In the business of making video and PC games in 2001, a developer not only has to come up with a cool game idea but also has to sell their idea to a publisher. These days, with multi-million dollar budgets becoming the norm rather than the exception, developers have to deal with the business side of creating a game. Enter R.E.D (Representing Entertainers & Developers) a video and PC game agency who has garnered a growing clientele of developers such as 4D Rulers (Gore) Silverback Entertainment (Harbinger) and many others. Just this week the agency announced it had secured a development team to work with Sega to bring their Dreamcast game Skies of Arcadia to the Playstation 2 console. HomeLAN got a chance to chat with R.E.D co-founder Jeff Brunner to find out more about what his agency does for game developers and the gaming industry.

HomeLAN - How did the R.E.D agency start?

Jeff Brunner - R.E.D. evolved from the team representation division of our sister company, Interact. The team representation, in turn, evolved from long-term relationships that we had built up since 1993. These were relationships with programmers, designers, artists and producers - the key people working on game projects. We discovered that intact teams -- core groups of talented people who enjoyed working with each other on a project -- were contacting us increasingly when they decided to strike out on their own and needed projects. We had placed many of the producers and executive producers who'd be deciding which developers got projects, and these start-up developers knew we had a great access to them.

We made some introductions that led to development deals, which led us to believe there was a market for such a service. That's why we formed Interact's Team Representation Division. We began introducing both experienced developers and start-up development teams to publishers, matching a team's particular expertise with a publisher's genre, platform and technology requirements. We were essentially functioning as a business development arm for the independent developers we were working with.

We wanted to differentiate our team representation and recruiting services, so we spun out the former as a separate company called R.E.D., which stands for Representing Entertainers & Developers

HomeLAN - Why do you believe an agent for computer and video game developers is becoming more necessary?

Jeff Brunner - The game development marketplace is very competitive, and is only going to become more so. Business development can be problematic for smaller developers. Most of them don't have someone in-house whose job is securing more projects, and everyone is generally so busy producing a game, it's hard to extricate yourself from the process and start hunting for the next development project.

Using an agent has a lot of advantages. First, it is basically a free service. We don't get paid unless we deliver a deal for our client, and our fee is a small percentage of the project's development budget.

Probably the most valuable thing we provide is information. R.E.D. possesses much better, more current information about available projects than any single game studio. We are on the phone continuously with contacts at publishing companies, finding out what projects are available and working with them to match developers with those projects. Developers don't have time to gather intelligence in such quantities and may miss out on opportunities to bid for projects for which they are a great match.

Additionally, we generally have more experience negotiating development deals than most independent studios, because of the limited number of projects that most developers work on each year. Independent developers don't negotiate deals very often - maybe once or twice a year. But conditions in the interactive game industry are very fluid, the kind of deals publishers are willing to negotiate can change dramatically in just a few months. We are communicating with publishers on a constant basis, and have a much better sense of the current marketplace and how much publishers are willing to invest in game projects. Our clients benefit from that expertise in the form of more lucrative deals.

We're straight with clients. We tell them if their demo or game idea isn't what publishers want. We also help them present their product in a way that makes publishers more willing to invest in it.

There's an advantage for publishers, as well. The responsibility for finding and signing development teams generally falls upon producers. Now, as the name implies, they are pretty busy doing their jobs - producing games - and have limited time to search for and research the hundreds of small developers out there. As a result, they can end up relying on out-dated information about a development studio. For example, a producer looking for a third-party developer for a console project might pass over Developer X because he remembers them as a PC or N64 developer, and not realize they have since acquired the personnel and technology to create games for next-generation platforms.

R.E.D., on the other hand, is in continual contact with developers. Through our own efforts and through information shared by Interact, we know who is working at these studios and what their track records are; we are informed about their bandwidth and technical capabilities. That's a great asset for a publisher.

R.E.D.'s whole premise is providing developers and publishers what they need most. For developers, that means access to the broadest range of available projects, and for publishers that means access to the broadest range of development teams. R.E.D. possesses that information, and by working with both developers and publishers we arrive at deals that are win-win for everyone.

HomeLAN - Right now, how many clients do you have and what games are you pitching to publishers?

Jeff Brunner - The number fluctuates, but we are currently working with about 60 different teams. Some of those are independent developers with a finished or nearly finished game, for which we are seeking a publisher.

Most of our clients are game studios who basically use us as their business development arm of their company. In those cases, we don't so much pitch games, as pitch a studio - its technology, track record, experience and creative chemistry - to publishers as the right team to develop a particular game property.

HomeLAN - How successful has R.E.D. been in securing development deals for its clients?

