self publishing or getting a publisher?

Posted By: ulf

self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/18/07 22:42

hey there, iam wondering what you guys think about this. i have a casual game finished pretty soon. its fun to play (at least for me) i developed it during the last 2 years in my sparetime.
now that it comes near 100% completetion iam asking myself if i should email some publishers in order to get the game in the shelves. if i go to a computer market in germany there are a lot worse games there than the one i have developed...

or should i try to publish it myself via the internet worldwide.

or is there a way to combine both ideas?? i know that there will be more sales if the game hits the shelves but i guess i wont see a lot money from that.

i have never ever done it the indy way setting up a website, shop system and publishing the demo at sharewaresites, giving out press releases and so on.


my plan was to, make a website for the game, make a demo with like 7 levels (final will contain 30). but how should i go on.
do some publishers make it the way that they sell the game burned on a cd and on their website and permit me to sell it on my own site too?

how much in % can you request if the game is finished with the installer, manual, onlinescoresystem, website and so on so the publisher has "nothing else" to do than burn the cd, and print the package.

i really dont want to email them now because i have not made up my mind yet. i read that a lot of indy developers make good money with their own model. but i fear that i will totally fail with that idea cause in my mind it has to do with who you know from wich news site.

in other words i want to squeeze out the maximum of my casual game. please add your thoughts here or post if you have some figures similar to those
http://www.gameproducer.net/category/sales-statistics/

greetings
Posted By: fogman

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/19/07 01:47

From my experience itīs easier to work together with publishers. Many small publishers are willing to sign non-exclusive contracts. So you can get in contract with more publishers and you can sell the game in a lot of countries.
Besides that youīre even able to sell it by yourself, if your contracts are non-exclusive.

Keep in mind that youīll need different versions for different countries.

After all a good publisher will provide you with tips, content and motivation. You should get in touch with your first publisher as soon as you can. You must accept some changes, basically when it comes to graphics and user interface.

These are my thoughts so far...

Quote:

how much in % can you request if the game is finished with the installer, manual, onlinescoresystem, website and so on so the publisher has "nothing else" to do than burn the cd, and print the package.




50%, otherwise the publisher has a problem...
Posted By: ulf

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/19/07 09:11

thanks for your reply, the problems with "small" publishers i see is that they might not be able to get your game into the computer stores and thats what i expect from a publisher. i want to be able to go to the biggest local store and find my game there.

my game is multilingual (english and german only) i dont plan to sell it outside english/german speaking countries because of support and so on. so selling it online should not be a problem.

50% was what i had in mind too.
Posted By: fogman

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/19/07 09:46

Itīs very difficult to get games into the stores, at least in germany. But itīs a challenge.

Edit:
Quote:

so selling it online should not be a problem.




Itīs a lot of work to advertise your game on every big download portal.
Posted By: ulf

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/19/07 11:52

Quote:

Itīs very difficult to get games into the stores, at least in germany. But itīs a challenge.



why do you think so? if the game is good and the feedback from testers too. i know at least a handfull games that are far worse and in the stores already.
Posted By: maybenew

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/19/07 12:49

Quote:

Quote:

Itīs very difficult to get games into the stores, at least in germany. But itīs a challenge.



why do you think so? if the game is good and the feedback from testers too. i know at least a handfull games that are far worse and in the stores already.



it has really nothing to do with quality. or lets say not that much. you have to make a convincing argument that you have a target audience on the market and that the game will sell.

if you sell a really bad game for not more than 10 bucks and get a few game magazines to report how bad the game is, chances are that it sells 3 times better than a good game in the same price range.
Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/19/07 15:36

Publicity only works for short-term sales so in the end the bad product would suffer because of it's own lack of quality. Best to make sure you make a good game, instead of trying to get magazines to report on how bad it is, your image as developer suffers bigtime, eventhough such publicity could temporarily boost your sales.

