Opinion: Indie studios should invest as much in marketing as in development

Small studios cannot afford to save on marketing. Such conclusions were reached by the French Association of Video game Developers Syndicat National du Jeu Vidéo based on the results of a study of the local industry.

Experts of the Association estimated that on average small French studios spend only 1/10 of the development budget on marketing. However, to promote the game, you need to put an amount similar to the development budget. “The ratio of the promotion budget to the development budget may be 1:5 for AAA games, but for more budget projects this ratio should be at least 1:1,” the study reports.

This ratio is dictated by the problems of visibility of games in stores.

At the same time, the authors of the study report that small studios sometimes do not have such money. Moreover, they note that the cost of developing a game in France has increased by an average of 14% over the year, from €1.26 million to €1.44 million. This is true for all major platforms, with some exceptions, such as VTech children’s consoles.

For the study, the Association interviewed the heads of 146 French studios – about 1/3 of the total number of gaming companies in the country.

A source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz