Post mortem of a 2 man indie dev team: "Deadly 30"

MagicSugar

Just saw this. It's Flash based but maybe somebody can pick up something useful from their experience.

http://www.iggyzuk.com/ March 13, 2013 entry.

Not long after that Gonzossm [game artist & animator] received an inbox message on youtube from a publisher by the name ... they were very interested in publishing the game...

So they asked us for a 50% cut of the profit.

I spoke with Gonzossm and a few friends about it, and it seemed like a reasonable cut. “They get us in, we both make a lot of money!” So we agreed on it, signed a contract and got to work.Many months in and the publisher had no luck in getting the game on Steam either, what a shame. Now we were pretty much self selling the game on Gonzossm’s advertising power. The only people buying the game were his fans from youtube and facebook, and we were giving away 50% profits for what exactly?

Now I’m not saying the publisher didn’t do anything at all. They spread the product to sites like Amazon, Desura, Gamersgate. They also got many review websites to write about Deadly30. It’s important I just don’t think it’s worth fifty percent.

...In total I believe the game sold over £10,000+. Not very sure of this though because all the sales information goes straight to the publisher, I only get my cut later. I have no control, no stats, and this is very bad.
There are serious costs to pay when you surrender control. There is a time and place for publishers, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be self publishing my next game.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUvfKtt7m0k&"]Deadly 30 Trailer, New PC Game (OUT NOW!!) - YouTube[/ame]

Isaiah Sherman

Sweet, thanks for the link! It was a good read. Sucks about the whole publisher thing. That's a pretty unanimous thing I've heard: don't use a publisher if you're small time. All those dollars count. Can't imagine a 50% cut taken away from a game that only makes you a little bit.

Publishers want money, that's it.

WarrenM

There's other issues as well such as you have no idea who your customers are so you can't market to them if you make a sequel or release new content or whatever.

R3D

added to the slowly growing list of post mortems..

http://vidyadev.com/wiki/List_of_Post_Mortems

Snader

Check your contract. 50% of PROFIT, or 50% of REVENUE?

Stromberg90

Yeah, I don't see the problem here, they did accept the contract, what did they expect?
Looks like a typical flash game to me.

Snader

The problem is they're paying for very little. In contracts like these, it's wise to implement some specifics. For instance, getting 50% off of all sales on steam, if you want the publisher to put in effort to get on steam.

Was it unwise to sign this contract? Sure. But we need to tell people WHY it was unwise, and what people can do BETTER the next time such a situation arises.

Stromberg90

Yeah, if the goal was to get on steam, they should have stated that if that fails the contract should be terminated, or agreeing on a lower share percent.

Also they should have looked into what kind of advertisement they could have done them self.