bhenning@bhami.vnet.van-bc.UUCP (Bill Henning) (12/19/87)
Hello comp.sys.amiga
I have a couple of questions that I am hoping some of you may be able to
help me with. If you can help, please send me e-mail, and I'll summarize the
respones if there is sufficient interest.
Basically, I would like some pointers on how to try to market a game
(arcade style, generally non-violent, currently three screens are _almost_
working, and I will probably end up with 10 to 20 screens, with several
levels of difficulty. The two people I showed it to so far liked it and
thought that it would be fun to play when completed. I would prefer not to
descibe it in more detail right now. [note: it IS multi-tasking friendly -
does not hog resources, free's up everything on exit - as an example, so far
I've only gotten one GURU from it - and that was the very first time I tried
to run it])for our favorite machine. So far as I can see, there are two
basic routes open to me:
I can try to sell it mail order on my own - this would almost surely mean
that I would sell relatively few copies, althought probably at a higher
profit/unit than with a software publisher.
The other method is to see if there is a software publisher interested in
publishing this - but for this I would need to know which publishers are most
likely to consider a game submitted to them - and are not likely to file them
in the nearest handy trashcan.
Granted that without seeing the potential product there is no way the
potential market can be evaluated, I would still like some idea of what sort
range of royalties and/or other types of payments one could expect.
Given that I am almost certainly better off trying to go with an
established software house, how should I approach such a firm? For example,
should I send a letter describing the game first, and ask if they were
interested? Are non-disclosure agreements a good idea, or are they not
needed? Should I not send a letter first, but send a disk with a letter, or
a videotape with a letter? I believe that I should have a fully working
version [although possibly with not 10 - 20 screens] by the end of next week
[Do I ever wish I had started early enough to have it out by xmas - but my
university courses were keeping me unduly busy.]
I would really appreciate any and all replies / suggestions etc., and I
promise not to pester anyone who responds with many more questions.
...Bill
p.s.
Is it just my newsfeed or is comp.sys.amiga traffic really down to 30
articles or so per day? What happened? Did the net.gods impose a limit on
the number of articles carried in this newsgroup? If not, I can safely
assume that some site upstream of my amiga is having problems.
--
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+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+campbell@cbmvax.UUCP (John Campbell SW) (12/23/87)
Expires: References: <1633@van-bc.UUCP> Sender: Reply-To: campbell@cbmvax.UUCP (John Campbell SW) Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA Keywords: In response to a number of individuals who have asked about the marketing of recreational software, I have some opinions on the matter. I would suggest that you solicit interest from the "top" companies, i.e. the EAs, Activisions, etc... At the same time you should be cognizant that each company has certain strongsuits (be it a category like Gamestar for sports simulations or Microprose for air simulations, or specific function like EA for merchandising). Each company has weaknesses also, for instance one company may not advertise much or one company may copy-protect everything to death, possibly hurting sales. In short, the company best to deal with depends on both your product and your demeanor. Your product may not need much advertising, or may be certain niche, and maybe you like a certain type of contractual agreement. As far as submitting your product, you may find it necessary to protect your work with legal documentation, but I have never heard of a major company stealing work. It would be somewhat suicidal. I would recommend that you not send just a letter, many companies find it difficult to send every submitter an authors guidebook, etc... They are much more likely to respond if they have some indication that you have produced some marketable program. In this way, tapes are an expensive but somewhat sensible starting point if you are concerned about illegal copies. An alternative method is to number your diskette in the code, and tell the publisher that you did this. The reviewer will automatically be more careful with disseminating copies. You can't review a videotape game (because of gameplay), so that method does cause time delays. Finally, it is foolish to guess royalties on an imaginary game. Usually it is some advance against royalties plus some fixed %. Generally these two are inversely related (the more the advance the less the %). Sorry for the long response. John Commodore Intl. Commodore pays me to make decisions, not opinions. Opinions I make for free, but sometimes you get what you pay for. The opinions are therefore mine and not Commodore's.
perry@well.UUCP (Perry S. Kivolowitz) (12/27/87)
ASDG is more than interested in publishing quality Amiga software of any type. I am sure you will find us more than fair in all respects as fairness is what we have built a company upon. We are also soliciting hardware designers as well. Though be aware, our standards are quite high. And so is our com- mittment. Please respond by telephone as I cannot possibly read all the mail that actually makes it through to this address. (201) 563-0529 until Jan 4th. (608) 273-6585 thereafter (we've moved) Perry Kivolowitz
jmoore@dtix.arpa (Jim Moore) (01/05/89)
Hi folks, A few questions from a newcomer... 1) what is a boing mouse? How much? etc... sounds interesting. 2) I saw a reference to X11...does it exist for the Amiga? where? How do I get it? 3) How do I go about picking a hard disk system to buy? There are some pretty interesting things going across the net...thanks for the info. Jim Moore jmoore@dtrc.arpa I have opinions, the Navy sinks ships. -------