It's tricky to get more attention than a product deserves and not all good critics will mean more sales, but it's definately untrue that you'll be getting 3 times more sales because your product was rated and burned to the ground by some magazines,

Cheers
Posted By: maybenew

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/19/07 16:44

Quote:

Publicity only works for short-term sales so in the end the bad product would suffer because of it's own lack of quality. Best to make sure you make a good game, instead of trying to get magazines to report on how bad it is, your image as developer suffers bigtime, eventhough such publicity could temporarily boost your sales.



of course you have to make an extraordinarily bad product. make it, publish it, let them say it is extraordinarily bad and everybody buys it because its extraordinarily bad, nobody will be disappointed or angry at you, they just laugh, but in the meanwhile you make a lot of money and can fund the next project with it. more money means better quality and so your new game will be much better. now the magazines will say "remember the studio with the crappy game a year ago, seems they got their acto together..." and you have publicity for your new game...

a few years ago there was a world war 2 shooter game. game star called it worst game of the year and gave it an award for sucking. the game sold around 15k units in germany in one year... that is around 5 times as much as a similar game in the same price range...
another example: look at the pearl harbour series in the us... let us call the games "simple"... part 1 sold more than 200k units because all magazines reported the game extraordinarily sucks and therefore is fun to play... part 2 was a solid game sold very well because it got attention of the magazines for its predecessor sucking...

its a risky game and maybe nothing to be proud of, but if played right i do not see where your image is harmed in a way you can not make up for it... and it is the perfect way to get the money and the media attention to produce a better game..

but thats just to explain my initial statement...
it is not suitable for casual games, they have to be top quality to reach maximum conversion rates...
Posted By: ulf

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/19/07 17:23

i have to agree that bad advertisement is better than NO advertisement no question. i wouldnt say my game is bad. shure its nothing compared to nextgen games but i dont claim that. its just a funny casual game.

well lets say iam going for a non exclusive contract means that the publisher can sell the game exclusively in germany in the stores and in his own webshop. in addition i can sell the game online at my website.

do you think that sounds like a good deal for a publisher?

my main fear is that i waste 2 years of work and a pretty funny casual game to a publisher who gets exclusive rights and then does nothing with the game if you know what i mean.

are there ways to prevent that? any further ressources?
Posted By: TWO

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/19/07 17:38

Ok, no senseful information from my side, but Iīm very happy for you and wish you much luck to earn some extra bucks
Posted By: fogman

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/19/07 17:44

Small publishers will accept non-exclusive contracts, big publishers will not.
But donīt get the term "small" wrong. Small can be very powerful and much more personal than the big players.
Posted By: maybenew

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/19/07 19:21

the most common way to keep the right to do self-online-distribution is to split online and offline release...
give the game a different name for retail publication than you use for online...
if you only want to give the publisher non exclusive rights do not expect very much in the retail sector, most countries can only be covered with exclusive rights...

we offer our clients exclusive coverage with the possibility to distribute the game on their own in the online sector. for that we offer support, eg with DRM, Packaging or presentation.

if you are interested send me a mail with product info and i can give you a few suggestions and if the product matchs our portofolio maybe an offer for a publishing deal. my email is zeitler.a@icebytes.de
Posted By: ulf

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/21/07 16:12

another question came to my mind, how am i able to distribute my game to a site like one of those:

http://www.game-sales-charts.com/cms/ind...uery&qid=38

most of the games there have an download once try for 60minutes and buy key feature to unlock the game.

would they even accept to sell my game if its just a demo with like 5 levels to play forever? i know i could email them and ask directly but maybe some of you already have experience.

would that be possible with a6 right now? i know theres such a feature in forecast.

thx
Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/21/07 16:33

Quote:

part 1 sold more than 200k units because all magazines reported the game extraordinarily sucks and therefore is fun to play...



In my book, if a game is fun to play and people also say it's fun to play, I'd consider such a game as 'good' too. No wonder it sold very well.

Quote:

of course you have to make an extraordinarily bad product. make it, publish it, let them say it is extraordinarily bad and everybody buys it because its extraordinarily bad, nobody will be disappointed or angry at you, they just laugh, but in the meanwhile you make a lot of money and can fund the next project with it.



Nobody buys it just to see how extraordinary bad it is, that's just silly. The publicity might tempt some people into buying it, no doubt, but you're not going to get a lot of money out of bad products. And then I haven't talked about refunds, any girl or guy with a brain that 'accidently' bought your horrible game will without a doubt return it and ask for a refund.

