From: Ian D Romanick <idr AT cs DOT pdx DOT edu>
Message-Id: <199701201650.IAA21573@xavier.cs.pdx.edu>
Subject: Re: Publishing a game
To: gpt20 AT thor DOT cam DOT ac DOT uk (G.P. Tootell)
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 08:50:14 -0800 (PST)
Cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
In-Reply-To: <5bvime$mji@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> from "G.P. Tootell" at Jan 20, 97 10:50:54 am
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> incidentally, chances of virgin or ea taking any game are close to 0. reason
> being they made a nice fat loss last fiscal year and won't even consider
> marketing a game unless it's going to be a big hit.

And *that* is the real reason.  For every game that comes out that makes
a bunch of money, there are *20* (at least) that don't even make it to
the market.  On every game like that, the publishers loose big.  Once a
development house gets a good enough track record, they can get better
deals.  By that point most are ready to start self publishing, though...

-- 
"Harshaw conceded that man, a social animal, could not avoid government, any
more than an individual could escape bondage to his bowels." 
                                               -- Stranger In A Strange Land
See my bowels at http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~idr