Indie Friendly Publisher

[Parrothead]

Hi All -

I am new to this forum, but a member of the gaming community for as long as I can remember. I have a friend who is an industry veteran (going back nearly 25 years) and we have discussed creating a publishing arm for independent developers to help bring quality games and/or applications to the mass market. He currently is a partner in a publishing/development company that is Nintendo approved (just released a game on the DS). They also specialize in mobile gaming with a focus on the "casual" gamer.

My questions are:

Are there any other Indie friendly publishing companies out there? If so, how many? And, will they take your creation to mass market?

As an independent developer, what would you want to see in a publishing partner? What would your dream situation be? I would imagine creative control, handsome royalties and maintaining ownership of your creation.


We envision a company that will take game submissions (supplying contracts and confidentiality agreements to protect you, of course), running them through a focus group (made up of gamers) to determine their mass appeal, and ultimately getting them published and out to the world and paying a very generous royalty to keep the submissions coming.

I discussed with him the need for more originality and creativity in today's gaming and he agreed. He has been in the industry since forming a well known computer gaming company back in the early 80's and has worked with or consulted for many of today's developers and publishers. He has considerable contacts and pull within the industry.

I am just wanting to gauge interest in such a venture. Please let me know what you all think. I appreciate it.


Mike Kennedy
Southern California

[TimS]

Are there any other Indie friendly publishing companies out there? If so, how many? And, will they take your creation to mass market?

Are there any? Sure, depending on who you call indie... Ranging from those super-friendlies like GarageGames, and possibly BigFish to the also-friendly Playfirst, Merscom and Oberon... there's no shortage of publishing companies out there...

As an independent developer, what would you want to see in a publishing partner?

Customer eyeballs. The independant developer wants sales, and that pretty much means people coming to try out the game, which pretty much means portal deals. If you are a well-established partner with Yahoo, MSN, RealNetworks... not to mention the retail channels.... then your publishing deals will be what the developer wants.

What would your dream situation be? I would imagine creative control, handsome royalties and maintaining ownership of your creation.

Creative control and high royalty rates are fun, but it'll hardly matter if the above-mentioned things aren't in line... GarageGames is a good example (or was... they're moving toward trying to become a larger portal now...). I'd probably sooner sign a 15% deal with someone who is likely to move me onto WalMart's shelves and Yahoo and MSN's gaming pages instead of of newish publishing company offering 50% to publish me in the random voids of small-internet world. Is there money to be made off of the 50% deal there? Sure! But it isn't as much, most likely.

We envision a company that will take game submissions (supplying contracts and confidentiality agreements to protect you, of course), running them through a focus group (made up of gamers) to determine their mass appeal, and ultimately getting them published and out to the world and paying a very generous royalty to keep the submissions coming.

This is fun and happy... but you glazed over the important part with "getting them published and out to the world". Can you go into more detail about this new venture and what that'll mean? Manifesto Games had a similar tagline recently, but didn''t seem to have the marketing muscle to bring it to people in any real way.

Do you have a plan for such things? If so... you may have a winner on your hands.

-Tim

[Parrothead]

Tim -

Thanks for the insight. I would not even attempt a venture like this without a good contact in the industry. After lengthy discussions with him we have ideas that could very well bring Independent Developers games to the store shelves. He is also wanting to kick around down-loadable content to the popular consoles and handheld devices of today.

As I indicated, they are currently heavy into mobile gaming and have recently launched a very successful DS product - Touchmaster DS. I explained to him there is a somewhat untapped market of creativity in the gaming world, but its at the ID level and many of those games are very addictive and marketable on a large scale. It is really something he hadn't considered before. And they should come at a fraction of the cost of many of todays over-produced games.

We will be having more discussions in the coming week. I will try and keep everyone informed on our progress. All input from you developers is greatly appreciated. Are any of you in the Southern California area?

