizes* this, as demonstrated by one of their primary marketing taglines for Invisible War: "Wage War As You Choose". How cool is that?

Furthermore, one could argue that Deus Ex actually *owns* the attribute of "choose your own play style." Of course, it's a far more complicated, developer-intensive attribute to own than "shoot bad guys in slow-mo". ;)

And worse, it's less marketable. Ostensibly owning "choice" doesn't do a bit of good unless the gaming public perceives that you own it. If Eidos was really genius, every last little bit of ad copy they write would be hammering home the idea that Deus Ex is synonymous with "meaningful player choice".

Then again, one could argue that GTA actually owns "choice" (albeit a slightly different kind of choice). I guess I shouldn't really shed any tears if that were true. ;)

[Jay]

Oops -- I should've said that owning "choice" doesn't do a bit of good unless the gaming public perceives that you own it, *and cares*. ;)

At the moment, for every player who wants the freedom to interact with the game world on their own terms, there are like twenty players who want to proceed through a linear sequence of battles.

I honestly don't know how to reconcile that fact with the fact that people also seem to love the open-ended "sandbox" nature of GTA.

PS: I appreciated the title of the Max Payne 2 level "A Linear Sequence of Scares." Such self-awareness! ;)

[Scott Miller]

Choice is probably a fitting verb for Deux Ex. However, I'm not sure it can own that verb -- to own a verb means someone thinks of your product/game when they think of the verb. Likewise, kill, drive, and build are verbs that are too vague to be owned by any particular game. These very general, generic verbs do not make for good positioning attributes. Something more meaningful and specific is needed. In the case of the verb *choice*, legitimately it can be claimed more than one handful of popular games, I'm sure.

Deus Ex might be better off inventing a special word that describes its play-style, like the fabricated word "deathmatch" describes person-vs-person fragging. Once they have such a word, they promote it at every chance as the ultimate thing that makes this game unique and compelling.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

Scott, you're quite correct in drawing a distinction between 'quality' and 'better.' Some common definitions might help here. May I suggest that 'quality' refers to how reliably a product achieves its objectives, and 'better' refers to how good a match its objectives is with customer requirements? 'Quality' is an internal factor and 'better' is external.

The advantage of being first, as others have stated, is that followers are often seen as copycats. They are judged to lack the intrinsic abilities to deliver or build on the known work. This is a fundamental of human nature, as any psychologist will tell you, and explains why it's such a powerful marketing tool. Dead man walking is another.

Looking over your comments I think the two most important factors relating to being first is brand awareness and persistence. For example, "The Matrix" wasn't the first to set a story within a virtual world. Before it there was "Feersum Endjinn" by Ian M. Banks. Before that Dr. Who with "The Trial of a Time Lord". Before that "The City and the Stars" by Arthur C. Clarke. Before that Plato.

Rather than drill this one into the ground, the positives of looking for a first position are clear regardless of whether they can be trumped or not. By linking originality with financial return even the dullest of decision makers might start paying attention.

[Brannon Boren]

> How does that explain the success of IP's such
> as "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?"

This isn't really a fair example, as the title played off of the "Hitchhikers Guide to XYZ" books that many people were already familiar with. Thus the title, though long, has strong recognition/recall value.

My experience with game-naming (and character-naming) meetings at Microsoft only reinforced what I already believed: smaller companies have an enormous edge in this respect. When names are generated by large committees, and then have to pass through Byzantine legal and geopolitical vetting processes, the results will typically not be good.

[FedEx]

"Positioning" by Reis and Trout was a great read but I wonder if its some of its ideas are not always applicable to games? Gamers usually buy several games, gamers often tend to like similar games in similar genres, gamers flock to gaming trends (WWII FPS, city crime simulator, Gulf War FPS), and games have a relatively short shelf life. How is it that True Crime is able to compete with GTA, or Call of Duty compete with Medal of Honor? Maybe the rule of "Don't directly compete with a leader" is often trumped for these reasons? Or is it that nothing in the gaming market is "owned" for very long?

[Brian Peace]

If originality is very important than why a sequel to Max Payne .. I know the answer will most likely be to leverage the popularity of the series to make money but are there others? Seems like it's harder and harder under this model to conitue to create innovative and original games if you make sequels. Especially just as clones are judge by what they are similar too, i would argue sequels are judged even harsher.

[esky]

Good read, but on the subject of titles..

First off, I think Tomb Raider was a really good name, because it indeed emphasizes the main aspect of the game: finding treasure. Still, 'Tomb Raider' stirrs the imagination with mysterious, and adventure-driven potential. The concept of a raiding tombs also draws on existing marketing, from History Channel specials on Egyptian tombs full of treasure, to Raiders of the Lost Ark... I think the name as such fits perfectly.

On the other hand, while Max Payne fits many of your criteria for a good title; and I agree with most of your criteria... I think it tries to be overly clever on the wordplay while at the same time trying to retain it's simplicity... I don't think being clever goes in line with being straight to the point. In fact, something clever will avoid being straightforward, unlike 'Maximum Pain == Max Payne'...

Perhaps it is better to find a hook in the game for your title that can draw on exisiting ideas in people's minds, while still being unique rather than generic. Max Payne doesn't bring any ideas to my min; perhaps something more in line with the film noir atmosphere would.. Also, rather than focus on simplicity, I find it better to focus on not being overly-complex, while mainting a certain quality level.

