My previous article discussed the paradigm shift promised by multimedia. It built a framework for making money in multimedia development. We continue the discussion focusing on CD-ROM, although the concepts work for all new media design. Multimedia titles/projects tend to first fall into two primary categories which can be further broken down. While overlaps occur, the tiers look something like this:

• Consumer
  • Games/Entertainment
  • Education
  • Edutainment (combination of above)
• Developer/User
  • Graphics
  • A/V (audio/video)
  • Utilities

Consumer titles are generally complete and immediately useable like a game, a reference work like an encyclopedia or a child’s storybook. Developer titles usually contain information or material which is used to create something else such as clip art is used for desktop publishing, utilities for programming, or audio/video clips for other multimedia programs or projects. Often the more mass appeal that a title has, the lower its retail price will be. $34.95 – $39.95 seems to be the magic retail price point right now. Read the rest of this entry »