I would like to know did anyone had experience with retail publisher Xing Interactive. They offered me a contract deal so I''m not really sure what to do. So again, if anyone had previous experience with them, please let me know.

It''s the same story with Alex de Vries again
You need to take a decission, I understand.
You want to check the references, I understand.
You need to know how and when to sign a contract.
But for me, I will never ever work with companies who work like Alex de Vries. Alex claimed when he was the development manager of Crystal Interactive. That the president in the USA in the end did not pay etc. Point is that he did promises and still is doing on his site, about sales figures etc.
Cosmi Interactive Marketing manager will laugh laud about this joke. There are always sales gueses but no real numbers or promises about how much you will earn. I wil not offend Alex de Vries, but he build a very bad reputation. You need to think what you will do with the given information. But I warn you don''t be glad that he offered you a contract. It''s the beginning of a long road, in the end with all disasters. That is the only thing I can say about my experience an my partner developers at gamedev. So decide and my advice is negative. I advice you to do the same as what we and the others are wanting to do. And that is self publishing online as shareware.

"So how much do you expect I can make if I sign with you?
A: Depends on your game. Even small Arcade games can make up to $25,000 in royalties for a developer. Larger games sell in excess of $100,000 royalty payments to you."

This is a joke. If this is true I already be a millionair
This is still mad and of low level. No publisher will tell you this kind of crap. Cosmi also a budget label will tell you the follow:
How many copies can you sell?

Publishing is one of the last industries where you can''t do "Proctor and Gamble" type market studies and predict sales. Cosmi is ranked as the 12th largest publisher of computer software in the United States by PC Data, an independent software sales tracking firm. We have many multiple million unit selling titles. However, until a title reaches the marketplace it is IMPOSSIBLE to predict sales results. If we are interested in a title we can provide guesses as to possible sales. Nevertheless, these will be guesses. Research shows that Cosmi titles average more than 30% higher sales than our major competitors. We can assure you that we will try to sell more copies of any program we publish than our competitors.

Also at last but least the given address in Assen is his home address

So don''t expect a company like Cosmi with a real office building

Uhm... Do you work for cosmi by any chance? If not then they should hire you as a P.R. Manager...

You are right about a couple of things. First that we are small and that Cosmi are big. We don''t have millions of dollars to spend, Cosmi do. And last but not least I work from the comfort of my own home and Cosmi have a huge office building.

I can honestly say that if you can get a contract with Cosmi then you should go for it. No need to deal with Xing Interactive. However what I do object to is the emphasis Mr. Anonymous lays on the fact that a small publisher probably won''t do a decent job or lies about revenue. And in the end a small publisher pays the royalties they owe just as well as Cosmi. Or does "Cosmi money" have a certain added value by any chance? If it does, please let me know...

Yes, I worked for Crystal Interactive. And yes they have business practices I won''t go into details over. The fact that I''m still waiting for a year''s salary from them says enough I guess... The fact that you automatically suggest that I was the bad apple in that company and now moved on to even more evil schemes I can forgive as you could come to such a conclusion if you don''t dig deeper. Fact is that Crystal Interactive are still up to their old tricks and I''m not with them anymore. So who do you think got better from this? Certainly not yours truly... I suggest you check out the facts about Xing Interactive before passing judgement. If I can sell 1.000.000 units out of a cardboard box under a bridge then that''s okay with any developer I presume?

If you really know that much about publishing then you will also know that it is long hard work to get a product on the market (certainly as a small player) and it''s a matter of day-in day-out preparations, sales calls and product presentations. In the end a game CAN make $25.000,- in royalties and it CAN get a programmer in excess of $100.000,- if it''s a top seller. Now what is so funny about that? As long as developers don''t expect to receive a cheque on day one for this amount and understand it takes the full 2 years of the contract to reach in most cases then everything is fine isn''t it?

Mr. Cosmi, I don''t have a problem with what you are saying and I don''t mind criticism as I am not perfect, but please reserve judgement until you have facts to back it up.

Take care,

Alex

"year''s salary from"

Very strange an employee is normally paid each month to stay alive and pay the bills.

Also how is it possible that someone can earn so much with that kind of simple games in competition with 3D games and the very big arcade collection of for instance eGames and Cosmi Interactive. Also Steve Pavlina of Dexterity doesn''t accept that kind of arcade games to publish online. Also publishers like mentioned add this kind of games to there big collections. So not as stand alone cdrom package. Why thats ...real marketing.
And I am in this business so I am unfortunately for your view no rookie at all. I know how this market works.

