Avoiding Target Fixation: How NinjaBee Got It Right
This is a follow-up to yesterday's post about watching companies flounder due to "too much focus" --- or turning focus into tunnel vision or "target fixation." They were so focused on maintaining a particular business or image or impression that they missed opportunities, or fell prey to unseen dangers and changes in the marketplace.

I'm not a negative guy, so I like ending on a positive note. So here's a counterpoint about someone who sidestepped those pitfalls. Again, I'm not a business guru - I just call 'em as I see 'em and try to guess at the causality.

As I have noted in the past, I'm currently working for NinjaBee as the day job. Rampant Games is my side business. We've got a good partnership going on, and have worked together in the past. There was a good reason I accepted the offer to come work for them this last spring. So you can expect some level of bias.

From Wahoo To NinjaBee
When I first met with Wahoo studios almost three years ago to talk with them about indie games, they were mainly a "guns for hire" independent studio, living from contract to contract from various publishers or other studios. Sometimes they did full games, sometimes they were subcontracted to do artwork or level design. They had years of experience doing console games, and a few PC titles. But none doing downloadable games.

They had an original title that they'd created at their own expense which they had tried unsuccessfully to find a publisher for. This was the game that became Outpost Kaloki. It was nearly complete on the PC, but it was really designed for consoles. They had shown it to several publishers, but none had taken enough interest in the game to pick it up. It was too non-violent, maybe. By the time I was introduced to them, they had given up on finding a publisher for the game, and were just seeking some way to get some of their money back out of it. So they were considering the indie route. Because I knew MARGINALLY more than they did about the indie games industry and market, they asked me for some advice. I pretty much gave them a brain dump of what I knew.

One thing they were concerned about was dilluting their reputation as a studio by releasing this game as a downloadable title. Steve Taylor argued with me about how a game doesn't seem "real" until you can see it in a box at Wal*Mart or GameStop. (He has since changed his tune completely, a point I rib him about a bit). They had a good reputation with publishers, and he was concerned that "going indie" might hurt that somehow. So they created a new company name (more of a brand name) for their downloadable game business: NinjaBee. I argued it wasn't necessary, but I did love the name. And their totally awesome mascott / logo. (Getting a free NinjaBee shirt was probably the deal-maker for me...)

Outpost Kaloki Releases
A major casual games portal picked up their title, and they celebrated. Between that, and setting up their own website (and my own), they felt that they were done. Again, thinking of the traditional model, with the casual portal acting the part of the publisher. This portal was even working out the deals to get it onto other portals, sort of an affiliate relationship between all the major portals. They did have another version of the game re-branded for retail sale with a small, local distributer, which helped them further recoup their development costs. They waited for the checks to roll in.

The first royalty check from the portal was dissapointing. Not horrible from the perspective of a first-time indie developer - but for a company used to dealing with retail sales with a minimum of tens of thousands of sales, it was pretty sad. It was bad enough that Steve Taylor wrote an article at GarageGames expressing his frustration with the downloadable games market.

Things Pick Up
But that wasn't the end of the story.

Outpost Kaloki won "Sim Game of the Year" by the Indie-gaming review site, "Game Tunnel". This story was picked up by Slashdot, and led to a significant spike in downloads - and sales. Some targeted advertising helped extend this spike to a more regular flow of traffic.

Outpost Kaloki was also picked up by another, smaller (but popular) portal. This portal's owner took the time out to give them suggestions on how to improve their demo to increase sales. The updated version of Outpost Kaloki sold much better on this second portal - partly because of the improved demo, and partly because the portal's audience was less "casual" and therefore better targeted for a 3D "tycoon" game with a comic science-fiction theme.

This alone wasn't enough to make Outpost Kaloki a success. The PC game continues to sell, but depending upon how you calculate its development costs, it may take a long time to become "profitable."

But things continued to get interesting.

For one thing, the award won by Outpost Kaloki didn't go unnoticed by publishers. Wahoo Studios began getting contacted by publishers interested in working with them on new projects. Curiously enough, many of these contacts were for "NinjaBee" rather than "Wahoo." Apparently having an award-winning indie PC game didn't do much to sully their image with publishers. As a marketing / PR effort, it paid off in spades.

But it got even better.

Enter Microsoft
The most exciting opportunity became apparent at GDC 2005, when Wahoo had a meeting with the XBox 360 LiveArcade folks. At this point, nobody - not even Microsoft - had any idea how successful LiveArcade would be, and Microsoft actually had to work to line up developers. Even so, they were being pretty selective. What NinjaBee had to offer, besides years of experience in console development, was a complete, award-winning downloadable game that was already selling in one market --- an intellectual property that they owned and controlled. They knew they could not only bring the title to the XBox 360, but update and customize the game to make it really take advantage of the platform - including free and premium content upgrades.

On top of that, they'd be a launch title for the XBox 360, and about the only strategy title on LiveArcade at launch.

Outpost Kaloki X was a big success on the XBox 360. The game had found its audience at last. NinjaBee was able to follow up with Cloning Clyde, which also sounds like it has been a major success.

Focus Shouldn't Be Target Fixation
In a conversation I had with Steve a few months ago (before Cloning Clyde was released), he admitted that he'd be perfectly happy doing small, downloadable games for the rest of his career. But the release of Outpost Kaloki has actually helped what he previously considered Wahoo's "core" business - contract work for publishers. The company recently had to move to a larger office to accomodate its growth, and has had to turn down contract offers to keep its workload and quality manageable.

But Wahoo studios remains committed to the lower-cost downloadable games market with their NinjaBee "brand." They've enjoyed far too much success with Outpost Kaloki and Cloning Clyde to turn back now. What could have been considered a mere distraction has turned into a thriving business.

Contrast this with my story from yesterday.

Which company do you think I'd rather be associated with?

Nintendo started out manufacturing Japanese playing cards,and had been doing that for decades before diverting their attention to electronic entertainment. I'm sure they had to do some hard thinking about whether or not it was a good way to broaden their focus at the time. But even though they are not quite as powerful as they were in the early 90's, I still expect they wouldn't have been nearly as successful (or even still in business) if they'd refused to budge from the Japanese playing card market.

Focus is important in anything you do. Distractions can be dangerous across the board. But there's a point in which focus can lead to target fixation - something that can be lethal when biking or in combat. It's the point in which the brain becomes so focused on a single thing that it ignores real threats (or opportunities) around it. From my experience, I feel it can be pretty dangerous in personal life or in business as well.

Labels: Biz, productivity

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 10:59 AM (Permalink)