When to submit your game....

[Ant]

Hi, I'm in preproduction at the moments and about to to move into full production of my first indie game within 2 or 3 weeks . My question is this - at what point do you guys start to submit your game to the likes of iWin / bigfish etc - do you wait until you have a finished game, or do you send them a work in progress demo?

Thanks for any help!

[ErikH2000]

Just finish it first. It's hard to imagine that people running portals like you mention would want to deal with you until your game was finished. Waste of time for you and them both.

-Erik

[Coyote]

Finished games only. No doubt on that one.

[Chris Evans]

Yep. Especially if it's your first title, you're better off submitting your game when it's finished. Also, it's very likely when you think it's finished, it's probably still more like a beta. The more complete you can get the game, the better.

Portals receive tons of games on a daily basis and first impressions mean a lot. If you send them a rough early game you'll either get rejected or you'll have no negotiation leverage. Also, once you're on a portal, it's pretty much a one shot deal. If your game does poorly, within a couple of weeks you'll be on a back page or off their game list entirely. Submitting updates won't do much good assuming they'll even accept them. Because of this you're better off tweaking and updating the game on your site first before submitting to portals.

If you're an experienced developer or have prior business with a particular portal, then in some cases it's okay to give them a sneak peak of your game to get some feedback. But I've noticed even the experienced developers usually wait till their game is in beta before showing it around.

[Ronkes]

At Casuality (http://www.casuality.org/) last week, I talked to one of the PopCap guys about this very topic. Keep in mind, though, that we were talking about a publishing deal, not just getting on a single portal.

His advice went something like this. Get your game as far along as you can with the resources you have available. So, if you need to hire an artist to do the graphics for you, you might hold off on that. There are two reasons for that.

First, it's rare that PopCap get to see a game they think is actually finished. Usually they'll say something like: "Nice idea, but you need to work on this and on that. Just another month or two and your game will be done." That might mean redoing a lot of work you paid someone else to do, and that would be a shame.

Second, if PopCap really believe in your idea, they might give you an advancement on royalties to outsource some of the work.

So, in summary:

Get your game as far along as you can.
Don't outsource yet.
Expect to hear that you need to work on your game some more.


Disclaimer: this is what I was told as I remember it. Trust my memory at your own risk. ;)

[Ant]

Ok thanks guys for the advice. On a related note, could you check my understanding of portal and publisher - I'm assume that the publisher handles your QA, assists in localisation issues while the portal hosts and advertises your title, handles payments etc? With companies like Popcap and BigfishGames etc they seem to do both? Could someone clarify this for me please?

Thanks!

[Sirrus]

Ok thanks guys for the advice. On a related note, could you check my understanding of portal and publisher - I'm assume that the publisher handles your QA, assists in localisation issues while the portal hosts and advertises your title, handles payments etc? With companies like Popcap and BigfishGames etc they seem to do both? Could someone clarify this for me please?

Thanks!

You are generally correct in your first assumption. Publishers (if they take your product) assist in QA, Localization, handling portal deals, and sometimes financing. Portals simply host your game on their site and take payments.

Portals only rarely do both. PopCap is not a mass game portal like Big Fish or Real Arcade - so they give it the full treatment. The former *typically* just list the game.

[Dan Prigg]

For Real at least, I do try to encourage developers to at least alpha. But part of that alpha should be a clear understanding of what the final product should be. I can always help a game earlier (producers, resources, testing, etc) if I am aware of it early on.

Dan

[ErikH2000]

Wow, I would not have thought that Real or Popcap would want to look at games before they were finished. I guess I've learned something new.

(No sarcasm here. I actually am surprised.)

-Erik

[Sharpfish]

Wow, I would not have thought that Real or Popcap would want to look at games before they were finished. I guess I've learned something new.

(No sarcasm here. I actually am surprised.)

-Erik


The only thing that suprises me is the difference between them and the retail industry who usually REFUSE to look at game demos for fear of being sued should they go on to develop a similar (yet totally coincedental) title.

Surely there must be proper contracts in place BEFORE any exchange of IP even just for review? Not sure it's wise for a first time dev or any developer without enough "presence" to do anything with their first game other than sell it themselves first, maybe 3-6 months, and then consider submitting to portals if you think your game will fit in.

Obviously once you are more established (and have contacts) you know how to "play the game" properly and there is a certain amount of trust. When you are an unknown (like most of us who haven't released games yet) I'm not sure we have any bargaining powers or even security in these issues.

[Ant]

My background is in designing games for the more 'conventional' retail industry (box on a shelf). If you are talking to 3rd party's about new concepts, or showing demos, NOTHING is demonstrated without a mutual (ie protects both party's) NDA.