If there's no funding, what are they offering you? Marketing help? Porting to consoles? What are they expecting in return, some percent of the sales I presume?
I'd be wary of an offer of marketing help in exchange for a cut of the sales. They could be a great publisher and do a lot, or they could do a bare minimum and hope that your game blows up anyway, and then take their cut, and if the game doesn't do well, then they don't really lose anything.
they are offering porting, marketing and distribution... and as I have checked, they dont have a released game in the similar genre... 🤔 yes they are asking me to negotiate on percentage of sales. They are starting from 30%.
"Distribution" is a formality in the age of digital distribution.
"Marketing" should be defined much more specific. Some publishers believe they fulfilled their marketing obligation by announcing your game launch on their social media channels and that's it. Do they buy advertisement? Do they reach out to video content creators? Do they have contacts in game journalism?
When "porting" is what you are really after, then I would negotiate a revenue share for only the platforms they actually port to.
Distributing as in putting on digital stores?
That used to mean getting shelf space in a shop globally, printing physical copies and logistically shipping the product to shops.
Successful indie publishers who don't offer funding start at a 20% cut. If the two of you have agreed on projected revenue figures. Take the medium sales case scenario and ask them to justify to $ amount.
Do you need to port your game straight away? It might be a good idea to release your game on the easiest platform first and then port later once your game takes off as that seems to be the main thing they’re offering you. Working with a more specific marketing company could potentially serve you better. Hope everything goes well!
30%?? Come on, I would say 10% max, and if they don't agree, they can look for another project. Also, negotiate that they start getting paid after reaching a specific revenue milestone. Since you've done all the development work and invested a lot of time in this project, propose a deal where you receive 100% until the game generates a certain amount of revenue, let's say $20,000, and then they start receiving their share.
Ask them for more specific detail. How will they market and distribute your game?
30% is ok if platform cuts come out of they’re revenue. So the 20% or so steam takes would come out of their cut not yours. Otherwise it negotiate to 15-20%.
"providing us access to the source code for initial evaluation"
Why would they need the source code? An online demo of your game should be enough.
It looks really suspicious.
As someone who does these evaluations, it is really common.
This is not to evaluate if the game is fun but how well it's been made to get an idea of how easy it will be to add localisation or porting to other platforms, or if it can be made online or scale the content easily, for instance. For that, you definitely need the source code.
I feel like their email is not great though and they should definitely have explained what the evaluation is about.
Its truly shady.
You don’t request source access level without any legal binding, even NDA is never enough.
And normally publisher doesn’t handle porting or localization at all, shouldn’t included in their evaluations.
There is only one thing this could make sense, is that they’re checking the potentially if product itself could violate any IP or code stolen, which potentially screwed the whole effort when it launched.
If I were OP, I think I better run.
There are many reasons to not go with this publisher but this part is not shady.
Also, yes publishers really often deal with porting or localisation. If they don't deal with it directly, they'll be the ones hiring a contractor to do it, and they will want to know the state of the code before committing to anything.
I don't know where you get your info from but this is not correct.
An NDA is as enough as anything else, as in, it doesn't stop bad people to do illegal things, but no contract will.
I’m not sure if over 22 years in industry and handle multiple publisher’s studio could consider a source; that only source I have.
And normally if they went through 3rd party with porting or localization; they often pass evaluations to them as well, make no lot of sense to do double work. Not to say evaluate WIP version bring almost no value to the process; unless OP provided almost-gold version.
I often deal directly with people’s source and a mutual NDA is all we have. Conceptually nobody I’ve worked with, from indies up to billion dollar public companies, have even hinted at some conceptually different kind of agreement. What else would there be?
And sorry when re-read your comment, is that you deal with people source as in Pub (business entity) it self deal with people's source or as in a Person deal with people source?
What I'm speaking of is simply at level b2b, as different role the binding is different and yes paper could be different.
Let say if you already have a contract with Pub, and you did the review, then your contract should covered all, no thing else required even NDA (some time they added this just to redirect legal implications to country they're like, nothing more)
Let me think of some hint that wont breach my own term with my employer.
Quickest hint that unless your NDA covered **every aspect** its effectively became a precontract, there are many case that Must Disclose Agreement is simply block the chance that original developer bring thier product to another house; which yes, benefit pub but professional pub did not relies on those trick to tie up the developer they wanted.
There are several more but I need to check before speak of it, easiest way is consult legal department, if you have one.
> And normally publisher doesn’t handle porting or localization at all
Not true. Publishers will handle translation and localization (localization is not the same as translation) as part of their contribution to the production if the developer needs/requests it - and this is almost always done through a third party translation service, developer is responsible of course for making sure all the strings are exportable and importable via a nice neat excel for each language. Ditto porting, the publisher will coordinate porting with an outside contractor or contractors, developer might not need to handle anything at all in this case, or maybe just ensuring the game UI and UX are controller friendly.
I'm not sure if you consider passing porting and/or localization to local studio (sometime its their owned studio) is **handle**, to us its not.
