Today’s interesting nugget comes from Gamesindustry.biz in the form of an article entitled “Your Ideas Don’t Matter … Much”. It’s basically a look at how most game developers are intrigued with making a project, but have very little understanding of how a good marketing scheme works.
There’s a lot of talk about publishers and proposals and whatnot, but the advice holds across the board (so I’m looking at you too, indies). The overarching message is that any developer needs to be more business-savvy, regardless of how much they want to focus on the “great game idea” that they fall in love with. Fobbing it off to publishers, PR peeps and anybody else who offers to “market your game for you” simply isn’t going to cut it: whoever is responsible for a project of any scale also needs an awareness of how that project is eventually going to be presented to the masses.
This may just be due to my own particular interest in the subject, but I encourage you to give this Gamesindustry piece a read. Marketing is a real sore spot for a lot of developers, and this piece may be helpful, if only to get you thinking in the right way.