Since you bring it up, what exactly could the publisher do that you couldn't achieve yourself? If Apple doesn't feature you, the next best thing is being featured on websites on launch week. This isn't achieved with money, it's done with an interesting game and communicating with journalists. Banner advertising generates presence, but it generally doesn't directly convert to sales. And if your game isn't interesting to begin with, how much do you believe any publisher would be willing to spend in its advertising? Having a publisher is better than having no marketing at all, that isn't the point here. The relevant question is if you have any data to prove that a publisher has been able to significantly influence the sales of a game using methods that are not available to the developer willing to self-publish. Even if you sign with one, be prepared to create all the marketing assets yourself anyway from print posters to website banners to youtube videos. Publishers rarely create those assets for you unless you specify this in writing, and then it'll be something godawful made by an assistant marketing monkey who doesn't know anything about your game. So essentially you're asking someone else to post your game videos on YouTube and write emails for you. Please share a publisher success story if you have one, particularly if it involves massive banner advertising, TV commercials, print media ads or expo booth presence that can be directly accounted to a title's success.
I think they can help you get noticed. For example, sites like TouchArcade receive a lot of submissions, and they're probably likely to pay more attention to something coming from, say, Chillingo than from an unknown dev. From the media perspective, a publisher works as a pre-filter. If you got picked up by a publisher, they think, there's a higher chance that your game has some value to it. I also think that publishers are more helpful if you have a more hardcore game, where media coverage and advertising play a big role in the visibility of a game. Having said that, we haven't worked with a publisher for our iPhone games. We come from PC game development where you just can't do much without a publisher, so we think one of the greatest things of the AppStore model is cutting the middle man.
I think it's far less important to have a publisher now then it used to be before electronic distribution was the norm. If you're expecting to sell your Mac or PC game in retail stores, you should know that many publishers buy retail shelf space using product. Also a lot of publishers don't pay royalties for product given away to buy shelf space or for promotions. If you have this situation, your best bet is to establish a base amount that you will receive for each copy sold or given away. Rodney
Not to derail the topic... I noticed your ads, and clicked them, but you're just looking for beta testers? I don't really see why you'd use an expensive banner ad to get testers which you could get just by asking on the forums anyway. Is there something I'm missing?
Well, the sad fact is that banner-ads are INCREDIBLY inefficient when it comes to improving sales. I concider the whole thing more of a branding effort. Also: Having to buy the spot 2-3 months in advance means you won't always have something ready for sale. This leads us nicely back on topic as this is one of the advantages publishers have: They can secure ad space in knowledge that they always have something to sell.
What you don't take into account is the (potentially millions) of customers who will consistantly check (e.g Gameloft's) iTunes page for new games. If you are published by a large company like Gameloft (best example I have >_<) you are going to get more visibility simply because they are a company well known for quality (debatable) iPhone games.
Would you have any numbers to prove this claim? Particularly to prove that the share of revenue lost by having a deal with them is actually less than the revenue generated by the alleged additional visibility. It's also unknown if the big-name publishers even bother publishing little games if the developer doesn't sell the IP. Smaller publishers with less resources will try to own your IP if they can (and you're stupid to say yes), but will generally agree to only a revenue share. But again, these smaller publishers don't have the marketing budget of Gameloft, and may or may not even have an iTunes page of their own. Also remember that as a company your long-term value comes from how well your studio is recognized: you want your customers coming back to you for new games. If you publish through a third party, the games you develop are branded with the publisher's label.
I have no numbers, only what I have observed, believe me or not, your choice. I don't know if the increased visibility would outweigh the cost of having a publisher either, I would assume that it would depend on the publisher (and of course the app itself) And I wholeheartedly agree with your last paragraph, in my experience, the average consumer often doesn't know the difference between a developer and a publisher. I know quite a few people who think that Chillingo make all of the games that they publish, which is kind if sad in a way, but I guess it's just one of the drawbacks of using a third party company to publish your apps.
Ah, I see, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah I was looking into the same ads and finding out they're very sold out for a while. Good to know.
I think your stealthily promoting yourself here anyway I emailed Chillingo about their have you got a game to develop funding and they never replied not to mention a lot more publishers and studios I emailed not one of them even sent a first reply. Bloody rude I say. Some people with no finance need help of publishers and developers to get a game ( or ten) done before someone else comes out with the same bloody idea. Some people dream of riches instead of having to work in a bloody forced day job
Oh man... The indie games industry is very, very difficult. What "riches" are here are spread out very thinly, and you have to be absolutely willing to work your fingers to the bone if you want them. Just a fair warning. Don't get into games if you think that your ideas can be exchanged for instant wealth. What's more, I don't think any established developer is going to even want to talk to you unless you already have a great tech demo, at the very least. You can't just have a great idea -- you have to show that you can turn a great idea into a great game.