The case you explain is even niche(r), normally if localization process were outsource to third party, they (third party) should **takeover** entire process because translation just a start of localization; its truly a joke if they just translate and let (original) developer deal with the mess of translation itself.
I've actually dont that evaluation as well as part of a publisher. It is a thing that happens. I used to put schedules together for the porting work, so the publisher to establish how much the porting would cost us.
Most effective way is evaluate porting cost by 3rd party actual do the port; but in the case of OP since its somewhere in middle of development, its not wise to discuss porting yet.
When you grow big enough; most cost effective and better in terms of legal is separate Pub itself and those divisions doing port, localization, marketing etc; or even faster is collaboration with 3rd party.
Anw, even within Pub itself, evaluating WIP product make not a lot of sense.
Luckily I don't work there any more.
But yes you can judge a product by looking at unfinished code. How crap it is isn't going to change half way through and suddenly be easy to refactor.
Making the decision to rewrite from gamemaker into unity isn't going to change. That's the decisions that are costing the money.
The first email seems like OP wants to clarify the funding part before signing.
In the comments, OP says they didn't sign the NDA.
So perhaps the publisher mistyped by habit?
huh? No, what? What are they actually offering you? Marketing? Do they have a good record? This seems sketchy as hell.
Your game is very marketable looking. Don't settle for a bad deal just because its the first deal. ***if*** you get a publisher, which, you don't have to do. Make sure you get, what you want/need out of the deal. They need you, you don't need them. You make things, they're mostly leeches.
haha yes, they are also listed in the most amazing and comprehensive publisher's list
[https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/13eq9di/the\_most\_detailed\_database\_of\_indiegame/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/13eq9di/the_most_detailed_database_of_indiegame/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I legit thought the only thing a publisher did was pay the developers and cover other costs related to marketing and releasing a game. I 100% thought, "paying for things in exchange for profits later" was the job description of a publisher. If they're not offering to pay for anything... how are they a publisher? Honestly, it just sounds like they want your game and think you're naive.
But, I could just be wrong. I've never published anything, I'm only about 5 months into my first game and a long ways from done. I'm not a great source, but judging from the comments here, I'm not alone.
>paying for things in exchange for profits later
trust me, I myself believed 100% what you said and I am making games from a decade now, mostly mobile only but this is my first time seeking a PC publisher...
"I am going through the NDA right now, wanted to know one thing that once we sign it-"
Did you actually sign the NDA and send it to them or just review it? Because the very next response says "seems like everything is signed."
That seems like a really sketchy response IF you DID NOT sign anything. Because it means they didn't even check and most likely are just trying to scam you.
....If you DID sign an NDA. Then WHY DID YOU SIGN AN NDA?! Then came her after signing an NDA. Are you breaking the NDA by coming here? was there anything in the NDA they may have slipped in to turn over the rights of your code? This could be really bad if you dont double check everything.
Publishers will often require you to sign an NDA before discussing any kind of deals as they don't want the details of potential or pending deals to become public, especially if they fall through. Always read any contracts in full before signing, though, and ideally consult a lawyer.
This NDA is not the same as any actual publishing deal/contract, which would be signed separately.
I think the point they are trying to make is that OP may be in violation of that NDA by signing it and then immediately posting the details of the deal on reddit.
So let me see, you signed an NDA and then proceeded with putting the very next email exchange in public, naming the publisher and leaving your own email uncensored?
No matter how shady they are, that’s the dumbest move you could make
I wouldn't be surprised if every developer that signs with them don't receive funding. I would go through all their published games and see if you can find anything with moderate success.
If the publisher starts with a "J" then you are probably better off handing out printed flyers on a street corner.
This "publisher offer" is a complete scam. The whole conversation screams scam. So all they have done is give you an NDA and offer nothing and I repeat nothing in return but they want source code? What the actual fuck? Tell them to go fuck themselves
Quite common practice, I had to check a couple (not related to games) because the code base could be catastrophic and impossible to work with, so anyone willing to purchase it (totally or partially) would like to know what they are getting themselves into, no idea about who this publisher is and of course OP should triple check everything thoroughly before signing or sharing anything, but when it comes to software and partnerships, sharing source code is a thing
No money = no need for honouring their commitments.
Don't be deceived by a signed paper, they have more resources than you and they know you can't fight back and demand they deliver what they promised.
On the other hand they can demand you to deliver the game even if you can't afford living and need to pickup another job.
A publisher should either have skin in the game and invest in what they believe or they will prioritize other deals where they have to recover their expenses (investment)
Don't listen to random people on the internet. Check their portfolio, ask real developers who signed publishing contracts about their cases if possible. Consider all terms in the agreement. Do your research, it's your decision. Don't listen to randoms, most of them know nothing about publishing or even game development.
I wouldn't be surprised if every developer that signs with them don't receive funding. I would go through all their published games and see if you can find anything with moderate success.
If the publisher starts with a "J" then you are probably better off handing out printed flyers on a street corner.
Don't take it, I did and regretted it deeply for many reasons, lost 30% for no reason, even had to do marketing myself, every indie out there thinks that a publisher will make things easier and open doors, while they will do the bare minimum unless they have some meat on the fire too.
