“The business ball was not dropped by the next chap along, who was Nicholas Lovell, the man behind a blog on the business of games, and author of a book called “How To Publish A Game”. He wanted to urge indies to pay attention to the business side of their work, because he saw it as the greater part of their capacity to get stuff sold. Worth remembering that 80% of the cost of Modern Warfare 2, which was the best selling game of last year, was advertising, distribution and so on, said Lovell. And this was key to his point: the internet means that you no longer need to ask for permission to make a game. Anyone can do it. In Lovell’s case, he hadn’t needed to ask permission to write a book. He just did it and then self-published. That’s what the internet has allowed us to do with games. To create and to distribute without another party. But this creates a massive additional responsibility for creators, because they still need to ship, to sell, which was something that was previously the responsibility of publishers. Understanding that, and dealing with it, will be the difference between standing up on that podium and talking about your success at a future event, or ending up working on quite a different industry.”