In fact, that ideology also works with development. You can make a game with mass-market appeal through simplicity, but with cool hooks... but you can make a game better if you forget about simplicity, and keep pushing the bar just until before it gets too complicated. It's a fine line, and often drowns in ambition.

[Terje Alexander Barth]

A Good read. Looking forward to the next update. :-)

[Bob]

good read

teh shack blows

[Scott Miller]

>>> I think Tomb Raider was a really good name...

This really opens up a can-o-worms, because Tomb Raider is an interesting and long case study by itself. Being brief...

o Had Lara Croft been a more interesting name, then the game could have been named after the character, following the comic book model I've talked about.

o I love the Indiana Jones naming model, too, in which the sequels are named "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," and "Indiana Jones and the Final Crusade." This models includes the character name AND the story's premise. I think, but not sure, that Lucas has renamed the first movie ("Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark") to follow this model.

I mention this second point because I think it can work well for the Tomb Raider series.

[Scott Miller]

>>> Seems like it's harder and harder under this model to continue to create innovative and original games if you make sequels. <<<

The idea is not to create an innovative, original *game*, but to create an original, innovative *brand*. Sequels can rely on improving tech to keep them interesting, and gameplay advances that are evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

And once stories become better in game, this will be a primary attraction for buying sequels, too. In fact, I hate to use the word sequel -- I prefer "episodes." For example, each Duke or Max sequel is a new episode in the character's life. Do we consider each new episode of CSI, X-Files, or The Simpson's a sequel? In reality they are, but we use the term "episode" because they're ongoing stories with the same characters.

Our coming unannounced game is being designed exactly in this way, with story hooks and ongoing characters leading directly into follow-up episodes.

[John Tynes]

There's a fair amount of puffery in what you're saying here, insofar as none of these attributes would have mattered had the game not been fun -- and the success of the game and its sequel do not actually indicate that the attributes you discuss have succeeded in creating a franchise. I believe they are helpful, but not critical. For that matter, I don't believe that a sequel makes a franchise.

Had Max Payne actually been a successful branding exercise, as opposed to a very good game with solid marketing support, wouldn't we see more evidence of it in the culture? GTA was a successful branding exercise, primarily because of the controversy; random people reading Time magazine can recognize the "Grand Theft Auto" brand and if they saw a comic book or a pair of pajamas or some candy with a Grand Theft Auto logo, they might even connect the two. The same is clearly not true of Max Payne (or Quake or Unreal for that matter).

A couple of specific responses to your points:

Max Payne is undoubtedly a better name than Dark Justice, which is very generic. But had the same game been called Dark Justice or even, God forbid, Dark Justice: Bullet-Time of Vengeance, I doubt it would have mattered. Halo is kind of a meaningless name, insofar as it creates no real impression on the audience, not even curiousity -- if anything, it sounds like a game about angels. But it is short, which is a fine thing. What made "Halo" Halo was the game behind the name.

What exactly is the "vigilante cop" category? It's something you've made up on the spot because you don't own the "third-person shooter" category. By engaging in this sort of podium-thumping you're overshadowing the more important element you cited: you were the first to market with bullet-time, and you did it well. That's called novelty, and it's great to have. Max Payne implemented bullet-time very well. This doesn't make it the owner of the attribute, any more than the first word processor to include a spell-checker became the owner of spell-checking. You introduced a novel new feature successfully, a feature which was swiftly copied to the point that its inclusion in future Max Payne products is merely a checkbox, not a distinguishing characteristic.

In short: Had Max Payne been released as a $19.99 budget title by a small publisher with little marketing, it indeed might have been a modest success greeted with a "hey, nice going" kind of vibe. Releasing it as a $39.99 title from an established publisher with solid marketing gave it the push and the presence it needed to break out into a hit. But it has not shown any real cultural penetration, has not distinguished itself as a franchise versus being a couple of very good and successful products, and has not displayed any indicators that your branding enthusiasms bore any meaningful fruit.

The topics you're discussing here are fine things to consider in game design and publishing. I'm not ridiculing these notions. But what I am very skeptical of is your claim to have achieved a franchise through branding, as opposed to simply being the publisher of two very well-executed products with solid marketing support.

[Tom]

Does this mean I should change the name of my new game? 'The dark legend of the shadow warrior : Destiny beyond combat'

[Erwie]

I think a bad name can ruin a good game, but a bad game will never be saved by a good name, franchise or whatever - although crap based on a movie license or something people recognize in advance, then it might sell anyhow.

I find No One Lives Forever a great example of a good game named and marketed in the wrong way. If you take a look at the names of the first game, The Operative: No One Lives Forever. It suggests that 'The Operative' is a series of games where more subtitles will appear in. But that's not true, because the sequel was named: No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in HARM's Way.

I think No One Lives Forever is the most Bond-like name you can think of, not being a Bond movie. And as with Bond Movies, the title is always the name of the hero, plus a catchy subtitle. James Bond: The World is not Enough. The subtitles though do, most of the time, have nothing to do with the content of the movie. The titles of Licence to Kill, The World is not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies and Die Another Day could have been exchanged without anyone would notice, not having seen any of the films before. The same is the case with No One Lives Forever.

So with me getting to the point, I think that game would've been saved by being named Cate Archer: No One Lives Forever and for the sequel, Cate Archer: A Spy in HARM's Way. Both meaningless subtitles regarding the game's story. Only the name Cate Archer might've been chosen a little bit better because it doesn't say much about what kind of woman she is.