Mike Kennedy
Southern California

[voxel]

We envision a company that will take game submissions (supplying contracts and confidentiality agreements to protect you, of course), running them through a focus group (made up of gamers) to determine their mass appeal, and ultimately getting them published and out to the world and paying a very generous royalty to keep the submissions coming.

Are you funding any of the development?

If not, you need to provide why indie studio X should sign up with you after spending their own cash making a game. The studio/developer is looking for the largest distribution with the best royalties.

If you are funding, sounds great!

[sillytuna]

As has been pointed out, there are various indie friendly publishers out there, and actually one or two more some of you don't know about. It's something we looked into ourselves quite heavily.

Some of the big publishers are also having a good look now as well - it's a way to create new IP.

There are pros and cons to indie-friendly publishers on both sides of the coin. It's not for everyone. Feel free to PM me.

[Adrian Cummings]

Sounds good but I agree there has to be something that would attract the developer/studio to you (funding being the big appeal one of course).

[Parrothead]

Are you funding any of the development?

If not, you need to provide why indie studio X should sign up with you after spending their own cash making a game. The studio/developer is looking for the largest distribution with the best royalties.

If you are funding, sounds great!

How many of the current publishers used by the ID community actually fund development? When you all mention funding development, are you asking for "shared" development costs or total development costs?

Ultimitely, We want to create a publishing arm that gives the ID what he/she wants so that we build up a good reputation for treating the ID's right -- so you keep coming to us with more quality and original gaming creations. If the game is high quality, and is determined to have mass appeal then funding a games development ( in whole or in part ) should not be that big of a deal.

Are ID's developing games for all the current home consoles including Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP. Or just Xbox live, Nintendo DS and portals since they are smaller formats and I would imagine more in line with the types of games you all are creating? Just curious.

How many ID's do you think are floating around out there in the world? How many ID's games are floating out there in the world? Hundreds, Thousands?

Keep the comments coming. I would be very interested in talking with any local ID's in Southern California. We also have a couple bid ideas for bringing Indie developed games to the forefront. Stay tuned.

Thanks again.

Mike Kennedy

[Adrian Cummings]

Advance on royalties for exclusivity is a good one for starters

Hundreds of good ones and Thousands of not so good ones in reality but then we all had to start somewhere yes?

Er indie PS3 development, I don't know of any of those personally - it's a different ball game?

[datxcod]

I think getting complete funding from a publisher is a little bit extreme, indies should fund their games, not for nothing they're called indies (maybe if the game is in the final stages a little bit of funding to polish the game shouldn't harm anyone. Developers will have to pay the money back to the publisher anyway). If you can't fund your first game then it's too big, make something smaller that way you'll get money to fund your next one. As voxel said, indies are looking for the largest distribution with the best royalties. Also I'm going to add a few myself : Don't pack games into combos (how much money can a developer make with this anyway?), let developers have a link to their site and logo from their company inside their games (most publishers don't allow this) or maybe a small link in the description of the game in the portal's website. Somehow find a way of rotating a list of all the games in a certain category, not just show the top selling/new games.

[voxel]

Are ID's developing games for all the current home consoles including Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP.

Very few - of the ones I know personally or via connections - they usually mortgage their house or had significant savings from the sale/stock of a previous game studio.

It's an expensive endeavor to make a console games for the X360/PS3/Wii. It can be done "cheap-ish," but the question is why? You are just setting up yourself for failure (if you understand how the console business works - lots of games lose money and lots get canceled).

For the XBLA, PSN, WiiWare markets - low-cost / indie games are the norm. Actually DS and PSP development costs are very low also...

How many of the current publishers used by the ID community actually fund development? When you all mention funding development, are you asking for "shared" development costs or total development costs?

A significant amount of cash or significant advance royalties.

The current problem is - most big publishers want IP in exchange for development cash. They WILL fork out millions (royalty advance) but take ownership. An indie publisher that lets the developer keep IP (or joint) and provide development cash would be great. Unfortunately, I don't think any publisher does this - especially with an unproven indie developer.

