Chris Wright, the former Marketing Director for THQ's Australian studios, has submitted a piece for Screen Play's 'Your Turn' segment which describes the moment he decided to go independent and establish Surprise Attack, a consulting agency focused on providing a full suite of marketing services to independent game developers.
The day after he received the news that his work place of the last seven years was to be shuttered, and whilst suffering a hangover from the resulting staff drinks afterwards, Chris decided to say “F**k it, let's do it” and go ahead with his plan with Surprise Attack. Chris has provided some thoughts on why he made the decision to go this way instead of picking up a different position at THQ or work at another publisher, and gives his vision for Surprise Attack in the indie games development space. From Screen Play...
(Chris Wright) Traditional publishing tends to take a significant chunk of the revenue and control away from the developer. That bargain makes perfect sense in the console market.... In the digital world, particularly in mobile, that model doesn't really work so well.
My vision is an industry where studios bring in the publishing services they need – marketing, external production and quality assurance guidance, customer service, legal, finance and so on – but keep control over their IP and the direction of their games. The services bring the necessary scale – with multiple clients they have more clout, experience and presence – but the developer has the power to retain their creative freedom and the agility to adapt as the market changes. Surprise Attack is a step towards that vision in the marketing space.
Read more of Chris's 'Your Turn' submission at Screen Play at the following link...