And don't get me started on Contrack JACK, because that's the worst way to ruin a franchise.

[Aki Määttä]

"So with me getting to the point, I think that game would've been saved by being named Cate Archer: No One Lives Forever and for the sequel, Cate Archer: A Spy in HARM's Way. Both meaningless subtitles regarding the game's story. Only the name Cate Archer might've been chosen a little bit better because it doesn't say much about what kind of woman she is"

Erwie, this is exactly what we talked about at some point at Remedy - though the NOLF games are reasonably original and portray fine gameplay, the name just doesn't fit - it's too long and too tedious for a mainstreamer to really cling to. Also I agree that your suggestion of 'Cate Archer: this-and-that' doesn't have much stronger effect mainly, as suggested before, due to the name not being striking and original enough. Of course all this could've been different, had the first game been a huge hit unlike the, more or less, sleeper hit it was (compare to James Bond or Indiana Jones).

And what comes to the earlier comments on 'Hitchhickers Guide', I don't fully agree on it being an universally acknowledged IP/brand, but rather a niche. The way I see it, 'Hitchhickers Guide' brand is known by a mainly male, mainly scifi, mainly reading audience, which makes it a brand of a, altough large, niche, a SIG if you will. Here I must admit I've never really read any of the books, nor been that interested either - I know the brand due to friends at school talked about it and by having a general interest in scifi.

Last but not least a big hand to Scott for great thoughts on the subject - altough not perhaps a complete and flawless whole, it contains plenty of shreds of wisdom for all of us. Thank You.

[Josef Wells]

I think the reason why there are so very many bad games is that you people are worried about names and branding and all kinds of usless crap.

It is all about the gameplay. PEROID.

[Phillip Marcus]

Good reading. Be nice if several other previous .plan writers (and new ones!) show up again.

Anyone know why the .plan files sort of imploded? (ignoring the massive amounts of company sniping and general drama).

[Scott Miller]

-- "For that matter, I don't believe that a sequel makes a franchise."

Good point. There's no clear definition within the industry for this term. I generally reserve it for a property that a megahit, and will clearly continue for many more iterations or episodes. I also refer to a property as a "franchise" when it branches into other media, as this is a significant mark of success.

Regarding GTA, it's a one-of-a-kind hit in a league of its own.

-- "Halo is kind of a meaningless name, insofar as it creates no real impression on the audience, not even curiousity -- if anything, it sounds like a game about angels. But it is short, which is a fine thing. What made "Halo" Halo was the game behind the name."

Halo is unique, short and memorable (non-generic) as a game title. I think naming the game, Halo: Combat Evolved, though, was unnecessary clutter. Halo on its own is perfect. "Combat Evolved" could have been a tagline -- though it's a weak one. Otherwise, I fully agree with your point that it's the game that makes the name. We have awful, entirely generic names like Final Fantasy because they can be attached to great games. But, a great name can do a lot of marketing work for a game, so all things being equal, might as well have a great name rather than a poor one. Hard to pronounce name, like Deus Ex, also don't do your game sales any favors.

-- "What exactly is the "vigilante cop" category? It's something you've made up on the spot because you don't own the "third-person shooter"... By engaging in this sort of podium-thumping you're overshadowing the more important element you cited: you were the first to market with bullet-time."

Who owns "third-person shooter"? No one springs to mind, as it's already too broad of a category and has undergone sub-division, as maturing categories more often than not do. Who owns the FPS category, or the RPG category? Bullet-time is an attribute, not a category, and I've already said that Max owns it.

-- "...although not perhaps a complete and flawless whole..."

Thanks, Aki. There's no possible way to cover all the ins and outs of this subject without literally writing a full book. So, it shouldn't be a surprise that there are important areas left uncovered in my fairly brief summation on the making of Max. Later blog entries will fill in many of the gaps.

-- "It is all about the gameplay. PEROID."

That's obviously important, and can make or break a game on its own. But, it's not the *only* important puzzle piece IF creating a successful game is of any concern.

[Moik]

Yes. It's all about gameplay. Gameplay is quality. A game with great gameplay with get critical acclaim and sell massively. Everyone knows what quality is and sees right through these corporate shenanigans. People know what they like.

Just look back at New Coke. New Coke was hideous! A person knows what they're tasting, they're in control of their faculties. It's their opinion.

Coca Cola had 200,000 respondents in for blind taste tests before the launch of New Coke. In an unmarked cup they had what we know as Coca-Cola Classic, and in another cup they had New Coke. New Coke was preferred to Classic by a ratio of 3:1. And that's when people had no outside stimuli to affect their descisions. Release new Coke into the market place and Classic outsells it 4:1 because it's been imprinted that Classic is 'The Real Thing'. New Coke was released because scientific testing proved it to be better. It had higher quality! Classic was simply the first widely known cola product, not the best.

Oh wait... that can't be right... do people really not even know what they like to begin with? Do they see everyone around them buying something and presume it's good if so many others purchase it? A million people can't be wrong, can they? I guess so.

A small company in the middle of nowhere can package 200 some flash games onto a CD and have it sell two million copies and be a bestseller without any real gameplay to it.

In a perfect world quality would be the determinant of success. Designers are living in a dreamworld if they believe their little ambiguous features are what will sell the game, or their setting that hasn't been through a focus group and only really appeals to them.