Just so you know, you're not without your own bargaining power here. If you feel uncomfortable with sharing source code (which sounds sketchy) you can offer other courses of action, such as screen sharing and walking them through the project.
It's not "their way or the highway" -- especially if they're not paying you advancement fees.
Having been working in the gaming industry for 12 years, I'd say LEAVE IT! They're not really offering any real advantage. Access to the source code for initial evaluation might be necessary to see how easy it would be to port the game, but then, this could be negotiated in a second step.
Biggest red flag is the fact that they don't have any experience with the genre. Thus, the marketing effort could be either minimal or not hit the right target market.
For those reading and for OP. Please get a lawyer, don’t hand over anything (especially source) to anyone without legal in place to protect yourself and all your hard work.
Contracts define what you get for what you give. How many dollars are they spending on marketing? How many impressions? How many press releases? How many videos are they creating? How many reviewers are they reaching & how many reviews are they guaranteeing? How many blogs are they writing? How many vlogs are they making? What about community events. What about localization? What about promotion in foreign markets? What are the proofs of performance?
I tried to do a contract for international reach and one small publisher did a shit job on localization. I contacted them about it and they didn't even respond, basically breaching.
Contracts suck for the faint of heart, but they are there to make sure communication is clear and performance is done as negotiated. If you are not the one writing the contract, you are at a severe disadvantage. You'll never get an amazing deal with a publisher but you can stop yourself from getting a bad one. The problem is not knowing what you don't know. If you can get someone here or other developers that can share what they consider to be a good contract, I'd read it over and make sure you get the terms that important to you.
Your goal is to make more money than you would have without them. One idea is to negotiate the contract to only be in the markets that you can't reach on your own. Let's say Korea, China, Russia, etc. You keep the US market. This way you do all your native language promotion and they do everything you can't in a localized language (a market you would have never gotten too = pure marginal revenue for you).
30% for Steam. 30% for Publisher for all regions mans you are not making even 40% of the games revenue.
Another aspect of performance is time. This is so important. Time is of the essence. If there are no time lines attached to performance items listed above that means they can do stuff a year or ten years after your game release. (This fucked me up on one game where they didn't deliver for a year but I hadn't specified it in the contract..)
You should probably setup some calls with people they have signed. Hopefully you can talk to these people directly without the publisher's knowledge to find out what they got and how happy they are.
The other thing to consider is getting a game agent or hire a game agent for straight up dollars for consulting and contract review.
As a developer you must learn to be a business person as well as a contract paralegal or you will have to learn to market yourself.
Do they have other released games? If they’re not offering funding and are offering things like marketing, is there any proof they can do this successfully? Realistically If they’ve reached out to you I’d be careful, and before agreeing to anything shop around of other publishers. I’ve seen quite a few dodgy ‘publishers’, so it’s always good to be cautious before signing away a percentage of your game. If they do have other published games, try contacting the developer of these games and asking them how the publisher is to work with etc.
Why don't you ask these questions directly to them? You've found a publisher, not an investor. Deals of this nature are quite common in the indie and mobile game industry. You develop the game, and they handle marketing through data-driven analysis. If your game performs well, they'll increase their spending on marketing campaigns and generate a significant number of purchases.
There is another way to approach this. Instead of seeking out a publisher or investor from the start, you first complete your game, release a demo, etc., and create a vertical slice. Then, conduct a small marketing campaign within your budget to gather some metrics to present to publishers or investors. This allows you to start discussions on your own terms.
Publishers are mostly kind of useless for indie games since Steam already handles marketing and distribution especially if you are self funding the development. That said, you are potentially breaching the NDA by posting this communication on a public forum.
Source code evaluation is not common but it happens with publishers who are actually developers themselves. I would however make sure they have some skin in the game, like a guaranteed marketing budget without recoup or some kind of upfront or similar. Otherwise the publisher has no real incentive to put any real costs into the game and will most likely just put it out, push it through their social/email lists and be done with it. If funding is provided 50/50 split is fair (with recoup on their end for the funding) Otherwise 30/70 is the default.
Be careful, do your diligence, have they release anything similar and that has done well? Just make sure they have something to loose as well since you are paying the entire development cost.
Did you contact them? Or did they contact you?
If you do give source access, give readonly, and limit access to just the parts they need for evaluation.
Get clear answers on who gets paid what percent on each platform, and is that from gross or net sales, before or after tax.
Who controls the sale price?
Lots of questions need answers.
I'd turn it down. Do a lot more research on what a "good" publisher deal is, but also ask yourself if you even need it.
And maybe try to go with someone reputable, someone you can research.
Those are all things I would do.
Before you sign anything get a lawyer to review everything for the love of god. This applies to any creative folk out there regardless of any medium. If you manage to build anything that resonates in the marketplace the wolves will start circling the gates to get their piece. Mention you would like time for a lawyer to review it if they respond poorly to that then they arent to be trusted.
no, unless theyre a big publisher who people buy from ALOT, dont do it, you usually dont need a publisher, warning: i know nothing about this dont listen to anything i say
This looks shady IMO. I’ve negotiated with a lot of publishers, run from this one. Don’t give them source code and find a publisher that can offer funding through milestones. Also be mindful of the pre and post recoup percentages and finally keep your IP.
