Diragor is right. Don''t sign a contract that you don''t fully understand and agree to its entire contents. Its probably highly advisable to hire a lawyer to interpret it for you. Any publisher is going to publish a game to make money, hopefully lots of it. And it is likely that a contract will be written more with the publisher''s interests in mind than the developer. If you sign and you don''t understand/agree, you are out of luck. You had your chance.
I''ll also just say that I also applaud the Crystal Interactive CEO for being brave and standing up for his company here. I have a project to develop an independent game, and I can see that I would probably at least talk to them.
When approaching *any* publisher, I would ask for as much historical information on sales and delivered royalties as they can provide. I would also seriously push to talk to developers who have actually worked with the company---sort of as a reference. AND, I would carefully read---and have a game industry lawyer read---any contract before I sign with *any* company.
Graham Rhodes
Senior Scientist
Applied Research Associates, Inc.
email: grhodes@sed.ara.com
www.garagedeveloper.com
Answers to questions:
1) Yes, figuratively speaking, if you become an XPartner for Xtreme Games you are selling your soul. They may be good if you want to package your game in a budget bundle, but do NOT become a "Partner."
2) The rumors around Crystal Interactive include:
- They are not truthful to the claims on their websites
- The stats on their website are not truthful
- They have a warez mole in the company
- There only method of distributing games is THROUGH other companies like egames.
For the record, I know NOTHING of how true or how false these rumors are, I just figure that since there are so many other companies that are not so ambiguous...
To Diragor: Sure, it may be a sign that a company is innocent because they have explanations to repeated accusations--but maybe it''s a sign that they are used to and prepared to be accused... Also, I HAVE spoken to people that have dealt with both Xtreme Games and Crystal Interactive, as well as people from other companies that have told me what THEY know about the companies, so don''t assume that I''m just throwing out my own personal thoughts from no frame of reference.
To Alex D''Vries: Sorry if I spelled that incorrectly. I don''t mean to attack your company, and as I wrote above I in fact have no proof whatsoever of said rumors ... everyone here is free to completely disregard them and listen to whatever formulated response you may post. All I''m doing is expressing my opinion and exercising my right to freedom of speech.
------------------------------
Changing the future of adventure gaming...
Atypical Interactive
1) Yes, figuratively speaking, if you become an XPartner for Xtreme Games you are selling your soul. They may be good if you want to package your game in a budget bundle, but do NOT become a "Partner."
2) The rumors around Crystal Interactive include:
- They are not truthful to the claims on their websites
- The stats on their website are not truthful
- They have a warez mole in the company
- There only method of distributing games is THROUGH other companies like egames.
For the record, I know NOTHING of how true or how false these rumors are, I just figure that since there are so many other companies that are not so ambiguous...
To Diragor: Sure, it may be a sign that a company is innocent because they have explanations to repeated accusations--but maybe it''s a sign that they are used to and prepared to be accused... Also, I HAVE spoken to people that have dealt with both Xtreme Games and Crystal Interactive, as well as people from other companies that have told me what THEY know about the companies, so don''t assume that I''m just throwing out my own personal thoughts from no frame of reference.
To Alex D''Vries: Sorry if I spelled that incorrectly. I don''t mean to attack your company, and as I wrote above I in fact have no proof whatsoever of said rumors ... everyone here is free to completely disregard them and listen to whatever formulated response you may post. All I''m doing is expressing my opinion and exercising my right to freedom of speech.
------------------------------
Changing the future of adventure gaming...
Atypical Interactive
(Deep Breath) Sigh! Need I go over this for the one million and second time? Do I?
A few questions for you Mr. AtypicalAlex:
1) How long does it take for information to actually be processed in your brain? I''ve already given you a reason for the website problems!
2) Who told you all these rumours about us? Quoting from an anonymous source is easy. Did you know I heard the other day you let a chimp do the code on your forthcoming game? Oops, sorry can''t reveal my sources... But it is true! (YEAH RIGHT!!!)
3) Have you actually got a clue to what the publishing process is about? If not, stop telling me there are untruthful accusations on our website! Check it out before you "voice your thoughts"!!!
I''m so sick and tired of people like you. There''s no excuse for it as you''re obviously enjoying this bashing of me and my company. And your apology is like kicking someone in the kneecap and then saying you didn''t mean to!!! You E-mailed me some time ago for information about what we could do with your game and I told you in detail what we can do. And this is what you do with this information??? You should be ashamed of yourself. And I really mean that!
We have sales accounts with all the major retail chains in Europe and North America, as well as several Australian chains. Furthermore we just bought a Korean distributor and started a joint venture with a large Japanese distributor. And you still hold it against us that we did a lousy 3 game special version only sub-license deal with eGames almost a year ago??? Also we do have some integrity (not a word in your dictionary I presume?) and only have a select number of people gain access to the master CDs. These are stored in a safe place and we therefore NEVER had the displeasure of finding a warez mole in our company. I also can assure you there NEVER will be any!
