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[aheydeck]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to see if anyone out here has some experience and advice about publishing deals.

Let's say i've been offered a deal where a publisher wants to sell my game on disc in stores, where my cut would be 40% of net revenue.

To me, that sounds pretty good, but then again, i'm all new to this type of business.
What's your opinion on the percentage, and do you have any experience of this?

[Muz]

IMO, don't trust people's perception on this. It varies a lot. If you like it, take it.

It's just too hard to say. Sometimes just being in stores increases the prestige/reputation of your game and further increases sales elsewhere. Is it a good store? Do they do all the work? Would you sell less if they did do this?

Someone's going to say stuff about how 40% is ripping you off and ruining your hard work. But if it earns you a profit and you don't have to do much, why not?

[Gregg Williams]

My understanding of this, tends to be to try an get as much of an upfront advance as possible. As its quite likely you'll not see any royalties. There is usually a ton of "costs" and other factors when it comes to retail that mean you hardly make anything per copy sold, and often there are expenses that have to be paid back from the sales before you even see this.

[Sergi]

Do you need followers, or do you need to make money? I think that's a big influential factor.

If you want more followers (or reputation or whatever you want to call it), then you'll want to maximize the amount of people you reach. If that means publishing in retail with almost no benefits, then so be it. It's a long bet, you delay your gratification.

If on the other hand you just want to make money out of the deal, then it's more about making the calculations and going with the best offer.

[aheydeck]

Well. Money is always good, and so are followers. At least for future games i'll make.

Thing is, i think it would be really really cool to see my game in shelves in game stores, with a case and everything. I just dont want to get ripped, that's all.

I guess 40% of something is better than 100% of nothing. But yeah, i should probably try to get as much as possible upfront. Just wonder if there is any shot of getting above 50% or if this is a business standard or something like that.

[TeeGee]

What Zenroth said. Don't worry about the royalty percentage and ask for an upfront payment as that's the only money you are ever going to see. Sadly, it's industry standard to never get any royalties from your retail sales.

[rivon]

What Zenroth said. Don't worry about the royalty percentage and ask for an upfront payment as that's the only money you are ever going to see. Sadly, it's industry standard to never get any royalties from your retail sales.

Do you have any experience or proof to back this or do you just pull this info from thin air?

[Gregg Williams]

What Zenroth said. Don't worry about the royalty percentage and ask for an upfront payment as that's the only money you are ever going to see. Sadly, it's industry standard to never get any royalties from your retail sales.

Do you have any experience or proof to back this or do you just pull this info from thin air?

I think its fairly standard when it comes to retail and royalties in general unless you end up with a bit hit.

Usually everything gets sold at wholesale, and then you also tend to have other associated fees. Like distribution, manufacturing, marketing, returns, and so forth which depending on your contract have to be paid back or reduce the sell price that your royalties are based on. Its quite like retail books, often authors are lucky to make 40 cents or a dollar per copy sold.

When you combine the general low level of income per copy sold, and general estimates of how many copies you believe might sell, it can often be best to just try an get a nice upfront advance.

I think actually Edmund McMillen gave a interview on State Of Play awhile back and talked about retail sales of Super Meat Boy / Binding of Isaac, and how they've basically seen no royalties accept for from one place or something.

In the end a lot of it just depends on the details of the contract.
 

[rivon]

All this info must be written in the contract. So OP has to carefully read from what his royalty will be calculated.

[aheydeck]

Thanks for all your answers.

I've gotten things explained to me, and they'll be sending me a contract draft (not 100 pages though).

I think i really have nothing to lose in doing this. I get to keep the IP rights, and all rights to sign whatever agreements i want for digital distributions of my game.

I'll get back to this thread with some conclusions after i sign the contract, for those of you who might be interrested.

 

[Schrompf]

I'd be interested in details. About which game are we talking?

My personal experience: I once got a 50/50 deal, keeping the IP and everything. But this is such a long time ago that I don't think it's of any worth today.

[TeeGee]

What Zenroth said. Don't worry about the royalty percentage and ask for an upfront payment as that's the only money you are ever going to see. Sadly, it's industry standard to never get any royalties from your retail sales.

Do you have any experience or proof to back this or do you just pull this info from thin air?

Yup. Good point. Should have mentioned I'm speaking from experience here. Seven years in video game industry. Several games by the last company I worked for were released in retail. We never saw any royalties, no matter what the contract said, how big was the distributor, or how well the game sold. Same thing for of other indies and small companies I know. Upfront fee is all you get in case of budget/indie/casual games. Maybe there are some exceptions, but I never encountered them, and I know it's the industry standard.

[Chris Koźmik]

What do you mean by "publisher"? I thought you need them nowadays for initial funding only, not for the royalties, because if you already have the funds to make the game you can market it yourself and not need any publisher for anything? With so many portals and digital distribution they simply can't give you anything you can't do yourself (from indie perspective).

I'm purely curious, no experience about publishers at all.

[Christian Knudsen]

Let's say i've been offered a deal where a publisher wants to sell my game on disc in stores, where my cut would be 40% of net revenue.

[Chris Koźmik]

Let's say i've been offered a deal where a publisher wants to sell my game on disc in stores, where my cut would be 40% of net revenue.

Me should read more carefully Thanks, now it's all clear.

[tametick]

I had to look again to see if this isn't a resurrected old thread.

People still buy games on discs? In stores? Didn't steam pretty much wipe out that market?

[aheydeck]

Well, now it out in the open. I signed with publisher Crimson Cow, who will sell my game Smooth Operators on boxed disc in retail shelves in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Release is set to Feb 28.

I negotiated a bit with both percentage and the guarantee, so lets see how it adds up in the end. =)

[Muz]

Ha, nice. Good work on getting a game out in stores.

[Schrompf]

Are you allowed to say some numbers? How much guarantee, and what percentage?

[Xienen]

From my limited experience/knowledge on the subject, I believe that when you're negotiating with a publisher, you are negotiating to receive a percentage of their profit, which is already a fraction of the money.  For example, the retailer often keeps 40%(or more) of the money, then the publisher takes out costs, which may cut out another 10% of the original retail price due to boxing, pressing discs, warehousing and shipping(typically handled by a distributor), etc; so that brings us down to 50% of the original, and if you get 50% of what the publisher makes(which is a lot, if memory serves me) then you would be getting 25% of the original retail price.

I believe that if you are getting 25% of the original retail price, then you're doing pretty good as far as publishing deals go.  And if you get guaranteed sales while getting a percentage that high, then you've signed a great retail deal.