This devlog details the author's year-long journey of securing a publisher for their game, offering practical advice on attracting attention, negotiating terms, and navigating the complexities of publishing contracts, especially for solo developers.
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after more than a year hundreds of messages and calls with Publishers I finally managed to get
one possibly during the worst time friend the days to get published in this devlog I want to
share with you all the advice I can by sharing my journey going from obscurity to getting noticed
and signing a publisher stick until then if you'd like to know more about my publisher so it starts
with a question why would you want to sign with a it's actually very simple either because you
need money or because you don't want to handle everything yourself if you have all the money
you need you can pay for marketing testing QA lawyers everything you can basically do
everything a publisher can do but it's a lot of work handling all of this especially if you're
a solo developer like me so having someone do it can help also a publisher is specialized in this
kind of thing and we have more experience than you and a better network to use okay now let's
say you want a publisher how do you get their attention that might actually be the hardest
Step At first I did not really want a publisher so I did not even try to contact one my plan was
to have a very good demo up for Steam nextfest and then release the game in self-publishing
sometime later the only marketing I did at the time was posting cool stuff on Twitter
Reddit Etc I already starting receiving maze from Publishers but as I as I said I was not interested
in getting a publisher at the time so I would just refuse you must understand that at the time
I had a pretty negative vision of Publishers and I actually did not really know how they could help
I just saw them as people trying to make money of my creation actually the publisher I signed
they contacted me a long time ago and at first I thought it was a scam after the steam nextfest
a lot of Publishers contacted me and seeing this growing interest and the scope of my game
getting bigger and bigger I decided it wouldn't hurt to at least listen to them I did a lot of
talking through mails and calls and I learned a lot about how Publishers could actually help
me I decided it was time to contact my favorite Publishers to do this I needed a pitch deck which
is a document describing your game as well as the target audience your budget this kind of
stuff devel actually shares a very cool tutorial directly on their website the link to the tutorial
and to my P deck is in the description uh I sent my P deck to about 15 Publishers and I received
one refusal and one reply from devolver which ended up being also refused not a big success
let's just make a list of the few things you need to do to grab the Publishers attention make
a vertical slice of your game basically a very good demo that contains a tiny part of your game
but with almost the final quality it's easier for Publishers to bet on something playable and that
looks like a game than gray boxes or some IDs on paper they can also see if influencers and players
already like it you're basically reducing risk for them and that's going to help a lot during
the negotiations the drawback is obviously that you have to commit a lot of time on creating that
verical SCE with no certainty that you'll get a publisher second thing create interesting thing to
share on the social networks I have a preference for Reddit and X because that's where most
game devs and influencers are you're really not trying to get to players here you want to get to
Publishers and they are on those platforms looking out for games participate in as many events as you
can you can get a notification anytime there is an event going on um on the how to Market a game
Discord I leave a Link in the description I also know about a paid version that is I think worth
it last thing create a pach deck and send it to pubishers contacted pubishers directly did not
work well for me but you will need the pitch deck anyway I would say not rush it and wait a little
before sending your pitch deck if it contact you first you'll be in a stronger position during
the negotiation and you'll know that they are interested and that they're not going to waste
your time so now you have maybe one or several Publishers that contacted you what's next at
this stage you might be only talking to a scout Scout's job is to find good games to publish so
don't get your hopes up because it really does not mean anything it's just that that Scouts find the
game interesting but not the the publisher itself the Scout will have to convince the publisher that
it's a good game to be published uh generally the first step will be an introduction call or mail
they will present themselves talk about what they like about your game and ask you to talk about you
your studio your game that's also when they're going to ask about your pitch deck or they will
directly ask you questions about your budget when are you planning to release what's the complete
complete game play time I was really not prepared at the time uh I didn't even have a pitch deck so
I would always avoid the question about budget and planning or I would just reply something different
every time if you like the video so far give it a like uh so how to establish your budget as a Sol
developer there's no one way to do it uh the way I did it is uh I took my less salary and compared it
to the average salary here in France before taxes and then I multiply it by two and I multiplied It
Again by the number of months I thought I would need to complete the game um it's going to sound
like a lot uh especially because if you're alone working on your game on your time and stuff but
no it's really not uh big big teams cost way more like even even a five fiveman studio is going to
cost way more than you alone so no worries yeah so it's also a very good time this introduction call
for you to ask questions about them uh for example I asked if they already worked with s developers
before uh how much they are involved in the design process this kind of interesting things uh I will
link in the description uh all the questions the Publishers ask me my replies to them and also
the questions uh that I asked them and they reply so you had this introduction call and later they
contacted you to let you know that they are still interested in publishing your game that's when you
really receive an offer also called heads of terms and it's already negotiation time the offer is a
short document that focuses on the key points of the contract to make the negotiation faster
it's not the complete contract it allows us to on the most important thing before going into
the details of the contract uh you don't want to put too much time into a contract if you're not
even sure you agree on the most important things right here are a few things you want to look for
