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[torncanvas]

This is a great thread.  Thanks guys.

I haven't had any "real" experience with publishers.  My only experience with them is when an Atari VP stopped dead in his tracks, crapped his pants, and immediately called his boss when he saw TFW at the IGF.  Apparently they'd had the same idea with the same name for 5 years or something.  After a good month and a half of phone calling, they turned us down since the game "wouldn't fit their portfolio."  Bwahahaha....they could have just told us we sucked in the first week and saved some time.  We were naive enough that if something would have happened, I'm sure we would have gotten screwed.

[Guert]

 So far, my experience with publishers have been "so-so". The game I developped was supposed to be published on the GBA console but we got cancelled... twice!

 There are many factors around our cancelation but one thing was the same for both publishers: they made us wait at least 6 months after they said "yes, we'll do business with you" before sending us a nice little 2 lines email saying "sorry, we are dropping the business deal. If you have other games, tell us. Have a nice day."

 What this tells me is that you should always make sure you have constant conversation with your publisher and make sure you know what their goal is and if their compatible with yours before dealing with them. It doesn,t matter if you're game is good or not, finished or not: you have to know exactly what's going on with your business partner at all time. If possible, meet the person you are dealing with and bring someone with you. One of your team deals and the other observes the person in front of you. You can tell alot from the non-verbal and when you're busy dealing, it's harder to focus on details. Make sure that the person with you knows what you're talking about tho. You don't want to look like a bunch of fools

 Anyway, publishers are not your enemy, you just have to search the right one. As my old saying goes, it takes every kind of person to make this world: the problem is, that includes all the bastards...

 Take care! 
Guert
PS: I'm not naming the publishers I've dealt with simply because we released our game publicaly on the internet and we don't want people harrassing them for no reasons. We had a bad experience but we're not in bad terms with them

[TeeGee]

So... anybody heard anything about Merscom?

[jack_norton]

I signed a contract for one of my games with them, then they said that the publisher (they were acting as middlemen) changed their mind and heard nothing anymore. Wasted time, they could have told me before ??

[sega]

To be fair, developers can be almost as terrible as publishers (only without so much power).  Over the years, I've had to deal directly with most people involved in this industry, from the producer, down to programmers/designers/artists, down to the customers themselves.  I've seen several publishers screwed by developers.  Granted, the publishers generally have all the power, and can choose to break the contract at any point, but developers can get dreamy eyed over the publishing deal, and design/promise more than they can deliver.  They may meet a few milestones, and put up a good act about the state of the game, but are unable to ultimately deliver.  The publisher is stuck with this unsellable mess of a game with terrible net code, and large amounts of money already paid.  The only chance of release would be to start over, or get some other poor developer to deal with spaghetti code belonging to some stranger, which could take forever, get a LOT more expensive, and involve lots of hair pulling.  And if it's a licensed property, the publisher just screwed their relationship with the licenser by missing the release date by a wide margin.

I guess what I'm saying overall is, publishers can get screwed too, and sometimes decide to end things soon if they feel things are off.  They should really start a dialog first, and there are TONS of assholes in publishing, but it helps to see where they're coming from.  Also, you as a developer have to make sure you don't over-promise on what you feel is your big break.  Simple design isn't sexy, I know, but it might help to explain that a simpler design can capture a larger market.  True, it's possible you might lose the contract if you can't tell the publisher what he wants to hear, but trust me, reputations get around between producers.  You don't want to under-deliver.

[Guert]

It's true... There are some rotten apples in both camps...
It's kinda sad when yout hink about it. Publishers fear developpers because of some that can't act pro and dev fear publishers because they want security.

On top of that, there are those who only wanna screw the other party. Business is business, even in the game industry...

Good post Sega!

[Alec]

There are also some very unprofessional publishers out there.

[cliffski]

I've worked with loads:

Crystal Interactive / Xing Interactive:
Nope, never again

egames
Nice people, they do major bundling, so your percentage is very low, but they always pay on time, which is nice.

real
They pay on time, but its a bit big and bureaucratic. they are heavily into promoting their own gamepass thing, and love to discount games. but they seem honest enough if you like their deal terms.

merscom
Done some deals with them. no complaints. they paid me as I recall.

akella
Taking forever to get my latest payment. In the past they paid well, and on time, but recently its all fallen apart. watch this space etc.

take 2
Not fun. they pay eventually, but their deal terms were evil, and I've had to threaten legal action to get paid in the past. also they tried to sue me for calling my game Kudos : Rock Star, even though we actually had a publishing deal for another game. Litigious bureaucratic and crafty.

arcadetown
Nice guys, pay on time, easy to deal with

zero-G
Seem to be nice guys and very organised. very easy to deal with, pay on time with good sales stats.

I'm sure I've done other deals, but can't think of them right now.

[ravuya]

Is Crystal Interactive still around? When I was making it through high school they pitched an offer at me for my game, which at that time was nothing more than a hacked up copy of Genesis3D GTest.

[cliffski]

I think they basically renamed to Xing.

[Craig Stern]

Anyone had any dealings with Kongegate and their Premium Games program? (I'm looking at you, torncanvas!)

Personally, I've refused to deal with Kongregate in the past because of a really, really sneaky term they put in their contracts: a $5 limitation of liability clause. Translation: Kongregate can take your game, pay you nothing, and if you sue them and win, you are entitled to recover only five dollars.