I went to school for game design and started learning marketing theory as a hobby. I've seen the games that come from people who think gameplay is the foremost concern, and games that come from people who put commercial conerns first.

Designers who deign to create their personal visions make overwrought unweildy overcomplicated unappealing piles of garbage. A GOOD marketer* knows what questions to ask the people and how to cater to them. The marketer is more likely to make something that will appeal to others ans satisfy market demand. And which is more important?

If you aren't going to focus on ideas that are financially responsible don't whine and moan when your artsy-fartsy ideas fall through and get disregarded by people who want something worth their money.

There's being well-recieved at the Sundance Film Festival, and then there's raking it in at an IMAX. What gets played at Sundance? What gets played at an IMAX? Who goes to Sundance? Who checks out the IMAX?

If you want to make a game art-first don't delude yourself that everyone enjoys your style of art. Sure a picasso can go for millions, but there's maybe ten people willing to pay for one. You up for selling ten titles? If not, then go for broad-scope appeal and use those theories.

* GOOD marketers are very rare. A GOOD marketer doesn't pillage a franchise. A GOOD marketer doesn't say 'Hey, kids sure like climbing trees. let's make a tree-climbing game.' A GOOD marketer is looking to provide solutions to problems. A GOOD marketer takes a calculated risk, and goes into uncharted territory. That's where all the big successes are.

[Scott Miller]

New Coke is a fascinating case study, and utterly destroys the incorrect notion that the better product wins (a business myth that will likely never die). Moik, as you said, New Coke crushed Coke Classic in a massive cross-country blind taste test. New Coke was proven *better*. But, the cola wars was NOT a war of which product tastes better, it was a war of perceptions. The Coke Company learned this the hard way. Even though their extensive blind taste tests proved without question that New Coke not only tasted better than their original (as well as Pepsi), it was immediately rejected by the public who preferred "The real thing," even though it was not the better cola.

Marketing is a battle of consumer perceptions, and being better rarely has anything to do with winning a category, as other factors play a much more important role. So, if you're making a game, let's say, with the idea that it'll be "better" than an established leader, then you're most often doomed to fail from the start, even if your game truly is better.

Such is human nature.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Designers who deign to create their personal visions make overwrought unweildy overcomplicated unappealing piles of garbage. A GOOD marketer* knows what questions to ask the people and how to cater to them. The marketer is more likely to make something that will appeal to others [and] satisfy market demand. And which is more important?"

Neither is more important. They're all pillers within a unified whole that inform each other. Ultimately it's a political decision.

I can't let Scott grab all the glory with this one. Marketing is essentially applied psychology and that's as much the domain of the games designer as marketing.

Remember, he said earlier he was promoting a method of building better brands not better games. WHile not mutually exclusive they're not the same thing.

First place in the queue to hell... :P

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"New Coke is a fascinating case study, and utterly destroys the incorrect notion that the better product wins (a business myth that will likely never die). Moik, as you said, New Coke crushed Coke Classic in a massive cross-country blind taste test. New Coke was proven *better*."

Slack definitions make this discussion a pain in the ass. As per my definitions, the quality (fitness for purpose) was higher and it wasn't better (acceptability), it was worse. Another interesting thing about human psychology is our strong reaction to adverse taste. It's so strong it can override the concious mind to the point of phobia. Case not proven?

While this initially supports your argument the overtaking of Boeing by Airbus and Nokia's staggering in the mobile telephone market provide examples where the market can be reconditioned to an alternative. In the games market the flash in the pan success of Serious Sam probably made you sting a bit, though its quality wasn't high enough to forum a permanent threat.

[Trounce]

I mean no offence to Remedy or 3D Realms, and please do correct me if I'm wrong, but I wasn't aware that Max Payne sold anywhere near the number of copies than, say, GTA, a Quake series game, or even Tomb Raider and its numerous sequels did. From my perspective as merely a keen, but relatively apathetic PC or Video game buyer, Max Payne was a relative "underground" hit. Mind you, the first game was only ported to the console market a year or so after the PC version, which definitely lowered its impact amongst 12-14 year old boys, a hugely voracious consumer of the "kill" game category.

Again, I also believe that it is very important to have a so-called "double header" in each gaming category. At the moment, the double header in the FPS market is Half-Life 2 VS Doom 3. I would never ever think of registering Deus Ex 2 in there. The brand is not simple enough. Grand Theft Auto may be open and present a relatively intriguing story, but the gameplay, at its core, is utterly simple.

Call of Duty was plucked completely out of thin air. I heard about it for the first time a month before it came out and completely rocked the socks off the world, and is now sitting pretty on the Top 10 amongst more familiar brand names. It used only its image of improving substantially a tried-and-tested category, the first-person-WWII-shooter. It was deliberate that Call of Duty, and Medal of Honor before it, didn't rely on a character name to sell its product. It is occupying, mostly alone, the squad-based WWII shooter. It now owns that category. And it is doing so very successfully without marketing a character name.

Now, switching the gears to the New Coke argument. I was born after the New Coke debacle, and still, I think, appreciate Coca Cola Classic just as much as the seasoned soda veteran. My generation views Pepsi as, I'm sure, the 80's crowd viewed New Coke to Classic Coke back then. At my dorm, there is an obvious, and surprisingly resolute, Coke/Pepsi rivalry. I view it as a classy drink. Pepsi, to myself and most of my peers, is a working man's drink.