Word! One of the most insightful posts I've read! Having investigated the options ourselves this mirrors our findings exactly. We never ultimately wound up using a publisher for any of our titles, but here's some extra food for thought... Also be aware that your average publisher (not to be confused with EA and Gameloft whose awesome track records speak for themselves) definitely doesn't have a crystal ball and so their business is likely to be predicated on signing up as many independents as they can for anything from 10-40% commission in the hope of finding one or two gems, and then in all seriousness 'waiting' to see which of them floats to the surface. The one(s) that rise dramatically in the days following launch get 'real' attention while the others are unfortunately deemed the ones that didn't make it and are left to wander in app limbo - sacrificial lambs if you will This is not to say most publishers aren't good people that are passionate about games - it's just that ultimately they can't magically make your title more likely to succeed - it sinks or swims on its merits - and they can't be anywhere near as committed to your app and your success as you would like - they are a business first and foremost. The biggest (and sometimes only) advantage on offer is that of branding. The benefit inherent in leveraging their brand to expose your title to their large pool of existing customers all of whom will have come to associate 'their' business with apps of a particular quality (good or bad If you are starting out, and IF the price asked is fair, AND you get it clearly stipulated what exactly they will do for that money, then it could be worthwhile in some circumstances. Just go in with your eyes open, with clear and realistic expectations, and be resolute that you are in the driving seat and know what you want to get out of the deal. Oh and never never take your hand off the wheel! Anything a 2nd or 3rd tier publisher might do to aid your cause should be in addition to what you yourself plan to do, and not a substitute for. It should be a way to double down on your efforts as insurance.
Sounds like the problem right there. Most people earn their riches with hard work, starting off busting their asses in a bloody forced day job. You can't sit around dreaming and wait for someone to help you.
Thumbs up for Chillingo here. while Johnny wasn't quite interested in a feasibility study we showed him, he was charming and professional. I like the man. Your mileage may vary with a publisher, but I suspect the answer to this thread is that it will depend on your game at the end of the day, publishers can help but they are not a magic bullet.
Seems to me like in the long term, going with a publisher would ultimately hurt you and your company name. As mentioned before, many people associated the publisher with the game's developer, especially as much as they require their stuff to be branded all over every game (chillingo for ex has their name all over every screen shot of "their" games, intro logo, etc). My feeling is if you have a game good enough to be published, its probably good enough to get at least a little bit noticed, and then you can start building your own reputation and cross promoting between your own games. If you go through a publisher, your company name is basically replaced (to the majority of buyers eyes' at least) with the publishers name, and it will just take that much longer to start building up a solid reputation.
I don´t claim the following isn´t colored in black and white or unbiased, so bear with me to the culminating point. Additionally to the posts on this page, which I find downright to the point of it, I´d like to throw in some additional thoughtfood. Being in the digital age we are, I really don´t see any need for most of the distributors. In a historical frame Publishers own the facilities to produce hardcopy products, that is: actual physical copies of Music Ablums, Books, and Games etc. Then the publisher or your manager who has some contacts inside of Magazines etc. sent a hardcopy to those Magazines which had limited space for reviews, long preproduction cycles and a somewhat limited time window, like weekly or monthly. The value of their review was much much higher than today. The internet put a hard test on both. Today you can distribute all the above digitally from you home over your home server. In the case of iPhone Apps Apple is already acting as a distributor. So this channel is off the worry-list anyway. And for the Information: it has much faster turnaround times on the web nowadays, like in forums - like TA. What these forums, blogs and web-magazines ultimately NEED is news to drop in continuosly, at least one articla per day to stay in the attention of visitors and build a reader base. So WHAT can an additional distributor PR company do for you? - they charge you for contacting those news-needing internet news sites, you can contact on your own. - they make advertisement to most certainly the same conditions that you get (in the end). - By default they cannot spend more on PR than they get from their sales cut from your game. And if they get a discount for mass advertisement you as single developer have no benefit from it, because you have to share the mass advertising with all the other clients from that PR company. - For making adverts they rely on the same graphic sources and artworks you