Off course, now it seems to me, you were talking about games that aren't graphically very good or have a huge interesting story, but are still fun to play and often considered as being 'bad' games, right?

Quote:

more money means better quality and so your new game will be much better.



In my experience this totally depends, if money is used to pay higher quality programmers then yes perhaps it will become better, if the money isn't quite used apart from salary for yourself, then chances are the quality level will stay horrible. Not much money can change when you don't use it properly.

Quote:

we offer our clients exclusive coverage with the possibility to distribute the game on their own in the online sector. for that we offer support, eg with DRM, Packaging or presentation.



Nice, what kind of deals can we as developers expect? (it's okey to PM if you like)

Cheers
Posted By: maybenew

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/21/07 18:06

Quote:

another question came to my mind, how am i able to distribute my game to a site like one of those:

http://www.game-sales-charts.com/cms/ind...uery&qid=38

most of the games there have an download once try for 60minutes and buy key feature to unlock the game.

would they even accept to sell my game if its just a demo with like 5 levels to play forever? i know i could email them and ask directly but maybe some of you already have experience.

would that be possible with a6 right now? i know theres such a feature in forecast.



platforms like big fish or real arcade only accept high quality full version games, i won't even consider knocking on their door without a full featured product ready for distribution in my bag pack

try and buy after 60 minutes = DRM for games.
it is possible with the A6 engine right know, we are using the technology and it is working just fine.
stay tuned another week or two and you will see how effective it is...


Quote:

Off course, now it seems to me, you were talking about games that aren't graphically very good or have a huge interesting story, but are still fun to play and often considered as being 'bad' games, right?


we are talkin about bad games. not a about bad looking games but about crappy graphics with crappy gameplay and crappy bugs in it. thats what a bad game is.
we are not talkin about opinions here, it is fact the figures are real. you may say that in your opinion nobody would buy a crappy game on purpose. well, i think you are wrong, but thats not the point. the reasons for buying the game are of no interest to anybody as long as the game is selling. it could be pity for the developers for all i care, it sold 5 times as much as any comparable product, that is what is important.

Quote:

In my experience this totally depends, if money is used to pay higher quality programmers then yes perhaps it will become better, if the money isn't quite used apart from salary for yourself, then chances are the quality level will stay horrible. Not much money can change when you don't use it properly.


more money [spent on the game] means better quality and so your new game will be much better. only to clear that up thats how it is.

Quote:

Nice, what kind of deals can we as developers expect? (it's okey to PM if you like)


bring cookies if you want to sell them!
show me what we can expect and i tell you what you can expect
Posted By: ulf

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/21/07 18:58

what i see @ real arcade and similar sites are mostly 2d games with the same gameplay but different gfx.
i think most of those games are homemade by the owners of those sites... i would say that my product can easyly compete with the x-thousand reincarnation of solitair...

iam curious how did you get your drm system running?
Posted By: maybenew

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/21/07 19:46

most of the casual games are clones of simple game concepts like chekers or solitaire.

to have a game that is unique does not neccessarily mean that it is better because these cloned game concepts always are realized with a load of features and extras to make the game interesting.

stay tuned another 1-2 weeks for more information.
Posted By: FoxHound

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/23/07 01:33

http://www.coniserver.net/ubbthreads/sho...true#Post646587

See that list, apply to all of them or some puppies will get kicked! See if none of them take you then you can publish yourself.
Posted By: Aaron