The same goes with the current crop of games: Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Max Payne 2 are the Cokes of the gaming industry, while GTA, the Sims, Rollercoaster Tycoon, these are the Pepsis.

Who sells more drink?

[John Tynes]

Scott responds:

"Good point. There's no clear definition within the industry for this term . . . Regarding GTA, it's a one-of-a-kind hit in a league of its own."

Fair enough. Let's call Tomb Raider the ideal computer-game franchise. Even prior to the movies, it hit the popular culture through its aggressive female player character and so forth. Tomb Raider seems a good test case, and the list of games with the identifiable franchise success of pre-movie Tomb Raider is short at best.

One caveat: if GTA had been released without the ability to pick up a prostitute, drive her to that specific location, trigger the blow-job sequence, and then kill her and collect money for it, I seriously doubt that it would have hit as big as it did with the mainstream culture. I think that specific "narrative" was the killer novelty factor that generated controversy. It's a great game, with lots of fun stuff, but I think it was really a hair's breadth away on the design front from not cracking the mass awareness. Without that vvery specific narrative, I think it would have been a Tomb Raider.

Scott again:

"Who owns "third-person shooter"? No one springs to mind, as it's already too broad of a category and has undergone sub-division, as maturing categories more often than not do."

Tomb Raider has (until maybe this past year) owned what could be called the third-person action category. This is, to be fair, distinct from Max Payne's shooter bias. But "vigilante cop" isn't even remotely a category.

"Who owns the FPS category, or the RPG category?"

I think it's very safe to say that Unreal owns the FPS category, by virtue of steady releases on multiple platforms. There are all kinds of FPS games, but Unreal is the definitive twitch rocket-launcher online experience, the one that hardcore twitch FPS gamers judge each other by. Quake might have held that crown, but Id's release strategy didn't let that happen for very long.

I'd argue that Bioware, as a company, owns the RPG category, and that it's Bioware RPGs, rather than a specific RPG made by Bioware, that are relevant here, the way Nikes persist beyond Air Jordans.

"Bullet-time is an attribute, not a category, and I've already said that Max owns it."

See, I disagree. Max did it first and did it great. But it's a feature that is readily copyable, and that is soon/already just another checkbox on a back-cover list of attributes. I think that as of late 2003, Max Payne 2 is not interesting to consumers because of bullet-time. It's interesting because it's a sequel to a proven product.

Mostly, what I'm arguing against here is the cult of branding. Brand theory is a set of useful tools that should not be ignored. But the notion that applying brand theory somehow makes your work more than just solid marketing is nonsense. It's the core principles of marketing that are in short supply in this industry, not the lack of branding per se. Had you constructed the same arguments with no references to branding, and only in terms of marketing, I'd have much less to quibble with. It's this incessant puffery about branding, this desire to elevate marketing to some Joseph Campbell level of procedural culture design, that strikes me as such errant and distracting nonsense.

In short, your treatise reads like consultant-speak. You're smarter than that. Think for yourself.

[Maarten Goldstein]

"no offence to Remedy or 3D Realms, and please do correct me if I'm wrong, but I wasn't aware that Max Payne sold anywhere near the number of copies than, say, GTA, a Quake series game, or even Tomb Raider and its numerous sequels did"

The first game sold around 4 million copies on PC and console systems I believe, which makes it a pretty big hit.

[Scott Miller]

-- "Marketing is essentially applied psychology and that's as much the domain of the games designer as marketing."

Well said, Charles. IMO, most of the game design industry has yet to realize this. They just wing it.

-- "While this initially supports your argument the overtaking of Boeing by Airbus and Nokia's staggering in the mobile telephone market provide examples where the market can be reconditioned to an alternative."

More often than not, when an established leader falls from the top position, it's due to their own blunders rather than the cunning of their competitors. When you're #1, arrogance and ego drive you to lose focus and expand into markets you have no business getting into. Nokia is making this mistake as we type with the Nokia, which the day it was announced I said in public places would end up being a costly mistake for them, one they'd eventually back out of after losing perhaps $100 million plus. The Xbox is such a mistake for Microsoft, which I wrote about in an early 1998 plan file. And so far it's cost them enough money to sink most other major companies. To save face, though, they introduce an Xbox 2 and see if they can make it better -- but, as we should now know, better does not win a category.

-- "...please do correct me if I'm wrong, but I wasn't aware that Max Payne sold anywhere near the number of copies than, say, GTA, a Quake series game, or even Tomb Raider and its numerous sequels did."

The original Max has sold over 4 million copies, and is one of the top selling games since its release. Games like Quake, Unreal and Tomb Raider (except for the first two in the 90's) are not even in the same ballpark. I'm guessing Max is probably one of the top 10 selling games in this decade so far.

-- "Who sells more drink?"

The real thing. No contest.

-- "if GTA had been released without the ability to pick up a prostitute, drive her to that specific location, trigger the blow-job sequence, and then kill her and collect money for it, I seriously doubt that it would have hit as big as it did with the mainstream culture. I think that specific "narrative" was the killer novelty factor that generated controversy."

If the designers purposely added this stuff into the game to add controversy and buzz-worthiness to the game, then I applaud them. Usually, though, stuff like this is added without much thought given to how it will positively effect sales, and done only because it's "cool." IMO, designers should proactively look to add controversy to their games, as long as its not gratuitous.