already used for developing your game. IF they do extra artwork / advertisement design for you they want money for it. - While they have a easy life with just cycling the adverts over the months, you, the developer has all the work with updates and bug fixes, maybe even with creating additional content. They get money for nothing. ... I am sure I already forgot some points while writing this. What remains, is the expertise the PR company can offer, which may or may not be adequate for your game. Each company has it´s strength and weaknesses considered there knowledge of the market. There is no "one fits all"! Which brings us the the next point through a small field trip: In the `music industry` your best bet to get the RIGHT publicity is contacting a specialized labels. Because these labels know how THEIR market niche works. And the audience is more inclined to buy because they can know their tastes will be served. Big Majors can neither care enough for the specialized artist nor do they know enough of a certain market niche to approach it properly. For iPhone Apps there is merely a way to get the proper RPG-, Puzzle-, SHMUP-Channels. So you must approach your audience in a wide array. This is also something a add. Distributor /PR Company cannot optimize for you. Their `large user database` is worth nothing. And IF they can put together such information as personal user profiles for advertisement it´s illegal. I know games work different but I hope you can see the point I am trying to make. This also does not mean iPhone distributors doing a bad job or small labels do everything right, always. The point I am trying to make is more like this: the digital market has given you freedom to express yourself to the world with the least effort possible. In my book there is nothing a digital iPhone Publisher can do for me that I can`t do myself, IF I do my homework! Which should be perfectly possible if you are not totally dumb. As Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails simply put it: "Give your audience a reason to buy + connect to fans = $$$$$$$" (which means for iPhone apps (IMHO): put A LOT of effort into optimizing and tweaking your game + get into forums, make a gameplay video on youtube! buy some ads in specialized web-magzines at some time) Oh, and make a interesting homepage about it! People will more likely recognize you `brand` when they know a few things about you. so what I wanted to say in the short version is: the internet has given you freedom of expression big time - why tangle up in additional contracts and throw it away just because you shun some additional work? Sorry, I just HAD to get that off my mind.
we signed... Some + -Big publisher give you acces to big website...Sign with chillingo, gameloft and other an you are almost certain to have acces to touch arcade front page... -Big publisher usually have good relationship with apple. So your review process is faster and you got easier acces to news and noteworthy or features... -Big publisher show and explain you re game to the journalist... instead of you sending a review code that they maybe use if you re lucky. -They have an army of secure beta tester instead of the next random game from a forum... -They can port or help you to port your game on otherplatform (psn, palmpre, etc) Some - -They take a share of the money -Some company (gameloft) own the right to the game after you re signed.so they can do a sequel without you. -Once you signed you sold you soul to the devil
Based on my experience, I would say you definitely DO NOT need a publisher to go far in the App Store. My game Trainyard is currently #3 (behind only Cut the Rope and Angry Birds), and I've probably spent less than $250 on marketing. You can read the full story of Trainyard's development here: http://struct.ca/2010/the-story-so-far
This isn't really the case. We do get a ton of email, but I go through all of it every day. I also have a few other systems (some automated, some not so automated) to make sure I never miss anything that's even vaguely popular on the forums, Twitter, or other iPhone sites. If your game is being talked about anywhere, or looks cool, it's almost always on our radar somewhere. We might try it and not like it, but awareness is rarely an issue for us. I spend a ridiculous amount of time making sure of this. Publishers and PR firms pitch us junk games sometimes too, so it's not like having them send us an email accomplishes anything more than you just sending us one yourself. Sure, publishers might offer a bit of a filter for us, but 9 times out of 10 the truly amazing iPhone games are ones that come out of left field that either get talked up on the forums or scroll across my AppShopper new release RSS feed. Maybe, but the way you did your forum banner ads was incredibly unique. I thought the first one was kind of stupid, not realizing it was going to be a whole series. People take notice of stuff like that, and while you might not have seen a gazillion click throughs, I think that did wonders for your overall brand recognition among forum regulars who were able to see the progression of ads. Of course, I could be giving people too much credit in that they actually viewed the ads, but who knows. Maybe, but here's a counter-example of that: Rogue Planet Agharta Studio New update! Try out the ONLINE MULTIPLAYER mode and go up against players from around the world, 