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/24/07 17:05

well my thought's on this, I would most likely publish my own games, but it depends on the situtation, The idea of doing on the internet is great becuse you can also get people looking at your game from all over the world, and can be a possible world wide selling, The question is if you can meat the demand and also sell it, this goes into marketing what those guy's told you about the magazine giveing you a bad rateing is called gorrila tactics what it is, is getting free advertising from newspapers or magazines or the tv news, by making some sort of story that the news are interested in doing that story which is free, What the guy's were telling you that the game getting published by a publisher boils down to if you can sell it, it can be a bad crappy game and still can sell it depending how they use marketing, if you choose publishing it through a publisher I say go for well known ones or ones you know they know marketing, the small ones most likely don't know much about marketing and gorrila tactics becuse if they did then they would of been a well know publisher, so if you pick a small publisher you taking chances, if you can't afford or can't get a well know publisher I say forget them and publish it yourself, just if your doing yourself before doing that I advice learning some marketing and gorilla tactics online get some tips ect before jumping in, you can alway's talk to big local store owners and see if you can make any deals, if they don't let you or asking for high price profit from your game, if you know it can really sell and is good quility then try low end stores, maybe game and movie rentals some where you know would not ask for a high profit like a family shop or somthing, where you can put it their and if you can attract customers and if it get's popular you then can either next game or even the current game depending on demand the high well know local shops would lower the profit deals ect like meaning contract for their slice of the pie, which might let you into the big well know shops ect, But it all boils down to demands and marketing, microsoft is good at that with their game consoles if you watch how they release their consoles you can learn alot about marketing. alot of people ask me why microsoft and sony tell people aobut the console before it even comes out, it's becuse they want to create a hype for their console and also they want quick sales when it comes out and also they paid alot of money into advertising, but in America alot of people bought the console and their were fight's that broke out over the last console on the shelves. marketing is the top think to know for selling games becuse the game case or cover has to look good artwise.

My advice is it's better for you to publish yourself if you can becuse you then will learn how to publish and you would have most control on where your publishing it. It is tough but what I have seen it's worth the headach, I never published anything yet but what I have seen my friends done it themeselves locally.

But it's your choice, Good luck!!...
Posted By: AlbertoT

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/24/07 19:33

Quote:


the game sold around 15k units in germany in one year... that is around 5 times as much as a similar game in the same price range...




Do you mean that, on average an Indie programmer can expect to sell about 3000 copies a year ?
How did you get these figures ?
It does not seem so bad
Assuming a 20 usd selling price, 50 % for the publisher
The Indie programmer can cash 30.000 usd per game a year ?
Ok take off cost and tax
You can not make a live but not so bad
Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 02/24/07 20:33

I think these numbers might be rather high, but it's definately not impossible either.

Quote:

bring cookies if you want to sell them!



I'll show some cookies when there's more to see than just the mix. I will have to get back to you on this on a later date hehehe,

Cheers
Posted By: maybenew

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 03/02/07 10:26

Quote:

Quote:


the game sold around 15k units in germany in one year... that is around 5 times as much as a similar game in the same price range...




Do you mean that, on average an Indie programmer can expect to sell about 3000 copies a year ?
How did you get these figures ?
It does not seem so bad
Assuming a 20 usd selling price, 50 % for the publisher
The Indie programmer can cash 30.000 usd per game a year ?
Ok take off cost and tax
You can not make a live but not so bad



i've been in the development/publishing business over 4 years now, bringing over a dozen games to international markets...
the unit numbers i mentioned before were just for the german retail market, and that is in a rather bad shape.
a good game can sell an initial edition of 3k in one year. well, it really has to in order to qualify as a good game.

unfortunately your calculation with the revenues is a little off, the issue is way to complicated to be able to say you will earn 30.000 USD with one game. you have to consider distributor share, development costs, advances, licensing, branding, localizations, sub-licensing...


on the whole rather self-publish than go to a publisher issue thing:
if you have a good game with lots of potential and you publish it yourself you will most likely only reach 20-30% of its full potential.
think about it: do you want to make 10k with a professional publisher in the line of revenue share.. or do you self publish without sharing your revenues and most likely just making 2k with the same game.
publishing is no piece of cake. a fair share of experience, the right people to talk to, and a minimum amount of mistakes to be made are only a few requirements you have to meet to make your game a success.

if your game is good and you want to get out the best of it, just send out some applications to publishers. if the game is as good as you think it is you will get a good offer for the publication. if not you won't and you still can self publish it

we are always happy to look at new procuts! feel free to contact me at ice bytes.

@phemox: you are welcomed to do so!
Posted By: Orange Brat

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 03/02/07 11:37

Here's a list of some indie games' sales statistic and other factoids:

http://www.gameproducer.net/category/sales-statistics/
Posted By: Damocles

Re: self publishing or getting a publisher? - 03/02/07 16:53

Look at the about us page from the Gamemaker,
Nice to read, he is running a one man game-company and obviously succeeds in that.

http://www.positech.co.uk/starshiptycoon/index.shtml
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