So in the end, an unproven indie developer who self funds their game... why would they come to you? You have the biggest distribution and best PR / marketing!

[Bad Sector]

Personally i think PR/marketing is (currently) more important than having the biggest distribution because what you want is people to buy your game (and if PR is good the distribution will grow over time). In fact in your current state (and in any portal's startup state) what you mostly need is *good* PR. Good PR for the developers, so you can get some good games and good PR for the consumers so they will buy the game.

When it comes to funding, while it would be a nice touch, i think that providing some resources instead (like artists, musicians, etc) would be much preferred (and more direct).

And last, of course, the developer must keep the IP and not get hidden by the publisher. We're not making games only for the money, you know :-).

Btw, something that wasn't really clear in this thread. Are you talking about a retail publisher (like Ubisoft - but smaller... or more like Gamecock Media, which says that supports indie developers) for games that can be bought in retail stores, or an online portal (like MSN Games, Yahoo! Games, Big Fish, etc) for downloadable-only games?

From the replies, most people here assume the second, but from your writings this isn't clear.

[Applewood]

Er indie PS3 development

We're doing one self-funded project for 360 and after that we're finishing another for hopefully PSN. What would you be able to offer us that could hlpe and what would you want in return ?

[Andy]

Well. Have to add two cents and agree with some guys from here.

When any unknown publisher comes to ask we just ask for good advance in the first turn. Btw in the latest times we ask the same from well known publishers too.

I don't know how this resonable for everyone but works just great for us so far.

[bvanevery]

As an independent developer, what would you want to see in a publishing partner? What would your dream situation be? I would imagine creative control, handsome royalties and maintaining ownership of your creation.

I don't have a product yet. But I thought I'd add some counterbalance to what others say they want.

I'm a "you ain't gettin' ownership of my IP" kind of indie, so I don't know that publisher relationships are going to be appropriate. I want a market of gamers who have "taste," where that means they're seeking originality and innovation in the products. I want a distribution channel of customers who don't care about match-3 games. Because if I want to make a title where people do care about that, it's already well established, we're totally saturated with portals featuring match-3 games. Plus we're going to get gobs and gobs more of that real soon now, with all the mainstream industry getting interested in the Casual money. I'm not interested in being anonymized or losing my brand identity. I want my name in lights, not yours. Sid Meier was smart to make lotsa games of the form "Sid Meier's blah blah blah."

[Parrothead]

Now we are getting somewhere. I was wondering how long it would take for my initial thread to take off

Basically, I have this incredible contact/friend within the industry. He agreed that not enough attention has been given to the ID and their type of creativity. Everyone is blinded by the current high development costs of churning out the same ol' same ol' for the past umpteen years. There are some great deals to be had for both IDs and publishers if they work directly as partners. Taking gaming back to its roots if you will. And since he had a computer gaming company back in the early 80's (which I am sure most of you will know of) he remembers the days of simple, addictive games that were new and innovative time after time. So I think, that if I play this right it could be a great oppportunity for us all.

My friend said he is interested in any ideas I have to create a new publishing arm that would bring an ID's game to market wether it be downloadable content to a cell phone or on store shelves in the form of a Nintendo DS cartridge. Now, that may be forming a partnership with him and starting our own publishing company or , me acting as some sort of "agent" of the ID and presenting the games to him for introduction to his current publishing companies and being an intermediary for all of you.

As I said before, he has considerable clout within the gaming industry and has business associates/friends in most of the major development/publishing houses, at least in the USA. Not sure about foreign P & D's. And, this is the only reason I would even attempt such a venture. The bottom line is that you want to make some money doing what you love and I want to make some money playing what I love.

We will be meeting next week and will kick around some of your suggestions. Let me know if there is anyone currently acting as something like a "Literary Agent" representing independent developers? Is there such job? If not, would it make sense for such a job -- me, not having any game making skills, but having a big-time industry contact that will seriously consider the games I have chosen for them to consider publishing or sharing development with. Let me know what you think.

