I've worked on a game to the degree where I'd feel comfortable selling it in a few weeks, and I wanted some advice on how to go about it. Its not an AAA game by any means, but people have expressed interest in playing it in negligence of their girlfriends, and that says profitable to me. My target aim is to "Pay the rent for a few months" - so make something between $400 and $700. And I'd like to do so as quickly and surely as possible, with little risk assumed. Ideally, I'd like to sub-contract a marketing professional to do all the marketing research and implementation in exchange for commission on units sold - Say between 15-30%. Does that make sense? Are there people with backgrounds in marketing interested in such a proposition? Should I offer less or more?

Hi Sean,

Congratulations on making your first game. Now comes the hard part. You wrote:

>My target aim is to "Pay the rent for a few months" - so make something between $400 and $700.

I assume that's "per month"?

>And I'd like to do so as quickly and surely as possible, with little risk assumed.

Good luck with that!

>Ideally, I'd like to sub-contract a marketing professional to do all the marketing research and implementation in exchange for commission on units sold

I've never heard of that approach before. The approaches I have heard of are enumerated in this article. Good luck.

if you want to do it "quickly and surely" you better have a good game on your hands, good enough to get featured on one of the many popular gaming portals such as realarcade. so I would try to sell it to them, or perhaps sell it to an online publisher such as popcap or steam (you will be paying a lot more then 30% for this luxury, but it pays off big time in exposure, and there is unlikely to be an upfront financial investment (the publisher assumes more of the financial risk involved).

yes, this would likely take longer then selling it on your own, but the difficulty selling, and associated advertising costs would increase risk, and lower the expected gain (in most circumstances).

Quote:

Original post by seanmusgrave My target aim is to "Pay the rent for a few months" - so make something between $400 and $700. And I'd like to do so as quickly and surely as possible, with little risk assumed.

The quickest way to make the target would be to find someone willing to pay approx. $500 for all rights to the game; you hand over all rights to the IP (copyright, trademark, etc.) for them to sell as they wish in return for a lump sum. If your game is pretty good that doesn't sound too infeasible.

If you want to keep IP rights (which would be understandable!), then it will take longer to make money through sales. My understanding is that most indie games that make money do so over the long term, with small but steady sales over a course of years.

If you want some recommendations on sales affiliates and marketing for online sales, it wouldn't hurt trying the IndieGamer forums. Due to the nature of indie game development many of the regulars there have first hand experience with online sales, and will be able to help you better than I can. A couple of the sellers are regulars over there too, and will be able to help you.

Hey Tom! I've read your articles for forever so its pretty cool hearing from you.

I didn't mean 'per month', I meant 'once off' - That's not a good return on time invested, but for me it would make my little side hobby considerably more enriching.

I'd go with trapper zoid's suggestion if you're just needing fast cash and not really concerned with long term profits. Just put together a quick sale package and see if anyone wants to buy the whole game, rights and all.

Maybe sell copies to these "people" who have expressed interest in playing it... and tell them to spread the word. Free advertising and you already get some initial sales from people you know.

Quote:

Original post by seanmusgrave Its not an AAA game by any means, but people have expressed interest in playing it in negligence of their girlfriends, and that says profitable to me.

Did any of those people actually pay for it? Playing a game for free is totally different from paying to buy it.

You may want to read some articles at Sell More Games blog. This should help you not only sell your first, but also coming soon games :)

http://www.anawiki.com/sellmoregames


cheers
Roman

Where would be a good place to sell rights to a game? =) I wouldn't mind doing that.

Quote:

Original post by FounderSim Where would be a good place to sell rights to a game? =) I wouldn't mind doing that.

It's not a "place" where game rights are sold. The question you ought to be asking instead of "where" is "how" and "to whom." You have to do research, find publishers who publish games like yours, and for whom your game would make a good addition. Then you have to contact them. This is not secret stuff. There are articles. One for example is http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson21.htm