Jeff Brunner - Very successful. Our business primarily consists of helping studios find game projects, and working with publishers to find the best teams to develop their games. We very recently matched a client with a large publisher and secured a deal for CodeFire Entertainment that studio to develop an action-adventure game for the Xbox, and have several other deals with significant development budgets in the final stages of negotiation. We can't divulge details right now, so I'd like to illustrate this part of our business with a deal we put together last year for Studio Gigante. Studio Gigante was founded by several very talented, experienced developers such as John Tobias, who was a co-creator of Mortal Kombat, one of the most successful franchises in the video game industry. Following their formation of Studio Gigante, R.E.D. (which at the time was still the Team Representation Division of our sister company, Interact) signed a representation agreement with them. Some time later, we were talking to a major game publisher seeking a team to develop a new fighting game for the Xbox. We knew Studio Gigante was available, and their skills and track record made them a natural choice for this project. We arranged meetings to discuss a deal, which resulted in Studio Gigante winning a multi-million dollar contract to develop this Xbox fighting game.

HomeLAN - What does a developer have to do before it comes to your company to ask for representation?

Jeff Brunner - We like to see a demo of their capabilities, either from work they've done together or - if they are a start up company - work they've done at another game maker. We need something that allows us to evaluate their skills and experience and assess whether they are a good match for what publishers are looking for in development studios.

HomeLAN - Once they have made their pitch to your company, what does R.E.D look for in the game and the developer before deciding to represent them?

Jeff Brunner - If it is a developer with a finished game, we look at the demo to determine if it is, first and foremost, fun to play.

If, as is more often the case, a developer looking for a new game project, we evaluate their skills, technology and track record in order to determine if they have what the market is looking for. If they do, we try to match them with projects we receive from publishers.

HomeLAN - Once you have decided to represent a client, what do you do to work with the developer to pitch their game to publishers?

Jeff Brunner - There are several steps we take regardless of whether our client is looking for a publisher for their game, for a game project to develop. We make specific suggestions for changing their demo (if necessary) based on the latest information about what publishers are looking for. We prepare them for their meeting with the publisher - go over likely questions and coach them on their answers. We determine what their financial and creative objectives are. All this can greatly improve the likelihood of making a positive initial impression on the publisher, and helps put a client in the first tier of consideration for a project.

At the same time, we are busy creating interest in the developer's game from publishers, presenting them with information and reasons why the game will be successful. Once a publisher expresses an interest, we maintain contact with them in order to keep our client on their mental front burner. That is a big part of it. The key decision makers at game publishers are very busy folks, and a significant part of securing a development - no matter how good your game or demo is - is staying on their radar screen.

HomeLAN - How do the publishers feel about an agency pitching a game to their company, especially since it's usually been the developer who talks with the publisher directly?

Jeff Brunner - Attitudes vary from publisher to publisher but our experience has been positive. We cultivated our publisher relationships over the course of eight years, and have established a pretty strong level of credibility. We are not going to approach them with a game unless we believe in the team behind it and think their game it is something the publisher can make money on. The same principle applies whether or not our client is pitching a game. When a publisher comes to us and says, "We need a studio to develop this racing game for PlayStation 2," we don't come back to them with teams without the experience, skills or technology to do the job. We don't want to waste either the publisher's or our client's time, and they appreciate that. At the very least, it's a free service that provides publishers with wider access to talent than they would ordinarily have.

HomeLAN - Do you see more and more developers using agencies like yours to sell their games to publishers and why?

Jeff Brunner - Yes, based on our experience, I think that will be the case. Our company started out as an experiment. Several years ago, when a developer we knew had decided to start his own independent studio, our sister company Interact contacted him about placing some developers with his new company. He responded that what he really needed were game development projects. Since we were well connected to the producers at the game publishers, he asked us to find projects for his studio. That was the start of what ultimately become a separate company called R.E.D.

We think the development landscape will increasingly be populated by independent developers, who need business development assistance in order to maintain a steady stream of projects in order to keep their studios going. Remember, very few of these development studios have a dedicated business development person. It's usually a case of the CEO is also the lead programmer, and everyone is so busy trying to make milestone and get the game out the door, that before they know it they're two months away from finishing the game but with no new projects in the pipeline. For a lot of small developers, than one project can mean the difference between meeting payroll and going out of business.

Finding that next project - and talking to publishers looking for teams or original games -- is what our company is doing every day. The information we gather translates into work for our clients.

HomeLAN - Finally, what trends in the few years does R.E.D see in the gaming industry, both in games and in the business of games?

Jeff Brunner - We tend to believe game budgets will continue to grow, while you'll see continued consolidation of the number of companies, especially on the publishing side. As the next generation console sales increase and these new consoles continue to penetrate American households, you'll see gaming become a stronger and stronger presence in the living room as the entertainment focus of the family.