Thanks again for this great information.

Oh - I noticed a large international contingency here - unlike any forums that I currently participate in. That is pretty awesome, and I am sure adding to the diversity of games you all create. Very Cool !


Mike Kennedy

[Sybixsus]

Let me know if there is anyone currently acting as something like a "Literary Agent" representing independent developers? Is there such job?

Yes, there are a couple. I used to have one, but soon realised I was better off without him. ( Which says a lot about him and nothing about agents in general. ) They generally don't get involved at an Indie level for fairly obvious reasons, but I imagine if you had something compelling enough that had some hype behind it, they'd be interested. They do say that the best way to get an agent is to have something so good that you don't need one.

If not, would it make sense for such a job -- me, not having any game making skills, but having a big-time industry contact that will seriously consider the games I have chosen for them to consider publishing or sharing development with. Let me know what you think.

Not to me, no. If I'm going to pay an agent a sizeable chunk of my money, he had better be working for me. He needs to be able to play one publisher off against another. If he thinks the deal isn't right, he needs to be able to tell me to bin it before I commit to it. He needs to be able to get me out of a deal that's going bad with the minimum of expense and fuss and go find another one.

If you've only got one outlet, you can't do any of that. You're effectively giving me a paid introduction to one guy. There's nothing wrong with giving me a paid introduction to one guy, but it's not being an agent. The situation you're speculating on is one where - for me - it should be the other way around. You're not an agent for developers, you're a talent scout for your contact. He should be paying you because you're working for him, and since he's your one and only contact, he's the one you should be loyal to. You don't have to screw me in the process, but his interests should come way above mine.

So no, I don't think it makes sense for you to be an agent, but it makes perfect sense for you to be a talent scout for your contact - always assuming he wants one, and it sounds as though he does.

[bvanevery]

And since he had a computer gaming company back in the early 80's (which I am sure most of you will know of) he remembers the days of simple, addictive games that were new and innovative time after time.

Yes, the lack of innovation in small games does puzzle me. Occasionally you'll see an Oasis, a Strange Adventures In Infinite Space, or a Pontifex which proves that small, innovative games are possible. In fact I see them more often than most, since I judge in the IGF every year. But they aren't the norm and even in the IGF I haven't seen that many titles that really "send" me as far as innovation in game design. Granted if I include the titles that did try something different, but didn't come out so well for having done so, then the number of innovative titles doubles. But it's still a small number, a minority.

Someone did an article, I can't remember the author, about how titles in the 80's didn't have clear genres and ossification yet. There was a lot more experimentation as to approach. I didn't have access to tons of titles back then, as I was just a kid, spending my own money on my Atari 800, and not pirating much. I do remember, however, that most of my games were not basically "like" each other. Except for the Infocom text adventures which I had about 10 of.

[bvanevery]

Let me know if there is anyone currently acting as something like a "Literary Agent" representing independent developers? Is there such job? If not, would it make sense for such a job -- me, not having any game making skills, but having a big-time industry contact that will seriously consider the games I have chosen for them to consider publishing or sharing development with. Let me know what you think.

I've watched screenwriter and novelist friends of mine deal with agents. The problem is, you can't start out trusting them. You don't know if the agent will really do anything useful for you, and they might even do things absolutely detrimental to your career. Like, you come up with some possible publishing leads on your own, you talk to your agent about it, she turns around and gives your leads to other people in her stable of screenwriters! After that my screenwriting friend decided that he couldn't expect an agent to relieve him of the burden of pressing the flesh. Too many unethical agents. He accepted the reality that he had to hustle himself and went about it as best he could.

I don't think "Agent" is the right word if you're representing the interests of 1 publishing company. Can't remember the lingo for that.

[Andy]

Yes, the lack of innovation in small games does puzzle me.