I''m extremely fed up with having to defend myself and Crystal Interactive over and over against stubborn people like yourself who act like brick walls and don''t seem to accept ANY of my comments. They just bounce off!!! And before you tell me that you didn''t accuse us but only repeated "rumours" in an objective manner I''d have to point out that this is just as harmful to us! I don''t know whether you noticed but we have people who actually depend on this company. Secretaries, sales reps, administrative staff, executives, assembly line workers who put together the products and last but not least the developers. So with one whim you decide to discredit us deliberately and attack the necessity of our employees. Imagine what the family of an assembly line worker in our company would think of that? Same goes for your comments about other companies! I think it''s tasteless to discredit Expert, eGames or even Xtreme Games. You happen to dislike all of us... Well, don''t do any business with any of us then!!!
Mind you, it leaves you with NO company to publish your game. But rest assured, Shareware can make you up to $50 a month nowadays... YUMMY!
Sincerely,
Alex de Vries
President and CEO
Crystal Interactive LLC
European Division
"A Nutridata Company"
http://www.crystal-interactive.com
A few questions for you Mr. AtypicalAlex:
1) How long does it take for information to actually be processed in your brain? I''ve already given you a reason for the website problems!
2) Who told you all these rumours about us? Quoting from an anonymous source is easy. Did you know I heard the other day you let a chimp do the code on your forthcoming game? Oops, sorry can''t reveal my sources... But it is true! (YEAH RIGHT!!!)
3) Have you actually got a clue to what the publishing process is about? If not, stop telling me there are untruthful accusations on our website! Check it out before you "voice your thoughts"!!!
I''m so sick and tired of people like you. There''s no excuse for it as you''re obviously enjoying this bashing of me and my company. And your apology is like kicking someone in the kneecap and then saying you didn''t mean to!!! You E-mailed me some time ago for information about what we could do with your game and I told you in detail what we can do. And this is what you do with this information??? You should be ashamed of yourself. And I really mean that!
We have sales accounts with all the major retail chains in Europe and North America, as well as several Australian chains. Furthermore we just bought a Korean distributor and started a joint venture with a large Japanese distributor. And you still hold it against us that we did a lousy 3 game special version only sub-license deal with eGames almost a year ago??? Also we do have some integrity (not a word in your dictionary I presume?) and only have a select number of people gain access to the master CDs. These are stored in a safe place and we therefore NEVER had the displeasure of finding a warez mole in our company. I also can assure you there NEVER will be any!
I''m extremely fed up with having to defend myself and Crystal Interactive over and over against stubborn people like yourself who act like brick walls and don''t seem to accept ANY of my comments. They just bounce off!!! And before you tell me that you didn''t accuse us but only repeated "rumours" in an objective manner I''d have to point out that this is just as harmful to us! I don''t know whether you noticed but we have people who actually depend on this company. Secretaries, sales reps, administrative staff, executives, assembly line workers who put together the products and last but not least the developers. So with one whim you decide to discredit us deliberately and attack the necessity of our employees. Imagine what the family of an assembly line worker in our company would think of that? Same goes for your comments about other companies! I think it''s tasteless to discredit Expert, eGames or even Xtreme Games. You happen to dislike all of us... Well, don''t do any business with any of us then!!!
Mind you, it leaves you with NO company to publish your game. But rest assured, Shareware can make you up to $50 a month nowadays... YUMMY!
Sincerely,
Alex de Vries
President and CEO
Crystal Interactive LLC
European Division
"A Nutridata Company"
http://www.crystal-interactive.com
All right, since I am NOT going to be posting on this thread again, I''m going to make this short:
I am NOT attacking your company, Mr. D''Vries, and people have no reason to believe me as I offer no substantial proof. A fellow indie developer wanted to know about the various indie publishers ... I told him what I knew as if I was a critic ... I did not "discredit" Expert or eGames, I just told him what I knew. Even your company I didn''t totally discredit, as rumors are only rumors ... Xtreme Games was the only company I officially discredited, and this is because I KNOW how unfair their contract is.
I''m going to say THIS for the last time to: People do not have to believe me. I was asked a question, I answered to the best of my knowledge, and said so. I did not attack you personally so don''t do the same to me. You don''t see the president of Blizzard coming here and flaming someone for posting a "Diablo 2 SUX!!!" thread.
But I digress, and will announce here that I will no longer have anything to do with Crystal Interactive on this board, saving you any further disturbances.
------------------------------
Changing the future of adventure gaming...
Atypical Interactive
I am NOT attacking your company, Mr. D''Vries, and people have no reason to believe me as I offer no substantial proof. A fellow indie developer wanted to know about the various indie publishers ... I told him what I knew as if I was a critic ... I did not "discredit" Expert or eGames, I just told him what I knew. Even your company I didn''t totally discredit, as rumors are only rumors ... Xtreme Games was the only company I officially discredited, and this is because I KNOW how unfair their contract is.
I''m going to say THIS for the last time to: People do not have to believe me. I was asked a question, I answered to the best of my knowledge, and said so. I did not attack you personally so don''t do the same to me. You don''t see the president of Blizzard coming here and flaming someone for posting a "Diablo 2 SUX!!!" thread.
But I digress, and will announce here that I will no longer have anything to do with Crystal Interactive on this board, saving you any further disturbances.
------------------------------
Changing the future of adventure gaming...
Atypical Interactive
This topic is closed to new replies.
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