-- "I'd argue that Bioware, as a company, owns the RPG category..."

Ahead of Square? What about Blizzard with Diablo? Verant's Everquest? You see, categories sub-divide like amoeba over time. So now we have several RPG sectors that can be separately owned. EQ owns the online RPG category. Diablo owns the action RPG category. Square owns the Final Fantasy RPG category. ;-) Seriously, not sure what category they own -- maybe the turn-based fighting RPG category -- but you can't leave them off the list. And I'm really not sure what sub-RPG-category Bioware owns.

-- "I think it's very safe to say that Unreal owns the FPS category, by virtue of steady releases on multiple platforms."

Half-Life has been on multiple platforms, too, I think. Right now, I'd say it has a better claim on the overall FPS category, though I think DOOM and the Medal of Honor games are also right there at the top. Unreal, if anything, owns the FPS arena sub-category, with the Unreal Tournament line-extensions.

-- "Max did it first and did it great. But [bullet-time] is readily copyable."

This simply doesn't matter. The fact that Max did it first means everything, it means that anyone else that does it comes off as a copycat. People instinctively prefer pioneers and leaders who do things first. If anyone in the future makes a vigilante cop shooter, for example, it will compared to Max Payne. If anyone makes a shooter with bullet-time, it will be compared to Max Payne. And even if such a game is better, it will still have the stinky stigma of a copycat, and thus be perceived in a bad light (unless it does something else that's revolutionary to make it stand out). That's the way our minds work, it's psychology 101, and as Charles has said, not enough game designers apply psychology to their work.

[Brad Renfro]

Gamers are fickle and games evolve quickly, both in technology and design. Is it possible that first isn't as important to gaming brands? Quake did 3D first, Duke did controversial scantily-clad women first, Alone in the Dark (possibly Resident Evil) did survival horror first in the minds of gamers. And to those you can say Doom 3/Half-Life 2, GTA, and Silent Hill. Once the ball is dropped once with a mediocre game, don't the brands die out fairly quickly? James Bond, Ultima, Mechwarrior, Tomb Raider, even the great Mario to an extent. Which might be why Duke, HL2, Doom3 are all taking their sweet time ;)

[Brad Renfro]

After thumbing through "Positioning", the examples that Reis and Trout give seem to be fairly static products/services. Kleenex tissues, Zippo lighters, Hertz rent-a-cars, and to an extent, even Coca-Cola and Xerox. Those were first and kept their position because their products haven't changed much over their lifetime. Games, on the other hand, constantly change and improve. Gaming brands are much more obligated to keep up with their competitors. In gaming, could it be that a first-to-market brand name won't always sell because there are too many chances along the road for a competitor to come up with a better product?

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

Speaking for myself, I think the best thing Scott can do is drop the first-place-winner-takes-all pitch and instead flesh out the advantages and disadvantages. That's something I could live with. In any case, marketing is a good servant and a poor master. It should never override value systems. Pooch screwing isn't my sort of thing.

"This simply doesn't matter. The fact that Max did it first means everything, it means that anyone else that does it comes off as a copycat"

Except Max didn't do it first. Cyclone's Requiem did it before Max. Unless by 'first' you mean "Max was the first post-Matrix game that had bullet time." Which implies that the attribute needs to already be in the public's eye for it to be marketable.

At the time, bullet time wasn't something Cyclone could have sold to anyone but John Woo fans, even though the implementation was similar enough to Max's.

Max is the 'interactive' alternative to the bullet time 'passive' leader-- the Matrix.

[Jamie Fristrom]

"First in the mind," Reis & Trout would say. It doesn't matter if a game we never heard of that had no advertising budget did it first, the first game we noticed do it was Max.

And, yeah, to reiterate what Scott said, Max was freakin' huge. If you look at NPD Trst data it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Leader-or-alternative is not so cut and dry, though. From looking at NPD data we see that in the RTS category, the War/StarCrafts and the Age of XXX games are neck and neck (Coke & Pepsi), Command & Conquer is the Royal Crown Cola of RTS, and Empire Earth is in a still-very-profitable fourth place. It's not surprising that publishers rushed to get their GTA clones out the door, when the fourth place in a huge category can rock so hard.

Still, although you can be profitable, you can't "compete": competition implies doing numbers similar to the original, and that doesn't happen. *True Crime* isn't going to touch *GTA*. *Call of Duty* isn't doing as well as *Medal of Honor*, which is a shame, since *Call of Duty* is *Medal of Honor's* illegitimate heir.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

"Well said, Charles. IMO, most of the game design industry has yet to realize this. They just wing it."

Missed this in my earlier "positioning" frenzy.

Yes. It's also something the book publishing industry has known for years. Good authors are good psychologists. They know what makes their audience tick and can unconciously feel where and how to push the buttons. While I snored my way through most of Max Payne it had one brief moment where it did come alive. Professionalism and maturity should increase the probability of this happening more often.

Drawing on your earlier comments it looks like our respective opinions on game design are about as identical as makes no difference, though I can't get my head around your positioning argument. One area that's arguable is your choice of the word "episode." I've been struggling with this one for months and have been bouncing between "book" and "volume."

