Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / Budget Game Publishers

Author
Message
BoB Vila
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Feb 2003
Location: United States
Posted: 17th Mar 2003 19:13
Link
Has anyone tried having their DarkBasic games published through one of these "budget publishers"? Such as Xtreme Games. I checked out their website and they seemed pretty good. But this could all be a scam, idunno.

I'm wondering if anyone either had some Success with one of these or have some tales of misfortune to share.
Bobvila.com made me take off my avatar! (dunno how they found out)
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Shadow Robert
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 17th Mar 2003 20:26
Link
my suggestion ... find out an established budget publisher, people in the UK - Fast Trak for example is a good one (wonder who DBS use hehee)

and try for them... as far as i know RGT publish DarkBasic Professional within the states - perhaps they could extend this service to budget games as well (ya never know)

if you don't want to be scammed by a company the best option is to have a lawyer check over your contract with them with a fine tooth comb, because alot of companies like to put in very fine print to confuse ya.

looking into hopefully making FMTau Labs LLC to have a budget publisher section of its own, then i've been looking closely into what you can and can't get away with in a contract - because at the end of the day publishers are out to actually make some money off of the programs they publish whilst trying to make sure their clients don't feel ripped off

i've seen a few 'companies' around here goto publish games and kinda fall of the face of the DBplanet (not the website ) so i'd say look about and be very careful

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Andy Igoe
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Oct 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 18th Mar 2003 01:20
Link
Whomever you release a commercial game with be sure to visit the company premises. That should tell you all you need to know.

Not only that, but the less-than-honest publisher who may have considered ripping off that voice over the phone is far less likely to try it on with someone who they've met, chatted, and had dinner with.

Personally I hate doing important business over the telephone anyway as I am at the mercy of their environment. You need to be the reason why Mr.Big isn't taking any calls - if not you are just a walking wallet.

Pneumatic Dryll, Outrageous epic cleric of EQ/Xev
God made the world in 7 days, but we're still waiting for the patch.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
HZence
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2003
Location:
Posted: 18th Mar 2003 01:39
Link
That's an excellent idea (me not being professional, i'd have rushed into it).

Back to top
Profile PM
Shadow Robert
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 18th Mar 2003 15:37
Link
yeah... i kinda hate that phone crap too.
Video Conferencing is big at the moment...

however i don't remember reading up that you should take clients out for a meal - god i don't wanna get the guys into bed by sweeping them off thier feet, just wanna publish thier software

which is a good point actually (^_^) i opened a dialog with a 'budget' company recently - looks like FMTau will be having thier first major product ohh and its definatly something i know ALOT of people will wanna be seeing in thier local Game/EB/PC World/CompUSA stores

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
AsylumHunter
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Oct 2002
Location: United States
Posted: 18th Mar 2003 18:13
Link
In my experience, the best thing to do is to get your name noticed first and rewards later. Promotion is far easier if you are giving your game a way for free. Once you have an established user base, then you can always offer them version 2 or more levels at a price. Publishers LOVE getting free games to publish or ones just based on royalties with no advances and everybody is a winner if you are willing to make that initial sacrifice. If your game does well, then so will your reputation and publishers love dealing with developers that are flexible and popular - it also makes it far easier to get your second or third title published with advances included.

The bottom line is this: No one knows who you are, so you need to establish yourself before a publisher will take that risk. Look at ID, they gave games away for free for years and everybody grew to love them - the rest is history.

You could also publish it yourself, but this option is a lot more time consuming and you have to do all the marketing yourself also.

I put out Virtual Insanity for free with a time limited trial and a purchase option through Share iT. To date I have had 55,000 downloads, features on gamespot, games domain, flipcode and many more - and although publicity has been great, the momentum died after a few weeks.

I have several other projects in developent and it is hard to devote time to the new projects and keep up to date with the PR marketing machine, so I'm afraid either way you look at it, you'll need to spend as much time as you can concentrating on PR as you do programming and design.

- Paul
AsylumHunter

still falling out of my binary tree most evenings (hicup!)
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
BoB Vila
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Feb 2003
Location: United States
Posted: 18th Mar 2003 18:47
Link
In the case with Xtreme Games, they seemed pretty good.
Basically they said that they would publish your product and in "most cases" split the profits down the middle.

I'm not looking for someone to finance the development. I could do that myself. Its when it comes to packaging and distribution that I would not want to get envolved.

