From:	nikki AT gameboutique DOT co (nikki)
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp,rec.games.programmer
Subject:	publishing games (info)
Date:	24 Jan 1997 20:49:44 GMT
Organization:	GameBoutique
Lines:	213
Message-ID:	<5cb798$mgv@flex.uunet.pipex.com>
Reply-To:	nikki AT gameboutique DOT co
NNTP-Posting-Host:	www.gameboutique.com
Keywords:	games
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

a number of people expressed an interest in publishing their own games recently, but were lamenting the fact that such a large cut was taken by the publishers. sorry it took so long to reply, but we've been trying to set our new server up with news etc. anyway, here's a reply to everything people said, and also a suggestion/proposition of our own which perhaps might interest you.

regards,
nik

here's what we would like to offer you, the developer. one of two possible 'packages'

1) we publish your game(s) for you and split the profit 50/50 with you. remember that retail price and cost price are very different, ie you don't get 50% of the price you see it for in the shop, but 50% of the cost it's sold to retail at. (minus production costs)

2) we give you the chance to sell your game yourself. after all you wrote it, why should any publisher make anything from it?
as many sites don't allow commercial activity on them, we can offer you web space and ftp space on a fixed or per usage basis. obviously we have to charge something because we're offering you part of our bandwidth, but the cost would be far less than trying to set your own server up. prices for this vary so it's best to email us and negotiate the best deal for *you*.

you might also like to 'mix and match' the above, perhaps selling via the web and us publishing it at the same time. just email us and tell us what you'd like.

you can reach us at sales AT gameboutique DOT com or me directly at nikki AT gameboutique DOT com

ps. apologies if this post is a little long, there were quite a few articles to reply to and rather than do each separately i joined them together.

--- begin stuff that people were saying...


>------ From "Mike A. Harris" <mharris AT sympatico DOT ca>
>
>Doing your own distribution and advertizing would cost a lot though.
>For a first game, you're either stuck by using an existing publisher
>and not making much money, or investing a LOT of money in a
>possibly risky venture.

very true indeed. the catch is even greater, in that many publishers won't show much interest in your work unless you've previously produced something and made yourself a name. getting something (anything) on the market first is a big plus when it comes to finding a publisher. this is what we can hopefully provide you with, without the need for investing so much money.

>> While we're on the subject of game publishing,...
>> What would the interest level be in creating a Game's archive of games
>> created with DJGPP?  It would be distributed in bulk on CD, with each
>> programmer contributing a portion of the costs.  If we get enough people
>> in on it (Let's say each game is 5-25 megs, that's 25-100 games per CD
>> easy) the costs wouldn't be quite so scary.
>> Any thoughts???

we would be very interested in such an archive. however, how many games *have* been created with djgpp and not already sold such as quake. are there enough to warrant a cd? if so we would be happy to cover the costs of producing such a cd, perhaps you could email us some more of your ideas on the subject? the same goes for utilities etc made with djgpp. in an environment where many such things are free or almost free, would such a venture work do you think?

>------ From mike AT il DOT pxsoftware DOT com (Mike Kulas)
>
>>I'm not making any games yet :) but I would consider creating games as a
>>hobby(i.e. 3D or real time strategies).
>>I wouldn't like workin my butt on that game then takin a shitty 10% when
>>the publisher gets 90% and 100% of the work is myne!!
>
>10% is kind of low.  It's very low if you deliver a nearly completed game.
>More typical rates are in the teens, probably not much higher from a
>quality publisher for a new developer.

quite right. a typical publisher will probably offer between 12% and 25% (max) and that's of the cost price remember, not the retail price which is the price you'll see it sold for in the shops. we're prepared to offer up to 50% of cost price. a 50/50 split between you, the programmer, and us the publishers. we'll handle marketing, packaging, advertising and production costs - if you can find a better deal than that from another publisher feel free to take them up on it :)

>Yes, if you create it it's your game and you reasonably feel like you
>should get the majority of the revenue.  You can do that by sharewaring it,
>but you'll get far, far less money that way for a quality game than if you
>can attract a quality retail publisher.

i don't have exact figures for this but unless it's a very big hit indeed, shareware titles make less than a 5% what they would have if they had been properly marketed. admittedly you make 100% of that 5% (minus costs) but then you could have been making 20% (for instance) of something that sold 20 times more copies. take an example where you sell your game for $20, under shareware you sell 1000 units (which is a fairly generous estimate) you made $20,000
now sell the same game through a publisher and you make $80,000. you get what you pay for after all.

>By the way, I think arrangements in the industry are pretty fair for the
>developer.  One thing to keep in mind is publishers, as a group, are not
>getting rich these days.  Most did not do well this Christmas season.  I
>think a typical return on investment for a publisher is in the 10% range
>for the past couple years.  Since you can do better in the stock market, it
>makes me think publishers are not screwing developers in order to get rich.
>You could argue that publishers as a whole are just incompetent, but with
>all the perceived potential of the entertainment industry, if that were so,
>it would have attracted competent people who want to make a killing.

quite correct again. indeed many publishers made considerable losses due to poorly managed advertising campaigns and low retail prices.