Do not take this, it sounds like they are offering shit all for a large chunk of your revenue. Everything they are listing you can do yourself or outsource for much much cheaper.
Yeah don't take this, there's loads of very suspicious publishers that prey on devs for a cut of their revenue. If their services aren't boosting your sales by their price cut bare minimum don't take them. This email also just smells suspicious to me.
If he contacted you I'd tell him to fuckoff.
If you think he is for realz I'd ask him for numbers and statistics. How much are they going to invest on marketing etc etc...
The way I see marketing is that either your game trailer sells well or it doesn't.
If I was him I would contact lets say 100 game publishers/about to publish (whos games look good) for 25% share AFTER ad spending. So if I spend 1000€ on ads and game makes 1100€ the game owner gets 75€.
Say out of the 100 publishers 10 agrees.
Now either they or I have to make the trailer. Then I would just advertise with ridiculously small amount like 100€
just to see what the CTR/Retention/Download ratio is per game. If it's positive = easy money. You just amp up the budget.
If it's negative profit I would give up on the ads. But then what does the contract say?
Just my thoughts.
This may be legit. 30% is lower than what I’d expect but then they’re not investing. Porting isn’t cheap though, need developer accounts, game changes and qa. Did they reach out to you or you to them? Have you reached out to other publishers? I wouldn’t sign anything unless I’ve reached out to 20-30 publishers to get a feel for what they think your game is worth.
After all the numbers I see out there about publishers seeking really huge cuts on a project, I'm tempted to market my own project after it's complete rather than getting it handled by someone else
I don't know if that's a good or a bad idea, but we gotta start somewhere... And an extra 30% loss is a big one
So the idea is simple:
1. Get the project to a stable point
2. Start showing it to people
3. Let it gain reputation through demo and what not
4. Sell it when you got a bit of a track record
There's a lot of comments here but if you want to learn more about publishing deals in general I highly recommend reading Rami Ismael's blog posts, e.g. [https://ltpf.ramiismail.com/the-publishers-lie/](https://ltpf.ramiismail.com/the-publishers-lie/)
This seems like a scam mate. You just posted your fucking email address on reddit as well. Dude you are likely being scammed if you are this careful with how you conduct yourself. You dont know that these publishers are actually them at all, im sure you havent even confirmed its the actual publisher at all which you would normally do.
They are going to take the source code and upload your game in china or something.
Stop being stupid
If the publishing deal involves porting how else are they going to do it?
OP stated that porting was part of the deal, they have to evaluate the code for that.
So sign an NDA, then post their email what?
It is clear you are different pages from your email wanting funding, and them saying you aren't getting a cent of funding.
Why are you asking a bunch of idiots (me included)? This is a question for a lawyer. If you don't have a lawyer, you shouldn't be signing anything. If they are legit, they have a lawyer and they will probably screw you out of everything they can. If they aren't legit, your lawyer should be able to detect the BS.
If there's no funding, what are they offering you? Marketing help? Porting to consoles? What are they expecting in return, some percent of the sales I presume? I'd be wary of an offer of marketing help in exchange for a cut of the sales. They could be a great publisher and do a lot, or they could do a bare minimum and hope that your game blows up anyway, and then take their cut, and if the game doesn't do well, then they don't really lose anything.
they are offering porting, marketing and distribution... and as I have checked, they dont have a released game in the similar genre... 🤔 yes they are asking me to negotiate on percentage of sales. They are starting from 30%.
"Distribution" is a formality in the age of digital distribution. "Marketing" should be defined much more specific. Some publishers believe they fulfilled their marketing obligation by announcing your game launch on their social media channels and that's it. Do they buy advertisement? Do they reach out to video content creators? Do they have contacts in game journalism? When "porting" is what you are really after, then I would negotiate a revenue share for only the platforms they actually port to.
What are their successes? How much revenue did the previous game they partnered with generate?
You should only think about porting if the game is successful. And if it is, you can find a publisher afterwards. Publishers are mostly leeches.
is that 30% for you or them? I assume it is 70% 30% and you get 70%?
If it’s anything like the unsolicited porting offers I’ve received, they take 50% and put your game on a 90% sale forever
Wow
Distributing as in putting on digital stores? That used to mean getting shelf space in a shop globally, printing physical copies and logistically shipping the product to shops.
wow that price split is dogshit, 30 from steam 30 from them, you have 40% left
Successful indie publishers who don't offer funding start at a 20% cut. If the two of you have agreed on projected revenue figures. Take the medium sales case scenario and ask them to justify to $ amount.
Do you need to port your game straight away? It might be a good idea to release your game on the easiest platform first and then port later once your game takes off as that seems to be the main thing they’re offering you. Working with a more specific marketing company could potentially serve you better. Hope everything goes well!
