RE: Publisher payments (was Re: [GD-General] Prices of well-known 3D engines)

[<e_a...@ya...>]

Mais je vous connais, vous !!

Tu ne dis pas combien de Horse Race vous avez vendu...

Et ca se passe bien, la vie ?

Bon il est un peu tard, je vais me coucher,
j'essayerais de te mailer ou de t'appeler plus tard...

Gros bisous a Lisa et a toi, 

Manu



 --- mdr...@cy... a écrit : > I think
that many times you hear about studios in
> this case (milestones
> payment) but that's for games being published by big
> publishers.
> 
> I'd like to give a different sound of bells. The
> company I'm working for
> has shipped three games.
> 
> The first game was started in april 2000 and shipped
> in June 2001. The
> project cost was about 500k€, so that that's not
> insane. The game was a
> cycling management game, with interative races. You
> can call it niche
> market, but it sold more than 100 000 units, just in
> Europe. We had
> agents, we didn't find a global publisher, so the
> project was self-funded.
> We had some royalties advances two months before the
> game shipped, and we
> signed nearly a contract for every country in
> Europe. So the game sold
> well in Europe ( including a Top3 on PC in France)
> and didn't find a
> publisher in USA. The royalties rate was about 4-5
> to 10€ per game sold
> (and it was sold cheaper than other games), which is
> quite high, but you
> must take into account that it's a PC game (no
> royalties for console
> makers) and it was sell funded so there was no risk
> for our publishers.
> 
> The second game was the sequel to the first. It was
> done during July 2001/
> June 2002. No global publisher found, still it sold
> more than 100.000
> units. In fact we had propositions, among others
> from a one of the two big
> french publishers : 100 k€ of advance + 5€ per copy
> + we still
> self-finance till completition. Not really
> appealing... So, the game was
> shipped by the same small publishers.
> 
> The third game was a horse racing/management game.
> This sport is very
> popular in UK / France. The game costed 400k€ to
> make, by another team as
> the cycling games, during Dec 2001 / Dec 2002. The
> best deal we found was,
> 3 months before completition, 300k€ for
> UK+Germany+France+Benelux in
> advance ( 30 000 copies with 10€ per copy). We
> worked with other
> publishers for the other countries. The main
> publisher was not very
> active, so with those 4 countries we expect to sell
> just a few more copies
> than 30 000. Other countries did quite well
> considering the sport is not
> very popular, and with our previous two games we had
> good contracts, up to
> 12-14€ per copy. So the game, who shipped in europe,
> and soon in USA, has
> made so far about 525k€ in royalties.
> 
> We now have 3 games in developpment (2 sports
> managers, one innovative
> strategy game), and for the two sport games, we
> don't even try to find a
> big publisher. Especially if you consider that our
> partners made some good
> mareketing in their own countries, and we have good
> delas with them.
> 
> My conclusion is that you can make interessant
> games, deliver them on
> time, have a proven quality track and sell many
> copies, you won't
> necessarly find a publisher that will pay you to
> make your game. And the
> milestone system is more targeted at middle to big
> products, especially
> console games. For a game done by 5 people ( we are
> 6-8 per project), it's
> really difficult to find that scheme of agreement :
> your game is not big
> enough for a big publisher...
> 
> 
> -----Message d'origine-----
> De :
> gam...@li...
>
[mailto:gam...@li...]
> De la part de
> Paul Reynolds
> Envoyé : samedi 7 juin 2003 02:42
> À : gam...@li...
> Objet : RE: Publisher payments (was Re: [GD-General]
> Prices of well-known
> 3D engines)
> 
> It's truly dependent on the project (scope, genre,
> platforms, schedule,
> etc.) and the resulting negotiations. So everything
> below this line is
> conjecture based on my experience (as a programmer,
> not exec) in the
> industry.
> 
> Typically, everything is paid on deliverables
> (milestones). The contract is
> usually considered the first milestone. The "pure"
> thought is that the
> milestone payments just cover your development costs
> while you make a game
> for your publisher. Then you receive payment
> (royalties) once the publisher
> has recouped their expenses (your milestone
> payments). But, in my
> experience, the studio can pull in a little profit
> from the milestone
> payments as well. The terms of the royalties can
> vary wildly.
> 
> So your milestone payments should at least keep your
> studio going since
> that's probably your only incoming cash. So, back to
> your question, a 5 man
> project could have 1 producer (~$100k), 2 artist's
> (~$50K ea.), 2 SE It's
> (~$70K ea), and 1 SE III (~$100K ea).
> 
> ($440K)/12 months = $37,000 for a milestone just to
> cover salaries.
> Throw on another $30K for administrative staff and
> offices. As an incredibly
> rough estimate, say you manage to negotiate an $80K
> milestone payment
> (which, I believe is reasonable for a low budget
> title), you could
> conceivably have a positive cash flow of a few
> thousand bucks. Which isn't
> bad considering you've already made payroll and paid
> rent. I won't even get
> into on time delivery bonuses/penalties and contract
> amendments. But, the
> reality is a five man team is going to have a rough
> time putting out any
> sort of commercial game in a reasonable time frame.
> 
> Factor by 0.75 for Spain, 0.5 for Ukraine, and 0.25
> for China ;op
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> gam...@li...
>
[mailto:gam...@li...]On
> Behalf Of
> Frank Davis
> Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 12:28 PM
> To: gam...@li...
> Subject: Publisher payments (was Re: [GD-General]
> Prices of well-known
> 3D engines)
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> (Sorry if this comes through twice)
> 
> >Obviously publishers won't gave the same ammount of
> money to develop a game
> >in spain as int USA... at least i don't think you
> can fool them that way :)
> >So perhaps we will get a 1/15 fraction of the
> ammount of money you (USA)
> >can get from a publisher...
> >I don't know it for sure, as i don't work on games
> directly
> 
> I'm not sure if this off topic, but i would guess it
> isnt so here goes..
> 
> Is there anyone that can give any information about
> how much a game should
> earn a small developer team? I understand not too
> many of you are willing to
> share details of your financial situation, so dont
> use game names if you
> dont want to.
> 
> Lets say you have a team of 5 people working
> fulltime on a game for a couple
> of months. What would be a reasonable payment? I
> suppose you would receive a
> sum on signing of the contract, a sum on delivering
> a master, and royalties
> for each sold product? Does anyone have numbers?
> 
=== message truncated === 

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