I was talking with a member of my development team and we''re considering setting up a small publishing company. Possibly ESD, but definetly burn on demand. (I know myself as a gamer I feel better being able to hold the game in my hands)Anyways, what all is needed to run a simple publishing gig? We have a lot of connections so we feel we can give developers a pretty good deal. We''d give better royalty deals to those who distribute exclusively through us, but we think we can still give a good deal to those who would like to place their game on other sites and stuff. We''re hoping to get a few "in-house" developers too. Any comments, suggestions, or questions are welcome. Also anyone interested in working with us or possibly publishing through us feel free to speak up. Of course nothing can get published until we''re up and running. Flying Penguin Studios President and Lead Design

I''m quite interested in possibly working, possibly publishing, under you. Drop me a line at photon8280@lycos.com.

I''m interested also. Drop me a line at: clockworkmm@hotmail.com and we can discuss things further. But, some questions you might like to answer for everybody:

1. Is distribution part of the publishing deal
2. What kind of publishing is involved
3. Where are you based, and where can you distribute
4. Etc, etc

cheers,

Publishing isn''t exactly simple. You will need to sort out....

Marketing - you need to get developers to come to you and you need customers. To do that you will need to undertake (pay for) marketing.

Sales - You need an order fullfilment system to process orders. If web based you need a web site, which must be created and updated. You will also need to work out how much bandwidth you will need for each download as this costs money too. CC order processing will also be necessary.
If not web based then you have cost of goods (CDs, packaging, manual, envelops etc) and shipping to worry about. What countries do you ship to and what are the cost/tax implications for each of these.

Production - You need to ensure that you have everything you need for each game. You will have to produce or ensure that the developer produces demos, manuals, sales/marketing documentation.





Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

Just something to think about,
Why would a programmer come to you to sell their game, you need an edge which would make it worth while, for example a website with lots of traffic or enough money to advertise or better still both.

I''m not try to put you off because I think it would be great and if you did it maybe I''d use you to sell my game but I could make more money and get more recognition from an established site or even by putting a demo in the GameDev Showcase with a link to my site rather than a small web page with 30 hits a week.

My advise is GET YOURSELF A NAME, if you haven''t already because then I just wasted my time typing this

I think that sadly its all about having the money to get off the ground.

To answer freshya''s questions:

1. Yes distribution will be part of the publishing deal
2. Not sure exactly what you mean by this, but we plan to distribute through (possibly) ESD and burn on demand (meaning when an order comes in we burn the amount for that order) If it''s a popular game we''d probably step up production to keep ahead of demand. We also have many connections with gaming magazines and websites. With these connections we''d like to get games published by us featured in these, possibly interviews, etc. Everything is still very primative at the time so exact royalties and things like that are still undecided.
3. I''m based on the east coast (PA) and my partner is based on the west coast (OR) so we feel it''s a nice set up for distribution. If we go with ESD we''ll be able to distribute world wide. Even with burn on demand, world wide distribution is possible. After we have established ourselves we can begin to approach large retailers and web sites.

Hope that clears some things up. Also, those of you who have showed interest I will be emailing you sometime soon. As soon as a few more things are figured out. Thanks for the responces everyone.

Flying Penguin Studios
President and Lead Design

I just finished a game and would be interested in publishing with you if/when you get up and running. Drop me a line at cwesterbeek@yahoo.com

thanks!

cbeek