Negotiating contracts with Publishers

[Pallav Nawani]

While reading the thread started by Total Eclipse (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=4424) it occured to me to ask here about negotiating contracts with publishers. I am quite inexperienced with this, never having done this before. What is the typical deal you can expect to get with a typical publisher, given that you have developed the game with your own resources?

1. Is it usual to advance money to the developer?
2. How is the profit usually split? Do you get a 50/50 Profit split or something like that?
3. What kind of rights the publisher usually get? Is it usual for the publisher to get exclusive rights for all kind of distribution (even from your own website)? Is there any benefit to an exclusive deal?

I realise that contracts will vary wildly from publisher to publisher, I just want to have a better understanding of this so I can avoid shooting myself in the foot :D

[James C. Smith]

Are you really looking for a publisher or do you just want some retailers (a.k.a. portals) to sell you game?

[Emmanuel]

A deal where you keep the right to sell it on your own website, and the publisher has the rights for all other third parties, is common practice. This is the deal I have with BFG for Atlantis, and I understand that this is the deal that Raptisoft has with Popcap for Chuzzle. I can't speak for Raptisoft but it works well for me; BFG have done serious effort in promoting the game. It seems that Popcap gave Chuzzle a good push too (and the fact that it's a fantastic game helped it stay in the top tens everywhere, to be sure).

I know this is a commonplace saying, but I always strive to apply this: when you're talking to a publisher about a deal, try your best to find something that makes everyone happy. If the publisher ends up making a lot of money with your title, so do you, and they will have the incentive to invest in more promotion, keep it really prominent on their portal (like BFG are doing with Atlantis) and they will have money to give you for rights to publish your future titles. (if you're in it for the long haul anyway)

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[Pallav Nawani]

Are you really looking for a publisher or do you just want some retailers (a.k.a. portals) to sell you game?
I am somewhat undecided. A publisher would be able to get the game into many more portals than I could, but selling directly through portals should give me better percentages. All said and done, I guess I would prefer to go with a publisher, especially if I get the right deal.

[arcadetown]

If you're into making deals and marketing I suggest doing like Retro64 and make deals all over the place, on non-exclusive basis (like with ArcadeTown for example). If not then suggest doing like FunPause with Atlantis/BFG, MumboJumbo with Luxor/Gamehouse, etc... retain rights to distrubute from your site and perhaps Reflexive's affiliate system, let publisher distribute everywhere else.

All boils down to your game, if it's good you'll have many options, if not then...

[KNau]

To answer your other question, in the portal world it is rarely if ever a 50/50 split. 35% for the developer seems like the average and no advances offered, ever. 50/50 I've only seen in retail deals - even then only with smaller publishers.

I would be wary about going through a publisher / agent to get on portals. 35% is a small enough piece of the pie without having yet another parasite sucking away at the revenue you generate. If your game is good you will have no problem getting on all the major portals without a 3rd party representing you.

A portal that asks for exclusivity is sucking wind! Don't ever take it unless maybe it's Yahoo, Pogo or possibly Real Arcade and they're guaranteeing you a feature spot for at least one month and even then put a time limit on it of no longer than 4 months. Otherwise it's not worth it.

Few to none of the other "portals" are going to generate enough money to warrant exclusivity. Most of them will barely equal what you could do selling from your own site.

[Nexic]

A publisher would be able to get the game into many more portals than I could.

That's not really all that true. Whilst the publisher might have better relationships with a portal I doubt that would help anything but a borderline game get in. If the game is good enough a portal will take it regardless of who is publishing it. Unless of course we are talking about sites that exclusively use one company to supply games to them (like yahoo). In that case you could still work with the supplying company on a non exclusive basis.

Though take Alawar for example. You would have the benefit of the game appearing on their site as you won't be very likely to get a non exclusive deal with them these days. Some other publishers also work like this.

As for split you should expect 20%-50%. Again this depends on how good your game is, and how big the publisher is.