Publishing with Leading Planet

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by redfirm, Aug 6, 2011.

  1. redfirm

    redfirm Well-Known Member

    Oct 19, 2010
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    #1 redfirm, Aug 6, 2011
    Last edited: May 12, 2014
    Leading Planet is a publishing company focusing on indie developers. Our goal is to build a publishing brand that helps indie developers instead of taking their money.

    By publishing games under one roof we can create a brand that stands for quality and fun. Brand recognition gives consumers an extra buying boost because they know that the games we publish stand for a certain quality.

    We are currently looking for developers who are interested in publishing their game with us. You keep all the profits that your game makes and the game will always stay yours.

    We are currently looking for a maximum of 10 titles to publish for the Android and Ios Market.
     
  2. Dizko

    Dizko Well-Known Member

    Feb 24, 2011
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    Interesting, but how does that work from a business perspective?

    Typically, working with a publisher is about more than just brand power, it's about marketing and PR as well and putting that task in more capable hands.
     
  3. redfirm

    redfirm Well-Known Member

    Oct 19, 2010
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    #Dizko, thats correct, We will ofcourse take care of the marketing and let you as a developer focus on the game, the reason why i did not bring that up is because its not the main focus of the company. things like feedback and promotion are what we have always done,
     
  4. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    if for a publisher doing marketing is not one of the main focuses of the company then what is?

    don't quite understand.. especialy not how you guys want to earn money of 100% of the proceeds stay with the developer .. not that this is a bad thing for the devs.. but it lets a few ??? pop up..
     
  5. redfirm

    redfirm Well-Known Member

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    #5 redfirm, Aug 6, 2011
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2011
    @mr.ugly, well to be honest we dont. like i sayd we are investing to build a brand. currently its only investing for us. the main focus at the moment is to build a brand( this is our company's main focus ) so the deal is, indie devs help us to build a brand with their games, and we in exchange let them keep 100 percent of their profits.

    with not the main focus, i ment not the main focus of what our goal is. things like marketing and pr are part of what we do and what we always will do, but i think its more importent to be honest and tell the people who you might work with what we are reaching for

    if you have any questions please ask me so i can answer them :)
     
  6. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    so the main goal is to get "Leading Planet" into the heads of gamers as a publisher of (hopefully) good games.. similar to chillingo, crescent moon etc.

    not to be hostile (no hostility there just curiosity) but the 2 games you have there on your page sun vs earth and wing.. are judging by the stats complete flops.. so that rises the question how qualified you are to promote games and act as a pusblisher if you can't get your own games noticed..

    can't say anything about the quality of two the games but judging from the
    screenshots the don't really catch my interest.. your concept art for wing looks nice from the few things visible on the website but that does not transfer at all into the game..(imho)

    of course you just start to build your brand & company etc. and obviously also your inhouse productions.. but from my uneducation guess it lacks quality usualy attached to "big" publisher productions..

    again no hard fellings or so... just simple curiosity..

    on your website you say all you want is your logo (i assume as a splashscreen on loading etc.) in the games..

    but one can also be safe to assume you will be releasing the game under your developer account (leading planet i assume not bizon) , right?

    so maybe again.. what exactly are you offering the devs.. you say pr.. but that could mean sending out a 20$ press release on mac pr or even less..

    i would be interested how your basic pr strategies look like without the need to go into details here.. but outlining what you guys are gonna do..

    as for testing thats always good and nice but nothing you really need a publisher for , if for example you look into this community and the big amount of decent beta testers who helped out hunt bugs in diverse products..

    the big new office is surely not for the the publishing guys only but to stuff alot of devs into it for your own inhouse productions..

    so (assuming) with this scope would stuff like actual ressource sharing be possible.. or co developement etc, like for example cresent moon does?

    they heavily invest into upping the wuality of the games they publish.. they are not just slapping a logo onto your game and forcing you to implement crystal into it the game to push their own crappy social service.. opps not bashing any publisher here.. but a few really dropped the ball and only rely on their "brand"..

    question is what your guys goal is in this matter..

    lets hope i did not pesker you too much.. good luck guys..
     
  7. redfirm

    redfirm Well-Known Member

    Oct 19, 2010
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    Wow that was a long read :), no your corrrect Wing and sun vs earth are flops when it comes to marketing, the reason is, we did not market the games because they are not quality titels.

    like you sayd, we are moving to a large office, the reason is not because our current 2 titles are quality titles and sold a gazzilion times, its simple because we got the right network and the right funding to expand the company. we are currently working on 4 titles, 2 for the mobile market, 1 for the pc market and 1 i cant tell anything about right at the moment.

    to answer your question regarding resource, yes we will help the devs to polish their games, this is one of our stonger points and we have the manpower to do this. but this is only if a dev wants us to do so, we got a seperate contract for this and we do ask a little piece of the income depending on how mutch of the work we have done to a maximum of 40 percent.

    the games will indeed be published under Leading Planet, But there is no exclusivity, this means that developers are allowed to publish with other publishers if they want unless they close a custom deal with us.

    to just say a little about PR, we are currently talking with alot of blogs/review sites to close deals to promote all the games we release, i cant say alot regarding this because its still in early stages. we also got our social networks like twitter,facebook etc. our main account is not that huge, but we are planning to pay for tweets and fb posts.

    so, our goal is like i have sayd, to make Leading Planet a publishing brand with quality titles. Bizon Entertainments new titles will all be published under Leading Planet, and we will replace sun vs earth and wing once these titles are ready.

    i hope i have answerd all, if not most of your questions ?
     