You just check next thread right here. I saw you are writting there as well. A lot of fellows here are after a money. So they are trying to do what peoples ( read portals ) want.
You'd need try to push something a little bit original to any portal or publisher. You'd solve your puzzle easily.

[Parrothead]

Agents vs. Talent Scout -

I would agree with this assesment. I was just having a thought while typing my last post -- didn't give it that kind of consideration.

So, yes, in the capacity I was currently talking about I would more or less be scouting games for his publishing companies. But, I am not totally sure that is what will come of all of this.

We will be discussing all of this in detail soon. I will keep updating through this thread as this idea evolves. Thanks again and keep the input coming.

Mike Kennedy

[datxcod]

Yes, the lack of innovation in small games does puzzle me. Occasionally you'll see an Oasis, a Strange Adventures In Infinite Space, or a Pontifex which proves that small, innovative games are possible. In fact I see them more often than most, since I judge in the IGF every year. But they aren't the norm and even in the IGF I haven't seen that many titles that really "send" me as far as innovation in game design. Granted if I include the titles that did try something different, but didn't come out so well for having done so, then the number of innovative titles doubles. But it's still a small number, a minority.

Someone did an article, I can't remember the author, about how titles in the 80's didn't have clear genres and ossification yet. There was a lot more experimentation as to approach. I didn't have access to tons of titles back then, as I was just a kid, spending my own money on my Atari 800, and not pirating much. I do remember, however, that most of my games were not basically "like" each other. Except for the Infocom text adventures which I had about 10 of.

The problem with those original games is that they don't sell well, or let's say don't sell as well as the more casual type of games. An example the game Gish by Chronic Logic which if I recall correctly won several awards, went on to make a little bit more than $ 100 K in a period of several years. Maybe it was more about lack of marketing but I heard a lot about gish a couple of years ago and even play it myself, I thought that the game had made several hundred thousand dollars at least. On top of that it was developed by three guys in a period of six months. Doesn't seem too lucrative to me. Maybe they needed an "Indie Friendly Publisher" with a big marketing arm to help sell better an original niche title like gish.

[bvanevery]

Maybe they needed an "Indie Friendly Publisher" with a big marketing arm to help sell better an original niche title like gish.

I judged Gish in the IGF. It was clearly innovative, but I found the controls somewhat difficult to manipulate. Can't remember if I got stuck or got tired of it; at any rate, I hit that point pretty early in my judging and it hurt the score. I gave it a mid-range score that wouldn't hurt its chances of getting into the Finals if a lot of other judges thought better of it than I did. It may have been a pre-release version of Gish so I won't assume the warts were present in the final product. I don't think "a platformer with more intricate controls" is a good fit to a Casual market though. On the other hand, if you could reach a Hardcore market that's tired of the usual platformers, maybe it would sell.

I should find out how Oasis has sold. I wonder if it has broad appeal or if "you gotta like Civ."

[Jesse Aldridge]

I should find out how Oasis has sold.

I don't know about sales numbers, but here's an interesting quote from the post-mortem

The difficulty in bringing this product to the market can not be understated. The resources that it consumed could have just as easily been spent on creating several less sophisticated and less fulfilling games. Only with the support and hard work of many people could such a game reach the market.

Games which are fun are very hard to make. Games which are original are very hard to make. Games which are both original and fun... well, that doesn't happen very often. And fun, I think, ultimately equals sales.
I suppose it has to do with game design being an evolutionary process.

I really think the key to more original games is better development tools. More people would be willing to try more different things if games weren't so damn hard to make.

As game development tools get better, I believe "original" portals will arise naturally. Once the content is there.

[electronicStar]

I'm going to give my totally candid point of view about Gish, it's an outsider view, a consumer view if you want.
When I saw the game, I did find it a bit difficult to play, but I thought this game could sell well, I thought it had some good production values. and then...nothing. I never saw the game mentioned anywhere except here and a couple of indie related websites.
So I think marketing is really a problem with IDs, that and maybe some sort of indie culture that make IDs affraid of marketing outside of "indie-related" websites.
IMO indies shouldn't be affraid to make a ton more marketing in the mainstream channels, I know it's expensive but I think a game like Gish din't reach it's full communication potential.