The big question here is "profits". I mean, if they go and start throwing up costs of publishing, IE it cost us 50 cents per unit to ship and this and that and then you wind up in the end with a few cents worth of profit. This to me would be somewhat unfair because they wouldn't be factoring development costs, only the costs that they see. Either way it may be worth not seeing any real cash flow from a game, just to have your name distributed.

I'm not looking to make a fortune of a crappy remake of pong. More so a humble beginning into the retail game market. I'm not hard up for cash but I would like to know that the channels are open, the name is out and when finally I'm able to produce that 1 game that fits the current nitch. The avenue is wide open and and will be sucessfully marketed and distributed.

Bobvila.com made me take off my avatar! (dunno how they found out)
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Shadow Robert
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 18th Mar 2003 18:52
Link
there is a big difference though... id were 14 when they finally got signed to apogee.
and those guys are truely remarkable - thats not to put anyone off but i don't think anyone here can claim to fame in the same way as them.

however i do agree... it would be good if someone gets up thier creditablity with demo's first, then try to hit up the publishers also helps the publisher know what thier target would be like.

publishers are more likely pick up a tried and tested sure fire hit than something outside of the box that is cool and innovative - unless the public show they want it.

one possible way to get good response, send a full version of a game into someone like PCGamer - but limit it unless people download the free serial key. But make it so that say its the 4th or 5th level or something like that, so that those who do get bored with it will ... so you're left with more true figures on what people like - if you place it on Fileplanet and send an email to Chris after you have say 10,000 downloads he'll shove an add on the front page about it, which will attract more people

aim is to see how many people download the serial within say a 2-3week period cause that'll give you a good estimation.

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
BoB Vila
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Feb 2003
Location: United States
Posted: 18th Mar 2003 21:28
Link
That makes sense. I like that idea.

Though, back to what I was originally saying. Specifically talking about Xtreme Games. They have a system setup where they "will" publish your games. But you give them the rights to your software. It seems that nobody has taken this route though. I was just curious to see if there were any success stories out there from people using this method to break into the games market. Once I've created a few small titles I'm prolly going to sign up with them just to see how it works out. Its not like I really have anything to lose. It would be a good learning experience.

Bobvila.com made me take off my avatar! (dunno how they found out)
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Andy Igoe
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Oct 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 18th Mar 2003 22:16
Link
"I put out Virtual Insanity for free with a time limited trial and a purchase option through Share iT. To date I have had 55,000 downloads, features on gamespot, games domain, flipcode and many more - and although publicity has been great, the momentum died after a few weeks."

Thankyou for this valuable insight, i've been pondering just how sucessful shareware games can be - according to most marketing models you can expect a 1% return on general marketting and 2% on targetted marketting.

So I used the download counter for my last release that was well publicised across the retro scene, it has thus far achieved just over 700 downloads. I figure it will likely hit about 1,200 in it's lifetime - so had Jetpac been shareware and offered a good value upgrade then I could bank upon 24 registrations - which isn't exactly a profitable venture....

So figuring on 55,000 downloads for a majorly publicised shareware release, i'm figuring it's slightly less targetted than a retro game on the retro scene... so using the 1% model that's 550 sales for a fair price/quality ratio'd product, if as you said, I was willing to do the PR work

Thankfully I do this for the love of it...

Pneumatic Dryll, Outrageous epic cleric of EQ/Xev
God made the world in 7 days, but we're still waiting for the patch.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
WarWolf
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Aug 2002
Location: Sweden
Posted: 19th Mar 2003 16:57
Link
"As you know, the CEO of Xtreme Games, Andre' LaMothe makes
a living by writing game books and literally giving away years of
R&D."

WOW! Andre' LaMothe is a god...

I didn't steal it!
Back to top
Profile PM
Shadow Robert
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 19th Mar 2003 18:14
Link
generally there are a few levels to games publishing...
and the publishing rights they ask for ...
a) they pay you per Nth amount of units shifted
b) they pay you for exclusive publishing rights
c) they pay you for the copyright of the product for Nth amount of time
d) they subsidise you for exclusive publishing rights for Nth amount of titles (which you're obligated to develop within the time period set)

there are a good few more and several versions of what are there but thats generally what there is.
Xtreme games though themselves are owned by a larger publisher (Eidos Interactive) so really you are going to get a good service somewhere there - but still i'd suggest reading any contracts very carefully on your rights.

(^_^)

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Back to top

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2026-07-11 09:30:25
Your offset time is: 2026-07-11 09:30:25