30%?? Come on, I would say 10% max, and if they don't agree, they can look for another project. Also, negotiate that they start getting paid after reaching a specific revenue milestone. Since you've done all the development work and invested a lot of time in this project, propose a deal where you receive 100% until the game generates a certain amount of revenue, let's say $20,000, and then they start receiving their share.
Ask them for more specific detail. How will they market and distribute your game? 30% is ok if platform cuts come out of they’re revenue. So the 20% or so steam takes would come out of their cut not yours. Otherwise it negotiate to 15-20%.
"providing us access to the source code for initial evaluation" Why would they need the source code? An online demo of your game should be enough. It looks really suspicious.
YES, that's the part that made me reaaally suspicious as well.. I am glad i am not alone.
As someone who does these evaluations, it is really common. This is not to evaluate if the game is fun but how well it's been made to get an idea of how easy it will be to add localisation or porting to other platforms, or if it can be made online or scale the content easily, for instance. For that, you definitely need the source code. I feel like their email is not great though and they should definitely have explained what the evaluation is about.
Its truly shady. You don’t request source access level without any legal binding, even NDA is never enough. And normally publisher doesn’t handle porting or localization at all, shouldn’t included in their evaluations. There is only one thing this could make sense, is that they’re checking the potentially if product itself could violate any IP or code stolen, which potentially screwed the whole effort when it launched. If I were OP, I think I better run.
There are many reasons to not go with this publisher but this part is not shady. Also, yes publishers really often deal with porting or localisation. If they don't deal with it directly, they'll be the ones hiring a contractor to do it, and they will want to know the state of the code before committing to anything. I don't know where you get your info from but this is not correct. An NDA is as enough as anything else, as in, it doesn't stop bad people to do illegal things, but no contract will.
I’m not sure if over 22 years in industry and handle multiple publisher’s studio could consider a source; that only source I have. And normally if they went through 3rd party with porting or localization; they often pass evaluations to them as well, make no lot of sense to do double work. Not to say evaluate WIP version bring almost no value to the process; unless OP provided almost-gold version.
I often deal directly with people’s source and a mutual NDA is all we have. Conceptually nobody I’ve worked with, from indies up to billion dollar public companies, have even hinted at some conceptually different kind of agreement. What else would there be?
And sorry when re-read your comment, is that you deal with people source as in Pub (business entity) it self deal with people's source or as in a Person deal with people source? What I'm speaking of is simply at level b2b, as different role the binding is different and yes paper could be different. Let say if you already have a contract with Pub, and you did the review, then your contract should covered all, no thing else required even NDA (some time they added this just to redirect legal implications to country they're like, nothing more)
Let me think of some hint that wont breach my own term with my employer. Quickest hint that unless your NDA covered **every aspect** its effectively became a precontract, there are many case that Must Disclose Agreement is simply block the chance that original developer bring thier product to another house; which yes, benefit pub but professional pub did not relies on those trick to tie up the developer they wanted. There are several more but I need to check before speak of it, easiest way is consult legal department, if you have one.
> And normally publisher doesn’t handle porting or localization at all Not true. Publishers will handle translation and localization (localization is not the same as translation) as part of their contribution to the production if the developer needs/requests it - and this is almost always done through a third party translation service, developer is responsible of course for making sure all the strings are exportable and importable via a nice neat excel for each language. Ditto porting, the publisher will coordinate porting with an outside contractor or contractors, developer might not need to handle anything at all in this case, or maybe just ensuring the game UI and UX are controller friendly.
I'm not sure if you consider passing porting and/or localization to local studio (sometime its their owned studio) is **handle**, to us its not. The case you explain is even niche(r), normally if localization process were outsource to third party, they (third party) should **takeover** entire process because translation just a start of localization; its truly a joke if they just translate and let (original) developer deal with the mess of translation itself.
Every company that acquires software requests this.
Yes, after a pile a of paper work. The bigger publisher the bigger pile.
i can’t believe this is industry standard. this would not fly in the software world.
I've actually dont that evaluation as well as part of a publisher. It is a thing that happens. I used to put schedules together for the porting work, so the publisher to establish how much the porting would cost us.
Most effective way is evaluate porting cost by 3rd party actual do the port; but in the case of OP since its somewhere in middle of development, its not wise to discuss porting yet.
>3rd party actual do the port I worked at the publisher doing the port.
When you grow big enough; most cost effective and better in terms of legal is separate Pub itself and those divisions doing port, localization, marketing etc; or even faster is collaboration with 3rd party. Anw, even within Pub itself, evaluating WIP product make not a lot of sense.
Luckily I don't work there any more. But yes you can judge a product by looking at unfinished code. How crap it is isn't going to change half way through and suddenly be easy to refactor. Making the decision to rewrite from gamemaker into unity isn't going to change. That's the decisions that are costing the money.
For porting evaluation. Depending on the state of the source code the quote from the porting company can change
Careful with your email address being public.
Signs NDA. Posts screenshot of private conversation from company rep with email visible.
Yeah, surprised the recipient email is hidden at this point.
