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I WANNA SELL MY GAMES.
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Powerstar




Joined: 08 May 2014
Posts: 41
Location: Suva,fiji

PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2014 11:30 pm    Post subject: I WANNA SELL MY GAMES. Reply with quote

I wanna sell my games... my awesome games not the sucky testuedo an rogue.. im talking about the games i'll make when i have a team.. like madsoft.

anyone can help!!!!!?? Licking lips[/code]
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Sparoku
Pyrithea Amethyst.




Joined: 02 Feb 2004
Posts: 467
Location: Washington State

PostPosted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 1:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You don't have to have a team to make a great game. It is possible to do it by yourself.

It just takes longer. Oookay...
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TMC
On the Verge of Insanity




Joined: 05 Apr 2003
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Location: Matakana

PostPosted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 4:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Making money off games isn't so easy. Lots of people want to make games for a living, but first you need some experience to make a game good enough to sell more than a handful of copies. But here's the important part: you should make games for fun, because if you're making them for money you're not going to reach that goal easily or quickly, unfortunately.
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Sparoku
Pyrithea Amethyst.




Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2014 2:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yup. That's why most of the newer Sonic games are crap.
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TMC
On the Verge of Insanity




Joined: 05 Apr 2003
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 24, 2014 3:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I can't get used to the 3D levels and tiny Sonic.
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Rya.Reisender
Snippy




Joined: 18 Jan 2008
Posts: 821

PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 4:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

C'mon the new new Sonic games are great.

It just took them like 10 years to manage getting the 3D gameplay right without any major instant death glitches.

And even if you game is fun, you might still struggle with just selling even a single game, see for example Another Star:
http://www.visionriders.com/blog/2014/05/another-star-sales-numbers-marchapril-2014/
and
http://www.visionriders.com/blog/2014/06/slow-going/
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Andrew-David




Joined: 01 Dec 2010
Posts: 11
Location: Montreal, Canada

PostPosted: Wed May 04, 2016 11:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whoa! I was randomly browsing the forums (like I still do maybe once every week or two) and stumbled upon this post. Never thought we'd ever reach a point where people use MADSOFT as an example when talking about game studios/teams that went on to make games for a living. I'm quite humbled.

In case this isn't clear: I'm the founder of MADSOFT Games (and from 2004 to 2010, I used to browse this forum using "MADSOFT Games" as my username). What's funny is that I actually still talk about the OHRRPGCE and always recommend it as a starter game engine when young wannabe gamedevs ask me where to begin gaining experience making games (I speak at classes and panels quite often). In fact, I was on a podcast just this week called "Press Start To Join" and I mentioned the OHRRPGCE when discussing how I got into game development, I'll post a link to it here when the episode is up on Saturday.

As for Powerstar's original question: Reaching a point where you can sell your games is no easy feat, it takes a lot of perseverance and patience, but it is definitely possible. You won't necessary need a team, but if you do have one, make sure that you either have some sort of capital to pay them with or that they are all close friends working on a passion project that you all came up with together. Making a game that is worth selling, aside from the few exceptions, can take years to make, so be prepared for a lot of ups and downs, and be prepared to fail. A lot.

Working with a publisher can help, but you have to be extremely careful and do a lot of research on the publisher your are negotiating with. I've seen a lot of publishers that prey on small indie teams, offer them the bare minimal, and take huge cuts in exchange. A good example of that is BlackShellMedia. Avoid them like the plague, since they truly focus on quantity over quality and could not care less what your game is about as long as they can make a buck off of it.

My honest opinion: If you want to make games for the sake of making money, then you are doing it wrong. Selling games should not be your end-goal here. You should aim for making great games, unique experiences, games that you personally relate to, or games that you and your team have always wanted to make. Making money should just be a bonus.

I could talk about this for hours, but since there is so much I could say on this subject, I know that my mind will go to a lot of different places and explore a lot of different points, and you will only end up with an incoherent mess. I think the best approach to take here is to just ask questions and I will answer them accordingly. If you don't want to discuss this publicly, feel free to email me directly at hello@madsoftgames.com.

