Creative Business Models @ Picnic #2

Maarten Brands:, W! Games

• We think of the end user, but also of what the retailer wants
• We get girls to see hat they want form a horseback riding game. To see how they like our game, but also what they like in other producers’ games.
• To build a game you need a team of ten people and money to fund them. W! games started out with a guy with an insight for marketing;. That was a huge advantage. Games are an passion driven industry, so revenue margins are usually small.
• We started with our game everyone was sceptical about the WII. Within 6 months the market changed completely: the WII was completely sold out at Christmas ’06. Everyone was scrambeling to gget a piece of the pie. That is why we talk with a lot of people, they have market insights.
• We do outsourcing, but the more you can keep in house the better.

Patty Geneste – Absolutely Independent

• We sell formats for people and organisations. Either produced titles or ideas on paper.
• All Stars is an exception, it is the first comedy/dram to be sold abroad. All Stars won a few very noteworthy prices. Drama/comedy is hard to sell as a format, because of the local connectedness (eg humour)
• We sell knowledge on how to produce a format, the research that was needed. We sell the idea for the series, but also a production bible and the scripts.
• How do you protect formats? There is Filereg.com, you can post your format there. Another way is to describe your format very well and work ith people who know the industry (who know who to work with and especially who not to work with).
• It is hard to find people to work for Absolutely Independent: they have to be creative themselves, but also able to mange. They work on developing formats with clients, but also have to know how to do business.

Jetse Sprey – IP lawyer

• We try to position ourselves in the middle of the creative industry. We work with publishers, television, basically all Dutch films
• We create value because we know the market.
• The only way to protect your ideas is to think faster than your concurrent can steal your ideas.

Last question: who is making the most money in the creative industries? Well lawyers make more money than lots of creatives, but then again: they don’t make as much money as Joop van den Ende.

Auteur: Webmaster