Limitation of liability provisions are generally considered valid in California, which can be a real problem if Kongregate ever fails to deliver for a developer, since their contracts also provide that they are governed by California law.

[Eclipse]

I'm flattered that someone would think to bring my lil' ol' company up. But I'm sad that it's in a negative way.

I don't know how other companies interface with the press (enthusiast, bloggers and otherwise) because I'm not really privy to that, but I do at least know what goes on behind our doors.

Suffice it to say that we don't make the details of our business relationships with other companies public - that's bad form in my opinion - and that seems to be something people like to hear about.

As it is, the best way to find out the truth about something, speaking as a former journalist, is to ask people. To date, the only press groups who've ever contacted us on anything were Play Magazine and Kotaku.

I'll be the first to admit we've made some missteps in the past as we learn better and better practices. I started the business seven years ago in my college dorm room with a friend, to be a developer ourselves, before realizing we could try to help other developers along the way and trying to expand what we wanted to do. But the outright IRE that floats around, I'll be honest, I think it's a little unwarranted and it gets under my skin a little.

Anyway, I don't want to look like I troll boards looking for our company name. I just read TIGsource because I've found out about some great, fun games on there and wanted to check out the community forum. Funny this is the first thread I read. =)

Well. I don't want to force a welcome here, it'd probably just be dodgy so I'll bow out and let y'all say what you will. Maybe you'll see things that'll change your mind in the future.

Best regards,
Cristopher Boyer
CEO, Variant Co.

I think your project and your point of view are really interesting, and i think also that direct replying on a forum such TIGsource is not trolling but taking care about the indie scene, so welcome here

[DaveGilbert]

Are we mixing up publishers and distributors?   My experience is limited but here's my list:

Distributors
------------

Big Fish Games - as said earlier, if your game fits their market you've got to get your game on their site.  They are personable, friendly, know their audience, and gives a serious marketing push to every game on their site.  Heck, they even make video trailers of the game for you, which no other distributor has ever done for me.  The only problem with BFG is the sheer number of games they have available.  Your game might drop off the radar quickly, but it will get a massive amount of exposure while its there.

Playfirst - had no problems with these guys.  They are primarily a publisher, but they do distribution in order to bring folks to their site.  If they like your game they will put it on the front page and make it a "sneak peek" along with their cataloged titles. 

iWin - my game was a bit of a hard sell but they took it eventually!  A solid distributor.  As with all distributor, they will put extra effort into pushing it if they really like it.  My game did pretty well with them.

Publishers
----------

As for publishing, I currently have a publishing deal with Playfirst and they have been great!  Aside from the occasional nitpick, they pretty much stay out of my way and give me all the creative freedom I want (within reason).  There were a few concession to make in order to simplify my type of game (point and click adventure) for the casual audience, but for the most part I have no complaints.  If Playfirst approaches you with a publishing deal, I say take it.

[blah3]

Personally, I've refused to deal with Kongregate in the past because of a really, really sneaky term they put in their contracts: a $5 limitation of liability clause. Translation: Kongregate can take your game, pay you nothing, and if you sue them and win, you are entitled to recover only five dollars.

Is that really what it means? I thought it limited their liability for illegal acts you committed against 3rd parties who then tried to sue THEM as the publisher of the illegal act (libel, copyright infringement, hate speech, etc) - forcing you to take on legal liability for those things, even though technically in law the "publisher" of literature, speech, etc is the primary target of litigation. This being a standard procedure by publishers, otherwise you could bankrupt any one of them by publishing something with them which was viciously libellous, and watch them get sued into oblivion.

I'm not a CA resident, and I've been amazed in the past by some of the weird pieces of law CA has, so I guess it's possible, but ... it seems it would be impossible to do any kind of business with anyone - ever - if people could just put "oh, and I am legally immune to being sued for breaking the law" in every contract they wrote. That's ... hard ... to believe.

[Craig Stern]

Nope--that's the indemnification clause you're thinking of (Provision 6). Look at Provision 8 in their Game License Uploading Agreement:

8.  Limitation of Liablity.  KONGREGATE SHALL NOT BE LIABLE, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, IN TORT, OR IN ANY OTHER FORM OF ACTION, FOR ANY CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT OR ITS PERFORMANCE OR FAILURE TO PERFORM HEREUNDER.  IN NO EVENT SHALL KONGREGATE'S LIABILITY TO DEVELOPER FOR DAMAGES EXCEED $5.00 USD.

Actually, now that I look at it again, this reads like both an exculpatory clause and a limitation of liability clause wrapped into one. First they say they won't be liable to you for breaching the agreement, and then they say that even if they are, they won't be obligated to pay you more than $5.

The California courts have upheld limitation of liability provisions in the past, but so far as I know, never a limitation this low, and never outside the context of construction contracts. My unlicensed, unprofessional opinion (which you should definitely not rely upon) is that the courts could go either way with a provision like this.

When I was looking for a sponsor for Telepath RPG Chapter 2, I negotiated with Kongregate and attempted to get them to waive this provision. It went all the way up the chain to Emily Greer, who ultimately refused to waive it. This convinced me to go with a different company for sponsorship. My feeling is, regardless of whether it would ever be enforced in court, why would I ever want to deal with a company that knowingly buries a provision like this in its boilerplate game upload agreement?