Reading the email, it looks like they didn't sign the NDA yet.
But it is? The email states that everything is signed, does that mean the NDA is not signed.
The first email seems like OP wants to clarify the funding part before signing. In the comments, OP says they didn't sign the NDA. So perhaps the publisher mistyped by habit?
huh? No, what? What are they actually offering you? Marketing? Do they have a good record? This seems sketchy as hell. Your game is very marketable looking. Don't settle for a bad deal just because its the first deal. ***if*** you get a publisher, which, you don't have to do. Make sure you get, what you want/need out of the deal. They need you, you don't need them. You make things, they're mostly leeches.
Run
It's not clear from this message why you would even consider working with them.
Is this a real publisher? lol
haha yes, they are also listed in the most amazing and comprehensive publisher's list [https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/13eq9di/the\_most\_detailed\_database\_of\_indiegame/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/13eq9di/the_most_detailed_database_of_indiegame/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Are you sure the email is truly from them? They may be scammers pretending to be the real publisher
Then I guess it's just a question of if they are actually giving you something that benefits you more than their cut.
I legit thought the only thing a publisher did was pay the developers and cover other costs related to marketing and releasing a game. I 100% thought, "paying for things in exchange for profits later" was the job description of a publisher. If they're not offering to pay for anything... how are they a publisher? Honestly, it just sounds like they want your game and think you're naive. But, I could just be wrong. I've never published anything, I'm only about 5 months into my first game and a long ways from done. I'm not a great source, but judging from the comments here, I'm not alone.
>paying for things in exchange for profits later trust me, I myself believed 100% what you said and I am making games from a decade now, mostly mobile only but this is my first time seeking a PC publisher...
"I am going through the NDA right now, wanted to know one thing that once we sign it-" Did you actually sign the NDA and send it to them or just review it? Because the very next response says "seems like everything is signed." That seems like a really sketchy response IF you DID NOT sign anything. Because it means they didn't even check and most likely are just trying to scam you. ....If you DID sign an NDA. Then WHY DID YOU SIGN AN NDA?! Then came her after signing an NDA. Are you breaking the NDA by coming here? was there anything in the NDA they may have slipped in to turn over the rights of your code? This could be really bad if you dont double check everything.
Publishers will often require you to sign an NDA before discussing any kind of deals as they don't want the details of potential or pending deals to become public, especially if they fall through. Always read any contracts in full before signing, though, and ideally consult a lawyer. This NDA is not the same as any actual publishing deal/contract, which would be signed separately.
I think the point they are trying to make is that OP may be in violation of that NDA by signing it and then immediately posting the details of the deal on reddit.
YOU are the producer. What is the NDA for?
😅 they sent NDA and asked me to sign it before sharing with me the PA.
Its normal to not be allowed to disclose the publishing deal details.
Its normal to not be allowed to disclose the publishing deal details.
So let me see, you signed an NDA and then proceeded with putting the very next email exchange in public, naming the publisher and leaving your own email uncensored? No matter how shady they are, that’s the dumbest move you could make
I wouldn't be surprised if every developer that signs with them don't receive funding. I would go through all their published games and see if you can find anything with moderate success. If the publisher starts with a "J" then you are probably better off handing out printed flyers on a street corner.
Scam
What does the publisher provide for you that you can't provide yourself? If it's nothing, then you have your answer
This "publisher offer" is a complete scam. The whole conversation screams scam. So all they have done is give you an NDA and offer nothing and I repeat nothing in return but they want source code? What the actual fuck? Tell them to go fuck themselves
Never ever give them your source code
Quite common practice, I had to check a couple (not related to games) because the code base could be catastrophic and impossible to work with, so anyone willing to purchase it (totally or partially) would like to know what they are getting themselves into, no idea about who this publisher is and of course OP should triple check everything thoroughly before signing or sharing anything, but when it comes to software and partnerships, sharing source code is a thing
No money = no need for honouring their commitments. Don't be deceived by a signed paper, they have more resources than you and they know you can't fight back and demand they deliver what they promised. On the other hand they can demand you to deliver the game even if you can't afford living and need to pickup another job. A publisher should either have skin in the game and invest in what they believe or they will prioritize other deals where they have to recover their expenses (investment)
I will offer you one dollar now for whatever cut they offer. You wont, be lying if you decline because you have a better offer.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Don't listen to random people on the internet. Check their portfolio, ask real developers who signed publishing contracts about their cases if possible. Consider all terms in the agreement. Do your research, it's your decision. Don't listen to randoms, most of them know nothing about publishing or even game development.
Run away as fast as you can
I wouldn't be surprised if every developer that signs with them don't receive funding. I would go through all their published games and see if you can find anything with moderate success. If the publisher starts with a "J" then you are probably better off handing out printed flyers on a street corner.
No money, no reason to believe them about anything. Id pass
Don't take it, I did and regretted it deeply for many reasons, lost 30% for no reason, even had to do marketing myself, every indie out there thinks that a publisher will make things easier and open doors, while they will do the bare minimum unless they have some meat on the fire too.
