Criteria for taking a game to a publishing partner?

#1 It is mostly subjective. Some of it will be sales driven. Wow factor, creativity, etc.

Jeff Tunnell GG

#2 So, I would assume that the game would be initially released prior to taking it to a publisher, via ESD?

Or would you possible just see a game that you feel is ready for Prime time, and take it directly to a partner?

thanks

adrian

#3 No. We plan on releaseing all of the products ESD before they are even considered for the box.

#4 lol
to what no?

answering a **** or *** question with no causes a bit confuse =)

#5 hehe now u edited it

#6 gotcha:)

Jeff

#7 Jeff, in your opinion, do you think that having the game released through ESD will reduce the attraction to a potential publisher? and,

Would the sequel/upgrade/expansion of a succesful game have any chance of going straight to a publisher?

#8 Robert,

if Counter-Strike is anything to go by, publishers just love a product which already has an active community reached via online distribution (though non-one had paid for CS before boxed retail, it's huge uptake mitigates the risk that people might not actually want to pay for it). I get the feeling that it's a little like being able to make a sequel without putting a II on the end.

My own research into ESD shows that it's great for small developers as the direct cost of sale is low, however the market reach is far lower than boxed retail. It is thus unlikely that you will saturate your potential market through ESD, and so boxed retail would be a good avenue if the sales through ESD showed potential. My 'guesstimate' would be that you'd need a minimum of 10,000 ESD sales to make going to boxed worthwhile, but this does depend on the type of game (DX-Ball, for instance, has a large following but is not a game people feel justifies a 'whole' retail box to itself).

This market is fickle and uncertain, and my own experience limited, so please be sceptical of it's validity. However, one fact keeps cropping up - sales via ESD will only make sense if you can keep the development costs down, and can take the chance that you won't see any return on investment. V12, and the GarageGames site, seem to offer a decent and fair avenue for this (this is an impartial view as we at EnkiSoftware use our own engine for our game Avoyd and will initially be distributing through our own website).

Good luck!

Doug. EnkiSoftware Limited

#9 but there's another problem with esd. let's say your game is about 500 MB. for us, living in europe, this is a very large download. and the costs for the download are quite expensiv. isn't there another way such as "i pay and you send me the product with normal mail"?

#10 I think there was talk at one time of having an option like fileplanet does where you can pay for a cdr with the products you bought burned to it.....I think that would be a really nice feature especially if you were to buy multiple games from the site, get them all on one cd.

#11 We will have an extra cost, burn on demand CD solution.

Jeff Tunnell GG