ok i was asked by a freind how much money a game brings in for the company that made it ( like if one company designed, programmed and did like 90% of it ) but had a diff company destribute it ... how much would it make $$ wise? So basicly about how many copys are sold with a game thats not great but sells at like a Mid to Average amount?? this guy thought that a average sells was like 1 Mil but i think that thats kind of high for an aveage. anyone here know of a closer amount Im a Idiot Savant without the Savant

If your game sold the average amount, you would lose money ~

90% of games do...

Its the top hit games that sell millions that keep a company afloat.

Thats Nice but if you look im asking what IS the AVEAGE amount of sells for the AVEAGE game not if they would make $$

What is an average game? I think your question is quite unclear so you receive quite unclear answer. Are we talking professional games? Indie games?

"if one company designed, programmed and did like 90% of it but had a diff company destribute it ... how much would it make $$ wise?"

This are many factors to consider here.. It sounds like you are talking about going to a publisher. I''ve never done so myself, but I''m pretty sure thats a bad thing to do if you want to make money. From what I hear, a publisher pretty much steals your game and your rights. They will force you to change the game around, then sell it in stores and take 90% of the profits and give you "royalties" which are hardly anything.

That''s why I plan to go the D.I.Y. approach (shareware..) with no publisher. I''d like to have full control over my products AND be able to get as much payment for my efforts as possible. Of course this requires more (server hosting, PHP/MYSQL, etc) but in the long run I believe it will be very worth it.
If you go to a publisher with your game(s),
I don''t think you would EVER see a million..

quote:
This are many factors to consider here.. It sounds like you are talking about going to a publisher. I''ve never done so myself, but I''m pretty sure thats a bad thing to do if you want to make money. From what I hear, a publisher pretty much steals your game and your rights. They will force you to change the game around, then sell it in stores and take 90% of the profits and give you "royalties" which are hardly anything.

Yep, that is pretty much the case with a publisher. Royalities are around 10% to 25% (if you are really lucky). And in most cases (depends on the publisher) that does not even include marketing/advertisement costs. So in the end, you''ll end up with with 3% to 5% on your product. Pretty unacceptable. But note, that a publisher will pay for the development of your product, ie. they will give you risk capital.

A distributor is different. This is just a service company, that exclusively sells your product for you. They have the distribution channels, advertisment contracts, production facilities, etc. You have to bring in the 100% finished product, ready to ship. Distributors take considerably less money. Depending on your negotiation talents (and on the product quality), you can get up to 60% and more, if you are good. You have much more pull here, because you basically present a ready-to-ship product, and could just as well go to the competitor.

Most large game companies both offer publishing and distribution deals.

quote:
If you go to a publisher with your game(s),
I don''t think you would EVER see a million..

Depends. We were offered much more than that for our game, when we looked for a publishing contract. But they will take everything away, so you have to choose what is more important to you: your game and copyrights on the technology (which could give you much higher long term profits), or the quick money.

quote:Depends. We were offered much more than that for our game, when we looked for a publishing contract. But they will take everything away, so you have to choose what is more important to you: your game and copyrights on the technology (which could give you much higher long term profits), or the quick money.

So you`re telling us that they wanted to take the rights for everything that might be created in future with YOUR OWN ENGINE ??? Come on, this would EXTREMELY suck. I know that they wanna exploit you in a maximum way, but what ON EARTH makes them think you gonna give them rights for everything to be created in future with your engine ? Or does EVERY publisher does it that way currently, so you`re left with no choice ? I mean, your engine is already created from about 60-70% (IMHO from the great thread in other forum), so they can`t just ask for this. They might, but only in case you came to publisher, signed a deal and only then started to code the engine from scratch (with your know-how from previous game engines you`ve been working on since otherwise you wouldn`t be granted the deal).
And frankly, a million or two is little money in comparison to your technology.
BTW I`m showing your screenshots to everybody that has an idea of game programming that I know , and everybody just says: hm, nice render :-)

Regarding the original post, I read somewhere on Gamasutra that the average game sells about 80.000. It is usually considered a failure if it sells 25.000 copies or less. As for this "million copies", just few games a year out of thousands make it here. If a game sells 400.000 copies you can read everywhere on web how the game is succesfull and the typical stuff with interviews, e.g. Hidden and Dangerous 1 sold about 400.000 copies and the web was full of it.

Hm, as for the distributor channel, i think those 60% is pretty high number. Which company are you talking about ? I`d be glad to talk with them. I know of several distributors that are giving you max.35 % But 60% would be really great, IMHO. Please give us a link.

::I know of several distributors that are giving you max.35 %

Not about games - but when I started shopping around for a customer having a nice end user product (in the same price area), we were offered 50% right at the table as negotiation start.

It was a "customer comes with product, even pays production", though.

quote:It was a "customer comes with product, even pays production", though.

Yeah, but then you have to create box for a game - i.e. pay for design, pay for boxes, pay for creating of CDs. When you have it packed, you have to start making some ad campaign at least in your region and let`s not forget that you have to visit every store separately and since you don`t have established contacts, you end up with just few supermarkets or local stores having your game (which you also have to pay for). One distributor with all necessary infrastructure is definitely big plus. How much can you advertise your product ? How many people shall be adressed with your promotion ? Naturally the distributor may not do anything special in the end, but there`s at least a chance... If not, you can start hunting other distributors...