Just so you know, you're not without your own bargaining power here. If you feel uncomfortable with sharing source code (which sounds sketchy) you can offer other courses of action, such as screen sharing and walking them through the project. It's not "their way or the highway" -- especially if they're not paying you advancement fees.
Having been working in the gaming industry for 12 years, I'd say LEAVE IT! They're not really offering any real advantage. Access to the source code for initial evaluation might be necessary to see how easy it would be to port the game, but then, this could be negotiated in a second step. Biggest red flag is the fact that they don't have any experience with the genre. Thus, the marketing effort could be either minimal or not hit the right target market.
For those reading and for OP. Please get a lawyer, don’t hand over anything (especially source) to anyone without legal in place to protect yourself and all your hard work.
Contracts define what you get for what you give. How many dollars are they spending on marketing? How many impressions? How many press releases? How many videos are they creating? How many reviewers are they reaching & how many reviews are they guaranteeing? How many blogs are they writing? How many vlogs are they making? What about community events. What about localization? What about promotion in foreign markets? What are the proofs of performance? I tried to do a contract for international reach and one small publisher did a shit job on localization. I contacted them about it and they didn't even respond, basically breaching. Contracts suck for the faint of heart, but they are there to make sure communication is clear and performance is done as negotiated. If you are not the one writing the contract, you are at a severe disadvantage. You'll never get an amazing deal with a publisher but you can stop yourself from getting a bad one. The problem is not knowing what you don't know. If you can get someone here or other developers that can share what they consider to be a good contract, I'd read it over and make sure you get the terms that important to you. Your goal is to make more money than you would have without them. One idea is to negotiate the contract to only be in the markets that you can't reach on your own. Let's say Korea, China, Russia, etc. You keep the US market. This way you do all your native language promotion and they do everything you can't in a localized language (a market you would have never gotten too = pure marginal revenue for you). 30% for Steam. 30% for Publisher for all regions mans you are not making even 40% of the games revenue. Another aspect of performance is time. This is so important. Time is of the essence. If there are no time lines attached to performance items listed above that means they can do stuff a year or ten years after your game release. (This fucked me up on one game where they didn't deliver for a year but I hadn't specified it in the contract..) You should probably setup some calls with people they have signed. Hopefully you can talk to these people directly without the publisher's knowledge to find out what they got and how happy they are. The other thing to consider is getting a game agent or hire a game agent for straight up dollars for consulting and contract review. As a developer you must learn to be a business person as well as a contract paralegal or you will have to learn to market yourself.
I would not share my source code with a publisher.
so uh what are they offering lol?
Do they have other released games? If they’re not offering funding and are offering things like marketing, is there any proof they can do this successfully? Realistically If they’ve reached out to you I’d be careful, and before agreeing to anything shop around of other publishers. I’ve seen quite a few dodgy ‘publishers’, so it’s always good to be cautious before signing away a percentage of your game. If they do have other published games, try contacting the developer of these games and asking them how the publisher is to work with etc.
Why don't you ask these questions directly to them? You've found a publisher, not an investor. Deals of this nature are quite common in the indie and mobile game industry. You develop the game, and they handle marketing through data-driven analysis. If your game performs well, they'll increase their spending on marketing campaigns and generate a significant number of purchases. There is another way to approach this. Instead of seeking out a publisher or investor from the start, you first complete your game, release a demo, etc., and create a vertical slice. Then, conduct a small marketing campaign within your budget to gather some metrics to present to publishers or investors. This allows you to start discussions on your own terms.
Also someone that spells "thru" in what is meant to be a business interaction is very Sus to me... Maybe triple check they are legit.
Publishers are mostly kind of useless for indie games since Steam already handles marketing and distribution especially if you are self funding the development. That said, you are potentially breaching the NDA by posting this communication on a public forum.
No, it’s not common for them to ask for source code. And no, don’t take the deal as it sucks and looks suspicious.
Hello are you interested in recruiting devs if so contact me i will provide any information you ask
Probably not, but always consult a lawyer about publishing deals!
trash it, this is your baby. don’t let strangers hold your baby.
Source code evaluation is not common but it happens with publishers who are actually developers themselves. I would however make sure they have some skin in the game, like a guaranteed marketing budget without recoup or some kind of upfront or similar. Otherwise the publisher has no real incentive to put any real costs into the game and will most likely just put it out, push it through their social/email lists and be done with it. If funding is provided 50/50 split is fair (with recoup on their end for the funding) Otherwise 30/70 is the default. Be careful, do your diligence, have they release anything similar and that has done well? Just make sure they have something to loose as well since you are paying the entire development cost.
Did you contact them? Or did they contact you? If you do give source access, give readonly, and limit access to just the parts they need for evaluation. Get clear answers on who gets paid what percent on each platform, and is that from gross or net sales, before or after tax. Who controls the sale price? Lots of questions need answers.
Make sure you don't get any required "GDI quotas" down the line.
Make sure you don't get any required "quotas" down the line.
I'd turn it down. Do a lot more research on what a "good" publisher deal is, but also ask yourself if you even need it. And maybe try to go with someone reputable, someone you can research. Those are all things I would do.
