Who do Oberon and TryMedia make money from?

[Grey Alien]

Do they make their money from the portals or the developer, or perhaps both? I haven't read all the small print, but if the portals are paying 35% for example and then Oberon/TryMedia take more, this would be less desireable than going to to the portals direct....any ideas? Thanks.

[arcadetown]

Not sure I understand the question but it's the classic self publish versus using a publisher question. If you self publish you get a larger % but probably less penetration whereas when using a publisher you get a smaller % and they may be able to push your title further. Oberon is like most publishers where the portal takes their cut and pays Oberon then Oberon pays out the developer on whatever negotiated schedule. An extra twist is Oberon runs the game channel for various web sites that don't care to run one.

[Grey Alien]

Thanks Brian. OK, I misunderstood how Oberon worked. I naively thought that they worked with the portals and got paid by the portals and didn't take a cut of the developer's portal royalities. In that case, going direct to the portals may be worth the extra effort. Also I don't want to sign any exlcusive contracts, do you think Oberon would try to get me to do that?

Guess I need to ask them about what % they take of the portal royalties...if it's quite small (unlikely haha) then it still may be worth it.

An extra twist is Oberon runs the game channel for various web sites that don't care to run one.
I don't really understand what this means. Can you elaborate please?

[ManuelFLara]

I don't really understand what this means. Can you elaborate please?
What he means is that Oberon decides which games go on some portals, and which ones don't; like MSN Games and others.

[Sirrus]

Actually, what he really means is that Oberon is the exclusive provider of titles to specific portals (such as MSN, France Telecom, etc.).
In short - for channels like that, you can *only* go through them.

Some places (like AOL) use a couple - Trymedia, Oberon, and GameHouse..but they dont run their own.

[Grey Alien]

got it thanks and well worth knowing.