Help me find a publisher

#1 Do you mean attract an online publisher to fund the rest of your games development or to show some kind of interest in publishing it once its done? If its the latter then you might want to try GG, if your demo's really good then they'll probably seriously consider publishing it. If you meant the former... well, thats not really the way things work around here, but good luck anyway

#2 Well to get this game done Im going to need funding to secure staff. That's the real problem. If I do it alone and get GG to publish it - it will take me a long time to complete it.

I can do both - I will work on it myself to get it done, but in the meantime I would like to get contributors to expedite the game creation process.

Andy H.

#3 Don't expect to get funding. Especially with the "Im too scared to go to the big guys and I don't think I'd stand a chance anyway" attitude.

You don't need funding to secure a staff. A Tech demo will get you virtually nowhere- consider that you have to compete with Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 in terms of Tech. Are you anywhere near that?

If you are a one-man team at this time, you most likely need feedback from experienced developers. Even working within a small team, we tend to wear "dev goggles" that don't allow us to see the game from an external viewpoint. Loss of that focus and valuable input is one of the worst things that can happen.

#4 Well you know he may get funding from somewhere but the big boys may not be an option right now. I mean people still have to make those games you find in ceral boxes, or given away with toys, not being degrading, if someone would pay me to write a game that will be on a CD in a ceral box, I would gladly give up my day job as a Windows front end GUI, and backend database, developer.

#5 Thats contract work. Different than getting your own game published.

Although that is still a viable option. I know many developers that do some of that work and its viewed as a paycheck. So its not degrading at all. Some of it can even be fun and challenging. Corporate Flash games like those at Nick.com or cartoonnetwork.com are not necessarily original or even deeply engaging. But sometimes they can be a fun (and free) diversion.

#6 Firstly, thanks for all the comments - greatly appreciated :)

In response to the comment from Randall...

Especially with the "Im too scared to go to the big guys and I don't think I'd stand a chance anyway" attitude.

... I don't necessarily think like that but Im trying to be humble at the moment (urgghh) but sometimes (argghh) my ego can get the better of me... RAHHHGGGHHH!!!! And I Turn Into The Incredible Optimistic Man!!! My Game Is Going To Be Shit Hot And Everyones Going To Want A Copy... ermm...excuse me...

But seriously, when I made that comment I meant to say that to compete in the industry and get one of the big publishers onboard the game has to follow the current formula of games ... Tomb Raider 7, Gran Tourismo 9 etc...im doing an indi game that may not be attractive to a big publisher because of the financial risk involved with developing a game that doesn't necessarily follow that formula.

You also said I don't need funding to secure staff... how would that work? Pay the staff after the sales start coming in? That sort of thing?

Finally, the tech demo (im probably using the wrong terminology) is more of a 'look and see what Im doing' sort of thing... plus a part beta / machine test phase. I did it before with a surfing game I wrote to make sure the code worked on a bunch of different computer esp. sound and graphics.

Andy H.

#7 Pay the staff with royalties on the sales of the game. Or, rather, you should do royalties on the PROFITS. When I say "profits", I mean (price per game) - (cost per game). Don't count advertising you do, website hosting, etc. against them. And make SURE they know that the profits are coming out of the profits, not the total sales, BEFORE they start working on the game.

Most people will do little or no work. So you have to just keep looking for people until you find some who are willing to do a bunch of work. Just throw away the work done by people who only do a little bit because paying all those people $1 or so each would be a waste of time.

It helps to have a good game when you're looking for people. The good workers won't want to work on a game that isn't fun to play or doesn't look like people will want to buy it.

After you find people who actually work on your game, get them to sign a "Work for Hire" agreement (both the contractor [you] AND the contractee sign it). Basically, it says that you'll actually pay them and that they won't be like "Ha, ha, I changed my mind. Give me my work back." It should also have various clauses about the work being their own original work and stuff like that.

#8 One minor addendum...

If you sell the game to a publisher for a lump sum, you would pay the staff with that, each getting the same percentage of it as they would get of the royalties.