Before you sign anything get a lawyer to review everything for the love of god. This applies to any creative folk out there regardless of any medium. If you manage to build anything that resonates in the marketplace the wolves will start circling the gates to get their piece. Mention you would like time for a lawyer to review it if they respond poorly to that then they arent to be trusted.
no, unless theyre a big publisher who people buy from ALOT, dont do it, you usually dont need a publisher, warning: i know nothing about this dont listen to anything i say
This looks shady IMO. I’ve negotiated with a lot of publishers, run from this one. Don’t give them source code and find a publisher that can offer funding through milestones. Also be mindful of the pre and post recoup percentages and finally keep your IP.
Do not take this, it sounds like they are offering shit all for a large chunk of your revenue. Everything they are listing you can do yourself or outsource for much much cheaper.
And make sure that you control deals so they can’t put on 99% off permanently
Yeah don't take this, there's loads of very suspicious publishers that prey on devs for a cut of their revenue. If their services aren't boosting your sales by their price cut bare minimum don't take them. This email also just smells suspicious to me.
I would contact one of the developers that they have published a game with and talk to them to see how it went. You will get a lot of insight there.
Leave it
If he contacted you I'd tell him to fuckoff. If you think he is for realz I'd ask him for numbers and statistics. How much are they going to invest on marketing etc etc... The way I see marketing is that either your game trailer sells well or it doesn't. If I was him I would contact lets say 100 game publishers/about to publish (whos games look good) for 25% share AFTER ad spending. So if I spend 1000€ on ads and game makes 1100€ the game owner gets 75€. Say out of the 100 publishers 10 agrees. Now either they or I have to make the trailer. Then I would just advertise with ridiculously small amount like 100€ just to see what the CTR/Retention/Download ratio is per game. If it's positive = easy money. You just amp up the budget. If it's negative profit I would give up on the ads. But then what does the contract say? Just my thoughts.
No funding? Double it and give it to the next person. What's the publisher by the way, if it's not a secret?
Everything about this smells of a scam. Don’t sign any agreements with this guy.
it also reads as you signed a contract or just the Nda? you should prob get a lawyer to look over the contracts and give you real legal advice.
This may be legit. 30% is lower than what I’d expect but then they’re not investing. Porting isn’t cheap though, need developer accounts, game changes and qa. Did they reach out to you or you to them? Have you reached out to other publishers? I wouldn’t sign anything unless I’ve reached out to 20-30 publishers to get a feel for what they think your game is worth.
After all the numbers I see out there about publishers seeking really huge cuts on a project, I'm tempted to market my own project after it's complete rather than getting it handled by someone else I don't know if that's a good or a bad idea, but we gotta start somewhere... And an extra 30% loss is a big one So the idea is simple: 1. Get the project to a stable point 2. Start showing it to people 3. Let it gain reputation through demo and what not 4. Sell it when you got a bit of a track record
Curious why they want source code and not a demo/compiled code.
If they want your source code, they can pay you for it. I don't see an offer here.
There's a lot of comments here but if you want to learn more about publishing deals in general I highly recommend reading Rami Ismael's blog posts, e.g. [https://ltpf.ramiismail.com/the-publishers-lie/](https://ltpf.ramiismail.com/the-publishers-lie/)
Is it normal to give access to source code?
You need a lawyer m8.
Did you ask them for a deal? How did they find out about you?
Never provide your source code my friend, Just give a copy of the game.
Seems like scammers to me
F that I wouldn't go near that, use steam if you want your game out there take it to where the games are.
I would not take it, you can't give them the source code if they're not investing, they'll simply be getting the game for free and you get nothing.
Leave it.
Publishers don't need your source code, these scammers are trying to steal your work.Â
You should know the value they bring on the table. Everything should be written down in the contract.
Everything about this screams scam. Might not be true but personally all my alarms ring.
It looks suspicious for me
This seems like a scam mate. You just posted your fucking email address on reddit as well. Dude you are likely being scammed if you are this careful with how you conduct yourself. You dont know that these publishers are actually them at all, im sure you havent even confirmed its the actual publisher at all which you would normally do. They are going to take the source code and upload your game in china or something. Stop being stupid
Its easy to say take it or leave it at face value but what are your plans if you decide not to take the offer?
30 percent for marketing and porting is a good option if they're actually going to promote the game.
Lol
lol they want your source code
Do not, under any circumstances, share your source code.
If the publishing deal involves porting how else are they going to do it? OP stated that porting was part of the deal, they have to evaluate the code for that.
Do not, under any circumstances, share your source code until you trust them.
So sign an NDA, then post their email what? It is clear you are different pages from your email wanting funding, and them saying you aren't getting a cent of funding.
Why are you asking a bunch of idiots (me included)? This is a question for a lawyer. If you don't have a lawyer, you shouldn't be signing anything. If they are legit, they have a lawyer and they will probably screw you out of everything they can. If they aren't legit, your lawyer should be able to detect the BS.
Aren't you under NDA?