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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Self-Publishing   >   Marketing   >   The Perils of Pandering to a Publisher

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The Perils of Pandering to a Publisher

By on February 14, 2012

I just opened up Triple Town on Facebook for the first time (I’ve been playing on iOS) since developers Spry Fox partnered with publisher Playdom. I was immediately greeted by this cross-promotion bar across the top of the page.

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The implication, to me at least, is that my favourite developers SpryFox, also made Sorority Life. And Find Wheelbarrow. Which seems unlikely, not least because it is not true.

I can’t fault Playdom for this. We all know that the secret of success on Facebook is cross-promotion, and I imagine that this is their standard cross-promotion bar.

I think it’s more damaging for SpryFox. In the digital era, there is nothing more important than building and serving a tribe. The tribe that loves Triple Town is unlikely to be the same tribe that loves Sorority Life.

I understand why Dan and David signed up to Playdom. But this cross-promotion jarred with me. I wonder how many other SpryFox fans felt the same.

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com