  8. Attollos Technologies

    Attollos Technologies Well-Known Member

    Jun 20, 2011
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    Sent an email :) will be interested to see the response. I was quite surprised that nowhere on your 'Games' page is there an iTunes link to actually look at / buy the games.
     
  9. redfirm

    redfirm Well-Known Member

    Oct 19, 2010
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    Thank you attolos, you got a email back :)
     
  10. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    yes thank you.. its actualy quite refreshing to get straight answeres, where most other bigger companies (not mentioning names) play the hide& seek information game and act down from a mighty thrown that often doesn't even exist.

    cheers for that..
     
  11. swiftest

    swiftest Well-Known Member

    May 18, 2009
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    Here are some issues I see:

    The two games you self-published were admitted flops.
    Those two games lack polish, something you claim you will bring to the table.

    This doesn't inspire confidence that your company can do what it claims. While the new office digs are nice, it makes one wonder how you were able to obtain capital based on those two games alone. If anything, you should consider not associating yourselves with such flops. A blank slate is better than a broken one. Or prove it: polish those games to the level you'd offer developers. Consider it a loss leader. Think of the PR you could use by showing before and after photos.

    You claim you will give the developer 100% of the profits. Unless you're going to do RIAA/MPAA-style accounting where there is never a profit, this doesn't make any sense. It means from a business standpoint, you don't care whether the game makes money since you won't get anything out of it. This is odd. While the goal seems to be building up your brand, it smacks of desperation. Or maybe you mean profits = revenue from the game - your marketing budget. Still, it seems foolish not to incentivize yourself by taking some profits.

    Since you're starting from zero, if you really wanted to lure quality developers, you should offer a large upfront marketing budget that you could recoup by taking a smaller amount of the profits, say 10%. Then you've got some skin in the game. It'll make you be more selective about the titles you publish since you're going to risk your own money. If we ever decide to become a third-party publisher, this is what I'd do. Or if you have a proven track record of quality titles like Crescent Moon, then you won't have to spend as much on marketing since the news media will eat up whatever you put out.

    For us, we've decided to self-publish since we are in it for the long haul. Best of luck to you.
     
  12. redfirm

    redfirm Well-Known Member

    Oct 19, 2010
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    thank you for your feedback Swifttest, i wish you te best of luck as wel. Unlike mr,ugly you dont have any questions and seem to know everything already so please forgive me if i cant answer to your post :)
     
  13. redfirm

    redfirm Well-Known Member

    Oct 19, 2010
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  14. Pamx

    Pamx Well-Known Member

    Oct 9, 2009
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    Here's an idea - why don't you try out your marketing strategy on your own games first? That way, developers might be in a position to judge whether it's worth partnering with you or not.
     
  15. Dizko

    Dizko Well-Known Member

    Feb 24, 2011
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    I must say, I'm intrigued by the concept.

    Even with that said, I'm still a bit skeptical, not that I have anything close to being ready to publish that already isn't published.
     
  16. redfirm

    redfirm Well-Known Member

    Oct 19, 2010
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    @pamx thats exactly wat we are going to do :), but thank you for the input always love to hear what the community has to say.
     
  17. swiftest

    swiftest Well-Known Member

    May 18, 2009
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    I did make observations and suggestions, but apparently I must phrase them in the form of a question before you respond to them? And nowhere did I say I know everything which is rather condescending. Perhaps you should reconsider your public role considering your lack of "polish" in the grammar/English and public relations department. I am merely giving you a viewpoint from a developer's perspective which I suspect a great many might have, so if you don't want to address those issues and pretend they don't exist, that's your call.
     
  18. redfirm

    redfirm Well-Known Member

    Oct 19, 2010
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    @Swift, I think you are starting to take this personal based on your reaction. So from now on i wont comment on your posts or questions to keep this topic mature.

    @ Dizko You should indeed be skeptical, you don’t know us yet and we have not proven anything yet to be trustworthy, but we are doing our best to establish a name that you can rely on.
     
  19. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
    Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold

    ^^^^^^^^^^
     
  20. OliS

    OliS Member

    Jul 9, 2011
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    I'm not a developer so I'm not hugely qualified to comment on most of what you're offering. What I would say, to try and help you a little, is that if you want to project a professional image, you need to work on your spelling and grammar. If you want developers to place their trust in your company, and consumers to buy the apps that you publish, you need to sort out all of the problems like that. If a developer emails me with spelling errors etc. I can normally understand - language barriers etc. But if a publisher emailed me and they weren't even using correct grammar whilst promoting apps? Nah. Your site is also lacking in basic things like clear links to iTunes (I know there are some, but they're not particularly easy to locate). Screenshots, game trailers?

    I'd have to agree with Pamx too.

    (Also, be sure to include my site on your press list)
     

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