You got nice words, but all your referentions tell bad things about you. And that are the facts. I invite everybody to get in touch with the referentions and that kind of prove counts.
So if someone don''t believe me check all the referentions from the past.

"year''s salary from"

Very strange an employee is normally paid each month to stay alive and pay the bills.

Also how is it possible that someone can earn so much with that kind of simple games in competition with 3D games and the very big arcade collection of for instance eGames and Cosmi Interactive. Also Steve Pavlina of Dexterity doesn''t accept that kind of arcade games to publish online. Also publishers like mentioned add this kind of games to there big collections. So not as stand alone cdrom package. Why thats ...real marketing.
And I am in this business so I am unfortunately for your view no rookie at all. I know how this market works.

You got nice words, but all your referentions tell bad things about you. And that are the facts. I invite everybody to get in touch with the referentions and that kind of prove counts.
So if someone don''t believe me check all the referentions.

On your site is mentioned that Pool Wars sold 1000 units at Dynabyte.

Dynabyte don''t sell that game! I checked it.
Also Krakout unlimited isn''t available at AKO. At your site is mentioned sold 1000 units.

How is this possible?

Sorry, but who are you? Another anonymous poster on a crusade to expose me as evil incarnated by any chance? No I''m not taking offense to your questions, but I do to the way you "ask" them. With this I mean you are not asking questions but merely stating assumptions of which half are based on my time at Crystal Interactive. A company I used to work for and who yes indeed owe me roughly a year''s salary. Now I was supposed to be paid monthly like anyone else but they actually stopped doing so after one month. The Chairman of the Board Mr. Riza Rahman promised me the world after that, from equity in the company to profit sharing on all of the massive deals he had in the works. In the end nothing came of it. When he laid his 43656th excuse on the table why I wasn''t being paid, I terminated my employment contract with his company. I even put $10.000,- of my own life savings into this Crystal Interactive company by paying for bills for artwork and all kinds of other costs, which I NEVER will get back. Now I think you can understand why I am VERY pissed off when people like you come around and say I am not to be trusted. The so called "references" you mention are probably people who still don''t know who to blame. I''m the one who signed their game unknowingly that it would be ripped off. But I''m not the one who got to keep all of the money. I got zip, Riza Rahman got everything. Why? Because that guy is a crook and he used me to scam people. But thanks again for hearing my side of the story (not) before you pass judgement. It''s only because of my life savings combined with the fact that my wife works full time that I could pay my bills. I was a fool to trust Riza, but I don''t have to go over that again I guess.

And let me tell you something about Xing Interactive. We published 2 games in the Benelux and 2 in Germany until now. For 2 games we paid the developers and for the other 2 this is going to happen in the coming weeks because we are still waiting for the payments from the retail accounts. We have a contract which says the developer gets paid when we get paid. Not before, not after. So what is so unclear about that? Any developers who signed a game to us which hasn''t been published yet should simply have a little more patience. If they can do it faster, then why don''t they do it themselves? It''s not easy you know... Some of these guys actually think that when they give us a game on monday, it''s in the stores on tuesday... Imagine that

Your comments on the status of the game industry are right. Big collections of small games seem to dominate the market for budget, as well as former prime games being re-released at low prices. That''s all true but only in North America. In Europe we don''t have that problem really. That''s where the revenue comes from for these budget titles. We sell small games in Germany at $9.95 as a stand alone but we have to bundle between 3 and 20 games like that together until we can release them in the U.S. mainstream channels. For the non-traditional outlets we also have to make 2 and 3 packs in jewel cases to get a foothold in North America. We pay high royalties to developers and try to peddle a game for everything it''s worth to our 3.500 company strong customer database. And sure we''re told sometimes that we should not offer a retailer smaller arcade games, but with the right marketing development funds and alternatives in the form of a vast number of non-traditional outlets we do some nice volume of each title we sell.

Now I ask you which developer reference I supposedly gave you exactly claims we don''t pay them or do other horrible things to them? I''d sure like to know as apparently there are a number of people who want to keep our full attention focussed on their own games and not give another guy a chance to work with us as well

Okay..Okay

Fine!