Interview

Selfpubd stamps out 'perpetual conflict' between indie devs and publishers, says founder Rosic

Support without 'signing over the farm'

Selfpubd stamps out 'perpetual conflict' between indie devs and publishers, says founder Rosic
Earlier this week, indie publishing platform Selfpubd unveiled a deal to provide its members with new tools for user acquisition, monetisation and cross-promotion.

That's thanks to a 'strategic partnership' with ad network Taptica and, as an added sweetener, all Selfpubd members who integrate the Taptica SDK will also see $2,500 worth of free user traffic directed to their game.

All of this is part of Selfpubd's broader efforts to enable independent developers to go it alone more easily. The organisation started out under the banner 'Who Needs Chillingo?' and is now working to arm its members with the tools they need to launch games without publisher support.

To find out more about this initiative, we caught up with Selfpubd founder Andy Rosic, who explained how the group has grown, what it can offer and what's so bad about partnering with a publisher anyway.

Pocket Gamer: What additional options and features can Selfpubd offer its members as a result of this partnership with Taptica?

Andy Rosic: Aside from the obvious – like making you taller and better looking – the relationship with Taptica is part of our larger platform strategy. Selfpubd has built, and is building, a slate of tools for indie studios.

But certain functions ought to come from domain experts, and in the case of ads, user acquisition marketing and cross-promotion Taptica is the perfect resource.

So we do our part to negotiate an amazing offer for our members, plus deeply integrate the services right into the Selfpubd dashboard. And as we complete the integration with Taptica, more 'Selfpubd specific' features will become available to members.

So whether it's an in-house or third party tool, everything a studio needs to grow and manage their business will eventually be housed in one location.

Does Selfpubd have plans to partner with any other third parties to offer additional features to its members?

Yes, in fact we're about to announce yet another partnership with an offer. And more are on the way.

Is $2,500 enough to bring developers a meaningful amount of traffic to their games?

$2,500 isn't a magical or special number. But we believe it's a meaningful one.

First of all, it demonstrates our commitment to bringing real value to every indie studio, not just a select few, and secondly, it's large enough to make it worthwhile for a studio to do the integration with Taptica's SDK.

The 'free' traffic is the icing, and the cake is the full suite of Taptica services, access to training on best practices, cross-promotion within the Selfpubd member base and more.

How is SelfPubd progressing? How many members do you have now, and how many projects?

We built an infographic to show off 'who' Selfpubd is made of. Just bear in mind that it's already a couple of weeks old, and we continue to grow dramatically each week!

We just hired two new developers to scale our services and meet the growing demand.

What's so bad about partnering with a publisher, anyway?

Theoretically, nothing. But social and digital distribution have forever changed publishing in all media forms.

Selfpubd disrupts the game publishing space, providing a service that breaks the mould and eliminates the perpetual conflict between indie developers and publishers.

Our platform is a scalable product that will grow with the indie community by delivering tools that drive indies to succeed.

If you really want to know about what its like with some of the big publishers, read the press or talk to some of our member studios who are in 'publisher rehab' with us.

What can SelfPubd offer mobile developers?

At Selfpubd we like to talk a lot about indies. But that word has so many meanings. Our simple definition is: any developer or studio that publishes a game under their own brand.

I firmly believe that indie game companies don't want to be indie to stay small, they want to stay in control of their creativity, their intellectual property and their brand. We all want to be the next Halfbrick Studio or Rovio!

Selfpubd delivers the business tools required to get indie studios the testing, analytics, monetisation, marketing and discovery they want and need... without signing over the farm!

Studios can focus on what they do best – creative and coding – and turn to Selfpubd for the rest.
Thanks to Andy for his time.

Staff Writer

PocketGamer.biz's news editor 2012-2013