[Greg]

There is an awful lot of debate going on here regarding marketing games to the public. Persistance on the market is determined by the heart of the game, which can be broken down into three main points: 1) How complete it's universe is. 2) how free is the player to explore that universe 3) How relevant is that universe to the player's understanding of the world.
Max Payne had cool down from the outset by presenting and maintaining a complete, relatable, universe which allowed the player an unprecedented amount of control. What made it cool, prior to playing, was what could be conveyed through screenshots. Looking at those shots shows Max flying through the air, guns blazing, clearly described as something that could be controlled by the player. In-game action. Secondly, visual poignancy goes a long way to conveying the attention to detail in the game. In the original, every bullethole shown in pictures was different depending on the surface it hit. This realism was, to my knowledge, unprecedented, and added much to the cool factor. Film noir meant nothing until the player was well into the game experience and saw the relevance. Additionally, the discussion of bullet time (which thankfully met and surpassed expectation in-game) created intrigue within the gaming public. Everyone had seen Matrix, and could only imagine how such a technology would manifest itself in a game. That curiosity, stemming from the hype generated from the movie itself, fueled the necessity of the public to try it out in a game.
Furthermore, the aforementioned heart of Max Payne presented itself through things like the pink flamingo stint and the dream/nightmare sequences. These reinforced the surreality that the game set out to achieve. Additionally, the grittiness of the graphics, the Hawaiian shirts (worn by Max) and the hyper attention of details such as burning cigarettes and rips in well-chosen textures such as wallpaper all reinforced the reality itself. The universe was meticulously built and invited the player to lose themselves in the ambience.
Next there was the weapons which, through bullet time, required a completely new method of pointing and shooting that was based completely on the players positioning of the player in a 3-D space (rather than the traditional xy only axis). Rune had brushed on this, as well as FAKK2, though neither of these titles allowed the player to break over the shoulder view, which so many first person games can't seem to break out of. Freedom is the key, here. Real freedom that breaks from the constraints already in place by fearful developers who stick to age old formulas which deny the player the opportunity to feel like they are taking control of the game universe. Why do you think developers tools are so pivotal for the gamers to get a hold of?
It is these kinds of details that make a game a hit. Marketing serves only to expand the intial reception of the game, but a heavily marketed game is likely to have already been tested by fan-respected hackers and pirates who’ve already given the thumbs up or down on the game even before it's release.
I’m surprised Deus Ex has been brought into this equation at all (other than it serves as a high quality title that respects the gamer). It is in a category all its own.
I agree that Max Payne was a cheesy name, but not so cheesy that it kyboshed the reception of the game. It’s neutral sound didn’t add to the anticipation, rather left it in the category of possible neutrality. This could be why there wasn’t as much discussion of the game as would have been liked, because it doesn’t leave any room to develop clever headlines. It makes is risky to discuss, as the name doesn’t sound thought out. This is a shame. Comparitively, a name like Tomb Raider carries a nostalgic dream of tomb raiding (a la Raiders) immersion not previously explored at that time. Having a double D attitude babe as a hero didn’t hurt either…
As for Max 2, there are already concerns I have, the first of which being the change of actors. Hollywood has already stigmatized the success of sequels by not having name brand actors signing on a second time for a perceived failure. Did the original Max want more money? Secondly, building on Max one means making not only a better game, but a marketing strategy that resolves the weak elements of the original. One man against all odds. Now there’s a woman and the romance is the highlight? Uh oh. Better make it clear as of now that said romance is a deadly ballet of bullets where the original was a solo white boy on the dance floor.
- staticfritz

[Scott Miller]

-- "Once the ball is dropped once with a mediocre game, don't the brands die out fairly quickly?"

Yes, Brad, I agree. But this is similar to a lot of industries, like the car industry, where each year's model must keep up with the Jones', otherwise lose brand support to hard attacking competitors. I think everyone agrees that Tomb Raider dropped the ball, and the clout of its brand stock has crashed like the '29 market. I've said this elsewhere on this site: A leading brand typical retains leadership unless it shoots its own foot. Tomb Raider hurt itself by rushed and poor execution of the sequels.

-- "Games, on the other hand, constantly change and improve."

Yep. But once a leader, that position is usually there for the keeping with decent management of the brand. Who's gonna take away the Diablo's ownership of the action RPG category? No one, unless someone else does something really revolutionary. And even when they try, such as Dungeon Siege (a cringe-inducing generic name, btw!) with it's full 3D engine, it still didn't take the top-dog crown. With Max Payne, no game will take away it's category ownership nor it's attribute ownership, unless future versions of the game are critically panned and sales plummet. Only then will the door be open for a new game to steal the crown. People love underdogs, but the place their bets on the favorites. That's why leaders stay in the lead.

-- "Except Max didn't do it first. Cyclone's Requiem did it before Max."

Jamie already answered this (and I recommend people check out his game development blog, too -- click on his name above), but I'll echo what he said because it's absolutely critical, and a common area that trips up people: It's not important in the least who is really first...what matters is who is first in consumers' minds. Marketing is not a game of reality, it's a game of perception.

[Gestalt]

Although some of Scott's points make sense, I don't believe Max Payne was a success because it had a dopey sounding two word title or because it "owned" some arbitrary category that Scott just made up specially for it. ;)

While these branding and marketing "laws" may apply to things like food, drink and washing powder which are a) intrinsically boring, b) necessary and c) don't change much, I don't think they're so important for more artistic products such as books, movies and games.

