What royalties are most used for budget games, sold as cdrom standalone product in the retail market. Important to know is that the cdrom game is already finished. Someone with experience about this?

Very variable, a good deal might be 25% of the trade price, more common is 10-15%, the trade price isnt what it sells for in retail remember. Figure on getting $1 - $1.50 per copy and you won''t be too badly dissapointed.
These are rough figures, it depends on very many factors.

http://www.positech.co.uk

Thanks Cliff,

The publisher in my case said indeed that it is most used
that they give royalties of 10%. I agreed with it.
The game is sold as cdrom game in retail.
Only 10% looks a bit few, when the publisher gets
90%. I prefered 25%, but I am afraid that they
turn down the whole deal, if I ask it.
You know how publishers are these days.

In my opinion I should get a higher percentage,
because the game is developed on own costs.
But it''s still difficult to ask, because they could turn down the whole deal.
What do you think about it Cliff?

One thing I found out is that it''s difficult to live
from budget games. So it''s more a part time job.
But it gives satisfaction if you get your game
on the shelves and also online available.

And better or not, it''s nice to get profit, then to get no profit

consider that the one who takes 90% could be using a big part of that to promote it and the game may appear in lots of stores while the ones who takes 75% can do no promotion at all, sell it through another publisher and if they cannot deal with another publisher the game may just not appear anywhere and even if they sell some copies they can tell you that they didn''t and not paying anything to you.

Personaly I''m far from writing a game that can be published, but I would like to know how do you get your games published, and is it possible at all for a independent developer?


Endre

It definitley IS possible to get games published. 10% is pretty low, but if they ship enough units it can be ok. Its always worth trying to negotiate upwards. Sometimes people have an agreement that the %tage changes after a certain number of units are sold, so the first 10,000 sell for 10%, then 20% after that (when the publisher has made back all his costs and the game is a hit)If its your first game, you can look at it as an opportunity just to get a few bucks and a jewel case/boxed copy of your game you can use to negotiate a better deal for the next one (having a previously published game makes it easier for better publishers to take you seriously).

http://www.positech.co.uk

Try to call some small shops yourself. You''d be surprised how easy it is to get through...
Whether they take your product or not depends on the quality of your game too though. You don''t need to share then and you''ll never feel cheated also.
And if you sign anything anyway then go for either an advance or a non-exclusive contract or chances are good you''ll get ripped off.

Yep 10% seems pretty low for a finished game (little risk for the publisher). Also they don''t spend much on advertising budget games. These are impulse purchase products. You don''t see an ad for the latest budget title and think.... "hey I must day out and buy that $5.00 game".

There is also the issue of retail cost and its impact on royalties. Budget stuff in the UK sells for £5 - £10 ($3.50 - $6.00). The publishers share on $6.00 is probably around $4.00, minus costs ($1.00) means you get 10% of $3.00. That is no where near the $1.00 / $1.50 mentioned in the previous post, which is actually the royalty you would likely earn on a full price product.



Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

quote:
Budget stuff in the UK sells for £5 - £10 ($3.50 - $6.00).

Dan Marchant

I presume you mean don''t mean US dollars there?
If you do mean USD, shouldn''t it be the other way around..?
ie ($5 to $10) = (£3.50 - £6.00)

Philip Lutas
CEO of Optical Realities

UK budget games go from £2.99 to £14.99 but 14.99 is normally only for commercial games that have just gone to budget like UT a while back.