Small publishers will accept non-exclusive contracts, big publishers will not.
But don´t get the term "small" wrong. Small can be very powerful and much more personal than the big players.

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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!!...