6 ms·

How can you reliably turn out hits? If you could, the one-hit wonder wouldn't exist. We'd only have hit machines.

by dubfan 13y ago

anigbrowl 13y ago
The very existence of the term 'hit machine' implies that some people are able to do so reliably. This is certainly true in music.
- gadders 13y ago
  You think? VC funds, record labels, games studios are all hits-run businesses. Of course some of them make profits, but none can guarantee hits.
  - dagw 13y ago
    Stock Aitken Waterman turned out over 100 top 40 hits in less than a decade. Now I'm sure they no doubt had their fair share of misses in that period, but with a track record like that I still think it's fair to call them a "hits-machine".
    - gadders 13y ago
      I think we need to define "reliably". Does it mean "enough to make a profit" (which would depend on the ratio of profits/losses on hits vs misses) or "guaranteed" i.e. every item is a success. And anyway Stock Aitken and Waterman were actually a Hits Factory :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hit_Factory:_Pete_Waterman%27s_Greatest_Hits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hit_Factory:_Pete_Waterman%...
  - SimHacker 13y ago
    The pop singer faced numerous disagreements with the song's co-producer. Quincy Jones did not want "Billie Jean" to appear on Thriller; he felt that the song was too weak to be part of the collection. The producer disliked the demo and did not care for the song's bassline. Jones wanted to cut Jackson's 29 second introduction, which was the longest one ever created at the time. The entertainer, however, insisted that it be kept. "I said, 'Michael we've got to cut that intro'", Jones later recalled. "He said, 'But that's the jelly!' [...] 'That's what makes me want to dance'. And when Michael Jackson tells you, 'That's what makes me want to dance', well, the rest of us just have to shut up."
jlgreco 13y ago
I don't think there is a procedure that you can follow, but I think that if you assemble the right team and strike gold once, you can keep the gravy train rolling. I'm using music as my model here. Some bands never make it (those guys who played your highschool house party in exchange for beer), some bands get lucky once but just didn't have the right team to keep it rolling (one hit wonders), and other bands get lucky once and do have the team to keep that sort of momentum going (I'd say The Beatles fits in here. Nobody really cares about their first hits, but they were a band for a while before 'getting discovered'.) (In extraordinarily rare cases you have bands that arguably didn't strike gold through luck alone, but they are probably rare enough to right off.) So OMGPOP got lucky and hit gold once. Maybe they had the right team to keep that rolling, maybe they didn't. Acquihiring surely puts a breaks on the possibility of having the right team to keep it rolling though. I don't think "being acquired" (getting signed) kills a band quite like it kills a dev team though. ...maybe the trick is to acquihire dev-teams like labels sign bands.
- benzoate 13y ago
  I was working with the OMGPop office whilst they were releasing Draw Something.. Half the people who actually worked on Draw Something announced they were leaving shortly before the Zynga takeover was announced, so I suspect they were missing some key people
InclinedPlane 13y ago
With talent. Although there's never a guarantee. For a studio like OMGPOP though it's important to note the downsides of cashing out big on the strength of one huge hit. It was great for the founders because they got their payday, but from a business perspective everyone else got ripped off. Had they not been acquired OMGPOP would not have been beholden to try to win back their purchase price in game sales, they would have only had to maintain healthy profitability. Which I think was well within their means considering the low cost of development of their games.
James_Duval 13y ago
nerdook was able to churn out very popular, very similar Flash games for ages. He did this primarily by a form of marketing, possibly unintentional, in which he was constantly accessible to and friendly with his fans. E: Removed a dumb statement.

How can you reliably turn out hits? If you could, the one-hit wonder wouldn't exist. We'd only have hit machines.

by dubfan 13y ago

How can you reliably turn out hits? If you could, the one-hit wonder wouldn't exist. We'd only have hit machines.

The very existence of the term 'hit machine' implies that some people are able to do so reliably. This is certainly true in music.

gadders 13y ago
You think? VC funds, record labels, games studios are all hits-run businesses. Of course some of them make profits, but none can guarantee hits.
- dagw 13y ago
  Stock Aitken Waterman turned out over 100 top 40 hits in less than a decade. Now I'm sure they no doubt had their fair share of misses in that period, but with a track record like that I still think it's fair to call them a "hits-machine".
  - gadders 13y ago
    I think we need to define "reliably". Does it mean "enough to make a profit" (which would depend on the ratio of profits/losses on hits vs misses) or "guaranteed" i.e. every item is a success. And anyway Stock Aitken and Waterman were actually a Hits Factory :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hit_Factory:_Pete_Waterman%27s_Greatest_Hits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hit_Factory:_Pete_Waterman%...
- SimHacker 13y ago
  The pop singer faced numerous disagreements with the song's co-producer. Quincy Jones did not want "Billie Jean" to appear on Thriller; he felt that the song was too weak to be part of the collection. The producer disliked the demo and did not care for the song's bassline. Jones wanted to cut Jackson's 29 second introduction, which was the longest one ever created at the time. The entertainer, however, insisted that it be kept. "I said, 'Michael we've got to cut that intro'", Jones later recalled. "He said, 'But that's the jelly!' [...] 'That's what makes me want to dance'. And when Michael Jackson tells you, 'That's what makes me want to dance', well, the rest of us just have to shut up."

jlgreco 13y ago

I don't think there is a procedure that you can follow, but I think that if you assemble the right team and strike gold once, you can keep the gravy train rolling. I'm using music as my model here. Some bands never make it (those guys who played your highschool house party in exchange for beer), some bands get lucky once but just didn't have the right team to keep it rolling (one hit wonders), and other bands get lucky once and do have the team to keep that sort of momentum going (I'd say The Beatles fits in here. Nobody really cares about their first hits, but they were a band for a while before 'getting discovered'.) (In extraordinarily rare cases you have bands that arguably didn't strike gold through luck alone, but they are probably rare enough to right off.) So OMGPOP got lucky and hit gold once. Maybe they had the right team to keep that rolling, maybe they didn't. Acquihiring surely puts a breaks on the possibility of having the right team to keep it rolling though. I don't think "being acquired" (getting signed) kills a band quite like it kills a dev team though. ...maybe the trick is to acquihire dev-teams like labels sign bands.

benzoate 13y ago
I was working with the OMGPop office whilst they were releasing Draw Something.. Half the people who actually worked on Draw Something announced they were leaving shortly before the Zynga takeover was announced, so I suspect they were missing some key people

InclinedPlane 13y ago

With talent. Although there's never a guarantee. For a studio like OMGPOP though it's important to note the downsides of cashing out big on the strength of one huge hit. It was great for the founders because they got their payday, but from a business perspective everyone else got ripped off. Had they not been acquired OMGPOP would not have been beholden to try to win back their purchase price in game sales, they would have only had to maintain healthy profitability. Which I think was well within their means considering the low cost of development of their games.

James_Duval 13y ago

nerdook was able to churn out very popular, very similar Flash games for ages. He did this primarily by a form of marketing, possibly unintentional, in which he was constantly accessible to and friendly with his fans. E: Removed a dumb statement.