EDIT: Just noticed this topic is from 2014. Whoops! I guess there isn't much activity in the Paradox Lounge anymore.
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TMC
On the Verge of Insanity




Joined: 05 Apr 2003
Posts: 3240
Location: Matakana

PostPosted: Fri May 06, 2016 11:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello! Thanks for writing that post anyway, it was really interesting. Plus it's nice to hear what people have moved on to, especially when they go on to professional development. I'm a bit stunned to see that MADSOFT is now a real company with a lot of different projects(doing webcomics as well? Unusual!). I see you're even running a kickstarter right now, although it it hasn't gotten the attention it needed to meet the set goal. Seems like getting funding by going viral is a roulette. Good luck with future endeavours; I hope you find more success.

What kind of people turn up to the game jams you run?

I tried out Space Chase. The aesthetics appeal to me and it's nicely made (but is there no way to get it to zoom? It's a tiny flash window on the screen.). I'm just curious: what does "Produced by MADSOFT... developed by Tile Isle" actually mean? Assumably more than just publishing the game. I always wonder what the split of responsibilities actually looks like in such a deal.

Yes, CP is mostly dead these days, since most of the community moved to SlimeSalad long ago. But there are still quite a few lurkers over here (those who don't know about SS, and those who don't want to go), and we still try to answer any OHR questions anyone asks here. As the community has gotten older and smaller people have gotten more professional, including selling their games: there are a couple OHR games (C.Kane, Macabre) on Steam, a dozen on Android stores, and The Wobbler presented a preview of a game at PAX East very recently.
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Andrew-David




Joined: 01 Dec 2010
Posts: 11
Location: Montreal, Canada

PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2016 7:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

TMC wrote:
What kind of people turn up to the game jams you run?


All kinds of people! From wannabe developers that have never actually tried working on a game all the way up to industry veterans (BioWare mostly)! And there's a huge range of talent too: Illustrators, animators, writers, composers, programmers, game designers, UI designers, concept artists, etc. It's awesome!

TMC wrote:
I tried out Space Chase. The aesthetics appeal to me and it's nicely made (but is there no way to get it to zoom? It's a tiny flash window on the screen.).


Haha, that game is so old! We don't really work in Flash anymore, I have no idea if you can zoom using any of the default browser functions.

TMC wrote:
I'm just curious: what does "Produced by MADSOFT... developed by Tile Isle" actually mean? Assumably more than just publishing the game. I always wonder what the split of responsibilities actually looks like in such a deal.


Well, there's a difference there, actually. In the specific case of Space Chase and Tile Isle, we were acting as producers, not publishers. Tile Isle is one of the studios that we took under our wing, kind of like an acquisition, maybe more like an incubator. We developed the idea together and offered them some of our team members to help them develop the game while we directed them in the right direction. They were still somewhat new to game development and we were helping them grow.

Publishing works a little differently. When you sign on to get your game published by us, we can help you in two different ways:
1) Pre-production involvement: We offer you the team members (we pay their salary), tools, resources, office space (if local), and direction you might need to get your game to market.
2) Post-production involvement: We help get your game on multiple platforms (we are official Nintendo, Playstation, and Microsoft licensed publishers), handle all your press and marketing (we have a gigantic press list), produce your trailers, website, pre-launch and post-launch content, and guide you in the right direction to make sure your game is profitable.

In exchange, we take a cut of the net profit only until we're reimbursed (we keep track of how much we spend on producing/publishing your game). Once we've been fully reimbursed, we drop that royalty fee way down to 1% - 5%, in hopes that you can keep as much of the profit as possible to invest in your next game (or publish with us again!).

There's a bit more info here, but we can also send out a publishing package PDF that you can look at if you're interested in learning more.
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TMC
On the Verge of Insanity




Joined: 05 Apr 2003
Posts: 3240
Location: Matakana

PostPosted: Wed May 11, 2016 4:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's great to hear; I'm sure physically turning up to a jam like that is even more fun than doing one online.

Wow, you do quite a lot for pre-production games; I wasn't expecting that you would act like an incubator. Thanks for the information. I'm not looking to publish a game; just curious, and I think a couple OHR users may be interested in learning what their options are. Feel free to email me that pdf if you want.
Really, the form on the publishing seems a bit strange; such as a "game description" section but nothing about your company/team or needs, but I guess people will just email instead.

When you say " take a cut of the net profit only until we're reimbursed", do you mean a 100% cut until hitting that amount? From my occasional and probably quite biased devblog reading, it seems like a lot (most?) commercial indie games lose money or never even make a non-trivial amount. I guess you already somewhat touched on that in response to Powerstar.
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Andrew-David




Joined: 01 Dec 2010
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Location: Montreal, Canada

PostPosted: Wed May 11, 2016 10:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

TMC wrote:
The form on the publishing seems a bit strange; such as a "game description" section but nothing about your company/team or needs, but I guess people will just email instead.