24 hours a day! Play up… $4.99 Buy Now Watch Media DetailsNew update! Try out the ONLINE MULTIPLAYER mode and go up against players from around the world, 24 hours a day! Play up to 32 games simultaneously in 3G or Wi-Fi. Already universally acclaimed for the quality of its single-player mode, with this update Rogue Planet is now the ULTIMATE turn-based strategy game on the App Store! *** “Rogue Planet is one of the best turn-based strategy games we have played on the iPhone.” SlideToPlay 4/4 MUST HAVE *** “For fans of the genre, Rogue Planet should be a no-brainer. For genre newcomers, Rogue Planet makes an excellent point of entry.” - No Dpad *** “Tons of maps and missions in both quick play and story mode will keep you glued for hours.” – IGN 8/10 Plunge into this unique turn-based strategy game set in a futurist world. Take command of unbelievable battles in Solo and Multiplayer modes! - A BREATHTAKING STORY MODE: Discover the story through numerous cutscenes. Complete 19 campaign missions to defeat the machines and take back Earth! - GET READY FOR ENDLESS FUN! Quick Play mode features 34 maps: 19 from Story mode, and 15 new ones playable with 2 different armies and 3 difficulty levels. - MULTIPLAYER MODE: Face your friends' armies via local Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection. With the latest update, play online with players from around the world: up to 32 games simultaneously in 3G or Wi-Fi! - REALISTIC ENVIRONMENTS AND ANIMATIONS: Sci-fi visuals and 3D backgrounds provide maximum immersion in the game. - OPTIMIZED GAMEPLAY: Touch the screen to select your units, zoom-in or rotate the game field. - A LIVELY SOUNDTRACK for a unique feeling of intensity: Epic themes, shouting soldiers and mechanical sound effects give life to your army! Certain apps allow you to purchase virtual items within the app and may contain third party advertisements that may redirect you to a third party site. Information Seller:Agharta Studio Genre:Action, Strategy Release:Nov 23, 2009 Updated:Oct 11, 2010 Version: Size:0.0 TouchArcade Rating:Unrated User Rating: (4) Your Rating:unrated Compatibility:HD Universal Rogue Planet was an -awesome- game, it blew us away in previews, leaving people on the forums drooling... Then they got picked up by Gameloft and went completely dark until Gameloft started promoting them months later. They just had a MASSIVE update adding online multiplayer, and aside from the post I made on it, I haven't even noticed it being mentioned anywhere else. Anyway, as usual I agree 110% with everything Frand has to say. bigbadbrush Well-Known Member Oct 8, 2010 245 0 0 Gamers ON, Canada http://www.bigbadbrush.com #40 bigbadbrush, Oct 14, 2010 We're in a bit of conundrum with this exact same situation too. We've recently been approached by 2 BIG publishers that represent a good chunk of the two 25 apps. If we go with them, I know people will consider our game, but if not, it might be glanced over. So far we've been handling all the marketing ourselves: - Creating press releases - Emailing ALL review sites (some sites published, some no) - Chatting on forums and making people aware - Constantly on social network sites creating buzz - Create Youtube channel with video As you can see, we're doing everything we could as an indie but because no one knows us, not everyone will care as much. Today for example, Chillingo announced their new Fall line up games, and instantly, articles were created by review sites all over the place. My twitter page was flooded by people who were passing on the article, and buzz was created instantly. I looked at the games, and some were good and others were average. I think ours could definitely compare, but the fact that it was an announcement from Chillingo, it caught everyone's attention. Now being in the situation we're in, an indie with limited $, and no marketing experience, we're very tempted to go with a publisher. (You must log in or sign up to post here.) Show Ignored Content Page 2 of 3 < Prev 1 2 3 Next > Share This Page Tweet Your name or email address: Do you already have an account? No, create an account now. Yes, my password is: Forgot your password? Stay logged in
We're in a bit of conundrum with this exact same situation too. We've recently been approached by 2 BIG publishers that represent a good chunk of the two 25 apps. If we go with them, I know people will consider our game, but if not, it might be glanced over. So far we've been handling all the marketing ourselves: - Creating press releases - Emailing ALL review sites (some sites published, some no) - Chatting on forums and making people aware - Constantly on social network sites creating buzz - Create Youtube channel with video As you can see, we're doing everything we could as an indie but because no one knows us, not everyone will care as much. Today for example, Chillingo announced their new Fall line up games, and instantly, articles were created by review sites all over the place. My twitter page was flooded by people who were passing on the article, and buzz was created instantly. I looked at the games, and some were good and others were average. I think ours could definitely compare, but the fact that it was an announcement from Chillingo, it caught everyone's attention. Now being in the situation we're in, an indie with limited $, and no marketing experience, we're very tempted to go with a publisher.