Anyone can share experience on the steps of how to deal with publishers? May be even someone is working at publishing house and can give some pointers on how to submit game, design docs and whatever elso goes with it. What are usual mistakes made by game companies when submitting their game? Thanks in advance, Andrew

Check out the following two items. They should answer your questions (or most of them).

http://www.obscure.co.uk/the_pitch.shtml
http://www.obscure.co.uk/acquisition.shtml


Good luck


Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

Edited by - Obscure on July 26, 2000 7:34:35 PM

I agree with the articles, only one minor point:
I, for my part, normally call (phone or email) the responsible person within publishers company and tell them them that the demo/finished game XYZ is send and will arrive in the next days. I call back after two weeks and ask how they liked it.
HOWEVER (!) I am only talking about value market products here. I know a acquisition manager from a major full price publisher and he said it will need months (up to halve a year) before the final decision to take a product is made.

You should check out the articles at gamasutra.com. There are several about submitting to publishers, one of which has a checklist so you can evaluate how close your game is to being ready for submittal to a publisher.
I think the process varies quite a bit depending on the type of publisher (value or AAA) that you are aiming at. Some publishers (I think Hasbro is one) will not even consider 3rd party submissions that dont go through an agent. Others look at everything that is sent. Its pretty variable.

http://www.positech.co.uk

>Some publishers (I think Hasbro is one) will not even consider 3rd party submissions that dont go through an agent.

I have reason to believe this is wrong.

In the GDC2000 proceedings, Dan Lee Rogers writes:

How important is an agent?

David Etheredge (director of new business development at Hasbro): That totally depends on the group. For established groups with excellent credentials, an agent is purely a decision of economy. If you''re new to the business and don''t have contacts, then an agent could be the difference.

Now, while it is possible he''s being misleading, he did go on record saying that an agent isn''t absolutely necessary. (at Hasbro)

In contrast, Frank Pape (director of business and product development at EA) says to the same question: Important only if I can''t find it on my own. I also have to respect the agent. If I respect them and they aren''t trying to gouge me, then I''m generally interested.

$0.02

quote: Original post by Jester101
I know a acquisition manager from a major full price publisher and he said it will need months (up to halve a year) before the final decision to take a product is made.

To put it bluntly this company is hopeless. These ridiculous delays in making decisions are down to bad management. Many companies are so incapable of taking a risk or making a decision that they just wait. If the developer dies (because no one would fund them) then the publisher assumes (wrongly) that they would have failed anyway and so it was correct not to sign them. If the developer survives then the wait until the project is done and step in to publish at the end.
Anon - As for the Hasbro quote it actually came from their web site. I believe this information may be out of date now.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

Edited by - Obscure on August 1, 2000 7:07:55 PM

Edited by - Obscure on August 1, 2000 7:10:03 PM

The company I talked about is one of the major full price publishers and in the business for ten years and longer.

And they are hopelessly unprofessional. I worked for Virgin Interactive for 4 years and handled product acquisition. these are the stages you must go through.
Initial review - two weeks
Initial internal discussion - four weeks
Meet the developer - four weeks
Follow-up internal meeting four weeks
make a decision based on all the facts that you have gathered THREE MONTHS???
The problem is that people can''t or wont make a decision. They wont decide because their jobs are at risk if they bet on the wrong horse so it is safer not to decide. They also hope that if they wait the developer will finish the product and they can then pick it up with much lower risk. They also wont say "no" even if they don''t want a product. They just fob off the developer and hope they will go away, resulting in the developer thinking the product is in a very long approvals process.
bad management and unprofessional behaviour pure and simple.



Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

Ok.