As I see it, the key points that separate games from Colas are -

1) Colas flop when they try to do something new (New Cola, Tab Clear etc etc etc), whereas games flop when they STOP trying to do something new. A gaming franchise has to continually reinvent and refine itself, whereas most consumers learn to dread the words "new improved recipe" appearing on their favourite Cola / breakfast cereal / whatever.

2) The gaming industry moves at a much faster pace than the Cola industry. Coke has been on top of the Cola industry for decades, whereas gaming franchises are lucky to remain on top of their genre for more than five or ten years.

3) Leading on from those first two points, whereas a Cola can stay essentially the same for decades at a time with only minor tweaks, gaming franchises need constant new releases to keep them fresh and in the (gaming) public eye. But sequels to games and movies almost inevitably follow the law of diminishing returns after a certain point (usually a trilogy is about the limit).

Pretty much the only gaming franchise that doesn't have this problem is Final Fantasy, which works by not being a real series at all. You know what you're getting from a Final Fantasy game (random turn-based combat, flashy spell effects, lots of CG movies, linear gameplay, a young male hero with spikey hair and a ridiculously big sword), but apart from the overall style and general gameplay there's very little connection between them - they don't share a single on-going story, setting or characters. They're not sequels in the traditional sense.

So generally speaking, although your brand may be great today, the chances of it still being on top in ten or twenty years, however well you plan it, are practically zero. Sooner or later people will get tired of playing Max Payne for the nth time and move on to something else. Whereas you can quite happily drink Coca Cola your whole life without ever feeling the need to replace or redesign it.

Yes, having an easy to remember name and an eye catching unique feature helps. You don't need a degree in marketing to know that - it should be blindingly obvious! But (IMO) a lot of the other so-called "laws" of branding and marketing are far less applicable to the gaming industry and other creative-based industries than they are to the likes of Colas.

[Charles E. Hardwidge]

Some good observations G. If I can build on the points you and Brad made, Coke is a static product category that benefits from continuous advertising. No advertising? No product. Let's look at Picasso again. He was a founder member of an art movement. Movement is the key word here. As long as the quality and quantity of alternative is low games like Max Payne will "own" the category, which leads to Scotts comment: "Marketing is not a game of reality, it's a game of perception." The apparant success of Scotts formula, as a top down marketing exercise, is looking a little illusuary. Too many factors support and undermine "first place" to make it certain by any standard. I'm not saying he doesn't make some very good points. He does. I'm saying his theory, as it stands, doesn't bear scrutiny at the theoretical or practical level.

[monty]

If the main reason to make games is to make money, then all this discussion on marketting and buyer psychology means as much as Scott obviously believes. But if all we want to do is make money, I'm wondering why we don't go straight for the jugular and hit the pits in all our local stock exchanges. Making games is not the fastest, safest, or surest ways to make money. If that's all we're interested in there are better, more direct ways to do it.

We make games because of the joy we get out of them - or that is why we *started* making them. That has nothing to do with market position, or branding. When you start thinking that way primarily (or *shudder* actually design games around that paradigm) you sign the death warrant on the reason you had for making them in the first place. The game store shelves are packed with homogenized plagerisms, and very few light the imagination like the first games I played did. The games industry is now like the movie and music industries - financially buff but creatively poverty stricken. That's a tragedy. Max Payne may have sold 4 million copies, but it hasn't lit the corners of anyone's imagination with originality - how could it when it was designed not to.

On the CD version of The Fellowship of The Ring there is an interview with the original publisher of Tolkien's books. He is retired now, but he describes how as a young boy his short one page review of The Hobbit to his father resulted in the book being accepted and published. Many years later and after he had taken over his father's business, Tolkien brought him The Lord of the Rings. It was written as one single volume and they only barely managed to convince Tolkien to allow it to be broken up into three for the sake of marketing. The man crunched the numbers and ascertained if they published LoTR they would lose 1000 pounds. He spoke with his father, who gave him this advice: if you believe this to be a work of genius, publish and damn the money. So he did, fully believing it would fail commercially.

LoTR is now the publisher's single most profitable brand by a long shot. But the only reason it was published in the first place is because the publisher put substance over money. And forget about how "successful" it was, it *is* a work of genius and has delighted, moved, and enriched the lives of millions and continues to do so. That is why it was worth marketing in the first place.

If LoTR's publishers had thought in the framework you are advocating, the volumes would be gathering dust in a small family estate somewhere. They would certainly never have been made public. Tolkien would never have picked up pen to write if he thought like you did, and this is the horrible conclusion of the model you are pushing: if it isn't commercially viable, it isn't viable.

What a drab, featureless, and worthless industry this will be if that is how things go.

[Scott Miller]

When I started this blog, I told myself that I was not going to defend my every statement, claim or finding. And, to be clear, I don't think I'm always right, which is why I constantly seek out the possibility of new truths. But occasionally I'll single out a very misinformed statement for correction.

-- "Max Payne may have sold 4 million copies, but it hasn't lit the corners of anyone's imagination with originality - how could it when it was designed not to."

Monty, "positioning" is all about being original, different, unique, and a leader. Max Payne did several things first, which I've noted. Games that fail to be original, unique, and so on, are clones, and usually sales failures. People do not buzz about been-there-done-that products, games or otherwise. Leadership in a compelling category is one of the most important keys to a successful product. Leaders most often get that way via innovation and originality.

As a side note, it's rather sad that in our current industry these two words scare the wits out of publishers.