>------ From Brian Hook <bwh AT wksoftware DOT com>
>
>Well, with games with $5-15M budgets, this seems only natural. I agree
>entirely with your post, but I do think that a lot of publishers have
>been going a little ape shit with their insistence on FMV (with name
>brand actors), lots of cut scenes, multi-CD distributions, etc. etc. and
>raising the overall cost of development significantly.

we'd prefer if it wasn't full of fmv and multi-cd distribution :) it's already been shown in various surveys that the people who play games don't want to keep watching fmv all the time, they'd sooner just get on and play the game. more cd's and fmv tend to be 'selling points' but not 'playing points' if you see what i mean.

>Do games REALLY need a score or soundtrack from Brian May or Gravity
>Kills?!  Most people I know turn off music anyway.

most people we know do too :) you're quite right, the budgets on many games are simply not worth it. this is why so many large companies who have been engaged in this approach have made serious losses last fiscal year

>And then you tack on their, er, overzealous ad campaigns (do you think
>the ads for Descent 2 REALLY made a difference in sales?), etc. and soon
>the price sky rockets.

surprisingly, adverts make little to no difference to sales. this has been proved numerous times and all the big game companies know it, yet persist in spending a lot of money on it. what *really* makes the sales go up is a good review in a magazine. it's quite common for sales to rocket the week after a magazine with a good review has come out. not so with ads.

>------ From mike AT il DOT pxsoftware DOT com (Mike Kulas)
>
>>Well, with games with $5-15M budgets, this seems only natural. I agree
>>entirely with your post, but I do think that a lot of publishers have
>>been going a little ape shit with their insistence on FMV (with name
>>brand actors), lots of cut scenes, multi-CD distributions, etc. etc. and
>>raising the overall cost of development significantly.
>
>Maybe, but some of those games are selling.  Phantasmagoria sold well, Wing
>Commander III and IV (I believe) sold well.  It's common for developers to
>sneer at FMV titles, but they have some appeal to the mass market.  When I
>talk to people who are not in the industry, they are usually interested in
>these kinds of games.  The mass market for games might be in games where
>you spend most of your time watching, one hand on mouse, other hand on
>drink, bowl of chips nearby.

quite right of course, they both sold fairly well. unfortunately they didn't even cover the costs to produce, let alone break into profit. i have the figures somewhere and they don't look so good on paper. as i said, fmv appeals to retailers and reviewers it would seem, but not to games players in general. noone can complain at a few second fmv clip, but sitting through minutes of the stuff at a time is just plain boring. if people want to watch a movie they go and rent one, if they buy a game they want action.

>------ From Kevin Hill <khill AT gwi DOT net>
>
>Not to mention that these guys have a literal ARMY of designers,
>programmers, artists, and musicians. They dont take outside submissions,
>and as a rule I would say 98% of the companies you approach will chuck
>your stuff in the trash if it isnt the next Quake ( no offense to your
>hard work. just a cold truth). You may be able to get somewhere with
>Apogee or Epic Megagames, as a shareware title.
>
>In order to get the profit you desire per sale, you may be better off
>just setting yourself up on the WWW, and handle it all yourself. Not
>that it's that simple, most of the time you will probably get more money
>by letting the pros do it all for you, even though you only see 10% of
>the profits.

this is one of the options we provide you. the chance to go at it yourself without spending millions on it :) and we take outside submissions too, in fact we welcome them. show us what you've got and tell us what you want done with it.

>------ From xenon AT headwaters DOT com (Joel Skrepnek )
>
>	Ok, so how much of that 90% goes to publishing costs.
>Couldn't a larger company like Origin self-publish their titles and
>save themselves the cost of a middle-man (or woman).  Does this
>happen?

probably quite a lot of it, but how much is 'wasted' in unfruitful avenues is another matter. we offer a 50/50 deal and almost all of that goes on the costs.

>------ From jare AT jet DOT es (Javier Arevalo)
>
>From my work with publishers (I being a developer) I somehow get a
>feeling that what is needed here is a better coordination between the
>publishers and development houses. Very common problems due to the
>separation between the publisher and developer are:
>
>- missed release dates (You probably know one or two of these).
>- broken promises of game features and gameplay (see Rocket Science).
>- conservative approaches to product style (who wants film licenses?).
>
>Note that most of them are caused both by conservative publishers and
>ego-tripped developers. Each one think that the other is "the enemy",
>which somehow is the whole point of this thread: developers worried
>about publishers eating the money.
>
>I believe that a developer who doesn't know about marketing, and a
>publisher who doesn't know about development, simply can't work
>together succesfully, except if they're also VERY lucky...

couldn't have agreed more. that's exactly why we took such interest in this thread to get the opinion of the developers in particular.

>------ From jare AT jet DOT es (Javier Arevalo)
>
>If the total work is 100% yours then what do you want your publisher
>for? Surely for him to do something: sell your game. So it's not you
>who does everything. If you think that selling is easy, try it on your
>own; maybe you're right. :)

maybe he is. we give you the chance to try :) maybe you can sell just as well as you can develop.

--

Graham Tootell           GameBoutique Ltd. - THE online gaming experience
nikki AT gameboutique DOT com   http://www.gameboutique.com

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