[bvanevery]

Games which are fun are very hard to make.

No they're not. That's why there are so many clones out there. We've been doing mostly the same game mechanics for 30 years, so some winning cookbook formulas are definitely available.

Games which are original are very hard to make.

No question they're harder, but I wonder how much is self-imposed difficulty. Like coming up with a vision that is original, but whose implementation would be too vast to get done in a reasonable timeframe. Or tendencies towards feature creep due to dissatisfaction with the prototype, as the Oasis postmortem mentioned. I wonder how much of the difficulty comes from too many cooks spoiling the broth. One time I argued with a would-be business partner of mine for 3 months about what we were going to do, before I finally gave up on him.

Originality may not be the real problem. The real problem may be getting original thinkers to knuckle down with a cost effective production process.

Heck, I'm a good example of What Went Wrong. First I prematurely optimized my 3d engine and went bankrupt without ever having written a line of game code. Then on the rebound, I explored open source solutions and became a build system expert because of all the crap out there, instead of ever writing a line of game code.

[bvanevery]

IMO indies shouldn't be affraid to make a ton more marketing in the mainstream channels, I know it's expensive but I think a game like Gish din't reach it's full communication potential.

Seems like they were building up this superhero cult fanzine storyline around it also, which indicates they thought they could be a subcultural phenom. But the content and the marketing are different things. Possibly they have to be done by different people in most cases. But then, there's indie film, and people do manage it.

This is quite a breeding ground, this innovative indie dilemma. Imagine the people who will come out of such a rough environment successful, who can wear all the hats. The only thing I've managed to learn in the past 9 years is that I have strong technical passions. They can sink me if I let them get the better of me, but they can also provide my bread and butter while working on bigger things. I'm not averse to making lots of money on technologies I actually like. I just know that it can become a crutch, it can prevent the truly creative and groundbreaking game development work from ever getting done.

[Adrian Cummings]

We're doing one self-funded project for 360 and after that we're finishing another for hopefully PSN. What would you be able to offer us that could hlpe and what would you want in return ?

I think Applewood that your Indie business is a pretty rare exception to what
is the norm amongst most indies here though with all due respect.

PS3 development is not really an option for most indies or wii really either come to think of it? at this time regards true path to commercial mass market, unless you can afford to buy your way into it perhaps?

[voxel]

We will be meeting next week and will kick around some of your suggestions. Let me know if there is anyone currently acting as something like a "Literary Agent" representing independent developers? Is there such job?

Yes there are. I know in particular and he's pretty sharp fellow and understands the business:

http://www.sherpagames.com/

There is one for studios (but I can't vouch for them as I've never dealt with them):

http://www.ism-agency.com/

I've heard of others... but don't know any offhand. All of the above take a cut (15%?) of whatever you earn. It's rough business as I hear they above pitch hundreds of game concepts a year and only sign one or two.

[voxel]

Originality may not be the real problem. The real problem may be getting original thinkers to knuckle down with a cost effective production process.

That is so true... and along the way people become "risk-averse" and fall back on "known-solutions" (aka cloning).

[Jesse Aldridge]

No question they're harder, but I wonder how much is self-imposed difficulty. Like coming up with a vision that is original, but whose implementation would be too vast to get done in a reasonable timeframe. Or tendencies towards feature creep due to dissatisfaction with the prototype, as the Oasis postmortem mentioned.

I think the reason original games are harder to make is that you end up having to re-make them several times until you (hopefully) end up with something fun. When you clone someone else's game, you don't need any iterations, you can get something fun on the first try.

Prototypes and agile development practices can help alleviate this, but it's still a pretty tough nut to crack.