Have you retail published?

[terin]

I thought it was weird that I couldn't find a thread listing retail contacts and two really important info parts. If you have this information please post it for all to see!

1: Who published your game in retail (list each publisher and the countries/zones)?

2: Did they pay you?

I believe that information won't violate anyone's contract. You're welcome to post more information if you can, but I figured it would help some people add a few dollars to their bottom line.

If you make this thread uber cool maybe someone would sticky it!

-Joe

[papillon]

How many people want to admit that they've never been paid, or stir shit up if they're still trying to politely finagle that payment out of the guilty parties?

An anonymous poll on the subject might provide interesting results, if you could trust that no one would intentionally lie for the lulz. ("Were you paid? Did it require pliers and men in dark coats?")

[GnadeGames]

I know Cliffski has spoken about not being paid by a Russian company. I forget the name though, I think it starts with an A.

[joe]

DTP Entertainment published our games Absolute Blue and Psychoballs in Germany. Temple Of Tangram was published by Koch Media.

[DavidR91]

I forget the name though, I think it starts with an A.

It was Akella

[terin]

Pap, i dont think most of us avoid confrontation the way you do I dont think there's any shame in admitting someone else broke a contract... Do you not see the value in knowing if company X didn't pay someone else?

-Joe

[Grey Alien]

EGames did Oz for us (Grey Alien Games and Injoy Games) in North America and they paid us.

[Junkyard Sam]

As developers, information is our best defense in negotiations with publishers. Even for those who DO have money for effective legal representation, information is still more affordable.

Sharing this info is a benefit to us all and there's nothing to lose by it. As long as people are honest about their transactional history with publishers then exposing dishonesty is not "libel."

Great thread, Terin. (Though it's funny you criticize unionization when joining together so share such info effectively serves a similar purpose )

[princec]

Echo Bridge Entertainment. No, they didn't pay. Contact has since vanished.

Cas

[Pyabo]

Perhaps another good question to add would be "Did they actually get goods into stores?"

If they don't do that, then not paying you becomes less of an issue...

[GnadeGames]

Perhaps another good question to add would be "Did they actually get goods into stores?"

If they don't do that, then not paying you becomes less of an issue...

This is a very important question... unless they paid you some X up front.

[Jack Norton]

Why there's still someone nowadays that do retail deals without advance payments ?

[Sybixsus]

I don't think it's retail - I know nothing about mobile games - but Nazara were supposed to do Brew versions of Kick Shot Pool and Bowling Babes. They never paid, or fulfilled any of the other contractual obligations. Both games are still on their site, and Bowling Babes is on their homepage, so I would assume it's doing ok for them. Anyone know any legbreakers in India? :0)

( http://www.nazara.com )


There were a few who did pay, but the names don't spring to mind as readily as those who don't. Freud would have been able to tell you why that is, I suspect. If they spring to mind later, I'll edit.

[berserker]

I can confirm, Akella does not pay.

[Roman Budzowski]

Encore USA - Runes of Avalon publisher. Paid advance and royalties and still pays

They are better at retail than at ESD publishing though. And if you can you better don't do worldwide deal, because they didn't publish my game outside USA anyway (while I maneged to publish ROA2 in few countries on my own).

Play Poland - paid - though they don't pay much.

cheers
Roman

[Pogacha]

Intense (Russian Company) - didn't publish (as far as I know) didn't pay of course.
I feel a bit ashamed but sharing might become useful for someone else.

[coconut76]

Encore USA - Runes of Avalon publisher. Paid advance and royalties and still pays
Play Poland - paid - though they don't pay much.
cheers
Roman

I didn't find the homepage for "Play Poland".

These information are very very useful.
I'm searching for a while now about retail publisher but I didn't find a lot ( only few).
So thank you very much to share information about retail publishers.

[Roman Budzowski]

http://play.pl/

and click on Play Publishing icon.

[netflow]

Play Poland - paid - though they don't pay much.

cheers
Roman

What was the deal there? Did they pay less than agreed, did the product just not sell well, or as well as they thought? Basically was them not paying much a result of the situation or do you feel it was a result of shady business practices?

[Grey Alien]

I have another to add: http://www.azzagames.ru/en/index.html

They paid us the first third of the agreed price and we converted Oz into Russian, but then they never launched it (as far as I know) and we never got any more money or comms. You can see the game on the front page but no news update since 2007.

At least I got to find out about Unicode when writing the conversion so it wasn't totally wasted time. Would have liked to have seen it conclude though.

[Roman Budzowski]

What was the deal there? Did they pay less than agreed, did the product just not sell well, or as well as they thought? Basically was them not paying much a result of the situation or do you feel it was a result of shady business practices?

No, it's not shady business... they just don't pay much. My deal was in 2006 or 2007 and it was for a bundle product like 3 games in one sold for 2$. Flat free paid upfront. It's up to you if you like it or not. They have other products and channels, so maybe you'll get better money. I was happy with what I got for Tom's Hen House and Maggie the Gardener.

cheers
Roman

[brianmeidell]

Cerasus in germany did the french and german retail versions of my game, and they paid both times, and were generally very pleasant to work with.