Yeah, the form is really just for basic information and to connect with us, you could write gibberish in there and it probably wouldn't matter, we just want to make it as accessible as possible so people can connect with us and we can discuss the details in the email thread or through a Skype call.

TMC wrote:
When you say " take a cut of the net profit only until we're reimbursed", do you mean a 100% cut until hitting that amount? From my occasional and probably quite biased devblog reading, it seems like a lot (most?) commercial indie games lose money or never even make a non-trivial amount. I guess you already somewhat touched on that in response to Powerstar.


Absolutely, the cut we take usually depends on how much we've invested, but it never goes beyond 20%. On average, it's usually around 15%. And if we're on board for the post-production involvement as well, then we don't expect the developer to reimburse us if the game doesn't make enough money to cover our investment. It wouldn't make sense otherwise. It was our job to market the game in the first place, so we take full responsibility if the game doesn't make enough sales.
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TMC
On the Verge of Insanity




Joined: 05 Apr 2003
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Location: Matakana

PostPosted: Thu May 12, 2016 2:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That seems like a really good deal for game developers, because there's not much else that they can do (that I know of) to reduce their quite high risk. But isn't this like angel investing, where you're hoping for a couple runaway successes to fund all the loss-making investments? Although I imagine your investment isn't very much in comparison when you're just publishing, not doing any pre-production.
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Andrew-David




Joined: 01 Dec 2010
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PostPosted: Thu May 12, 2016 9:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

TMC wrote:
But isn't this like angel investing, where you're hoping for a couple runaway successes to fund all the loss-making investments? Although I imagine your investment isn't very much in comparison when you're just publishing, not doing any pre-production.


It kind of is, but we're very picky about our projects, we don't just pick any game that gets thrown our way. It really is quality over quantity for us – games that we think have a lot of potential and that we personally would like to be involved in. That way, if the game isn't successful, at least we have a great project that we enjoyed working on added to our library of games.
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Ronin Catholic
Deadliest of Fairies




Joined: 23 Jul 2007
Posts: 530
Location: My Girlfriend

PostPosted: Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Step 1: Try to keep your day job if you have one.

Step 2: Upload [legal] games to itch.io (so the OHR's usual "no graphics ripping" etiquette + don't steal music). I've seen lots of games and comics using copyrighted characters like Judy Hopps from Zootopia on there but you shouldn't do that, be better. Stay safe, stay legal.

Step 3: Fill out tax form page on your profile and start enabling donations on games. The less confidence you have in the quality of your games, the lower a suggested price you should put on them. I found the tax form page works on Firefox but not on the browser(s) I actually use for casual web browsing.

Step 4: Don't forget step 1. Not-making-art jobs give important formative life experience and a sense of perspective and groundedness as well as being stable. Making games full time is as hard as doing other jobs full time with a pretty decent chance that nobody wants to buy what you've made.
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Spoon Weaver




Joined: 18 Nov 2008
Posts: 421
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 06, 2021 10:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Real Steps!

Step 1 : Take Risks!
A lot of people "keep their day jobs" and only do things on the side. If you actually want to "make it" you should focus on your goal as much as possible. Never settle for something that doesn't leave you feeling fulfilled.

Step 2 : Show your game off EVERYWHERE!
Think the site might not be the right fit for you? Upload your game there anyways. Think your game might not be able to be legally sold? Sell it till you get that cease and desist! You'll never get anywhere by only uploading your game on a few random sites no one's ever heard of.

Step 3 : Never Under Sell Yourself!
Think your game isn't as good as all the others? Charge more! Think you might not sell enough games to actually make a profit? Market More!
You ARE good enough. You worked HARD on your game. It's not just worth $5 or $10. Your game is fucking priceless. If you charged $100 for every copy people should still feel honored you gave them the chance to experience your masterpiece.

Step 4 : Forget the rules!
Ignore all of my rules, ignore everyone else's. Even if someone really successful wrote a set of tips to help you succeed does not mean those tips will work for you. Your life is unique. Your situation is different. You are important. Focus on what makes YOU happy. Anyone that says anything else can go to hell!
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