in the first offer the terms are the duration of the contract is usually going to be between
5 to 10 years and automatically renewed some will ask for eternity which OB obviously refuse
and then the publishing territories and platforms usually worldwide and on every
existing and not existing yet platforms of course the walty rate are also called Revenue share it's
usually defined as the recoup cost or r y uh the amount of money the pubisher puts into the game
basically what every publisher is going to do do is take the bigger share of the revenues until
they get back the money and then they will take the smaller share this is a point where you're
going to negotiate a lot um I I saw during negotiation rate that just because I said no
I'm going to go with someone else uh they would reduce the rate by half like by half they would
take half less money if they give you a lot of money they're going to ask for a bigger ref sh
because they're taking more risk so what you can expect the most is 910 before the first recup so
90% of their revenues for them 10% for you uh and then 30 for them 70 for you after they recoup um
I've seen a lot of 100 before recoup like you get nothing and then 50 50/50 when they have uh
the money back and then when when they have the money back a second time then you get 70 um I
did not talk to Publishers who just wanted to fund the marketing uh but not the development
uh but they would usually take a way smaller share uh something like 20% uh almost like a
PR uh the last thing you want to take a look at is the funding obviously pubishers will usually
separate the funding in several categories first the development fee the money for you to make the
game then the localization fee the money to translate the game into other language then
the uh the marketing fee so to pay things like uh influencers add marketing assets uh events all of
this and the qf is um to pay for testing and stuff those numbers will vary vastly depending of your
game and your team size but just for context here are some numbers I've been proposed so
for example a long time ago the one of the first Publishers I talked to proposed me uh
$6,000 and the last offers I got uh by uh the start of this year uh got until uh 250 to 300 uh,
do so yeah as you can see it can vary vastly and it can change obviously during you know my game
one year ago was not the same I am my game right now so how to negotiate the offer I think the most
important thing is to show confidence and great it's not the time to be humble or Dodge yourself
act as if you did not need them even if you do if they want a piece of the pie they also have
to convince you ask what you want to have don't give up what you want to keep okay don't accept
the first offer you get I I know it is tempting because you're afraid you're never going to have
another one and you're so happy that someone will give you money but please take as much
time as you can to compare the offers and bester possible you get them into a bidding war you 10
one yeah this one offered me this so it that will improve the the rate or something that's the best
scenario anytime a new publisher contacted me I would just tell them the best offer I got so
far they either leave match the offer or make a better one a publisher actually doubled the
funding of my best offer at some point so really you're going to have some surprises keep them on
their to but don't go too far be respectful don't waste their time and stay yourself
show them that you're going to be a cool person to work with and that you're excited to work
with them so what's my ref share and funding I can't tell you because I signed an NDA but I can
tell you I'm really happy about it I think it's fair um yeah it's pretty good I think
my PR is great it's very indifferently it's train to change things and try new Innovative
things uh yeah I'm very lucky to start uh publishing games with them if this kind of
video interests you consider subscribing to see more and to support me okay now let's say
you both agreed on the heads of terms now it's time to negotiate the details of the
contract this is usually at this point that the publisher is going to ask you to sign an NDA to
make sure you don't share the confidential info on the internet basic stuff and uh yeah there's
one thing you'll definitely need a lawyer objetive I know lawyers are expensive and this is scary but
it's definitely worth it believe me let's list a few advantages of having a lawyer you now have
an ally on your side believe me if you're a solo developer it's going to be very important to have
an ally they will make sure that the contract is perfectly legal which is important they will make
sure you're well protected so you can sleep better at night they will explain the legal stuff to you
so you can understand and make more informed decisions that will also help you negotiate
the contract better there are advice and wisdom because they have experience signing contracts
like this you can actually hire them uh directly for the heads of terms uh but since they're not
cheap I didn't do that I really wa did until I was pretty sure I wanted to sign and then I hired a
lawyer to make sure everything was good so let's list a few things you want to be careful about
in the contract make sure you really are the sole owner of the IP even if the contract States it's
yours it does not mean the publisher can't use it how however they they want um I've seen deals
where prer that pubishers uh do not own the IP but still has the rights to use it without needing my
approval to make sequels prils Etc um Publishers can also sublicense uh their rights to other
companies sometimes it makes sense for example to distribute your game in China but sometimes
it does not uh don't let them sell your rights uh be sure to ask that they need your approval uh to
do those things check the exit closes uh those Clauses basically Define what happens when one
of the party exit the contract one way or another for example if the publisher exit the contract
without proper reason uh make sure you still get the funding and that you don't have to refund them
uh also make sure that the exit CL close in case you bried the contract for example if you don't
finish the game in time is not asking too much of you one thing I saw often is that you have to
refund them only if you actually release the game uh so let's say uh you don't finish the game you
don't release anything you don't have to refund them which is very cool check out the platforms
prish sure will want to have all publishing rights on current and future platforms which sounds
really bad right you can negotiate this I asked a first right of refusal talk about this with your
lawyer but basically it's a standard close that you can use to basically promise that if you want
to publish the game on a new platform you have to propose to them to publish it first and only if
they accept you have to go with them but if they don't accept you can do it with someone else this
way both you and the publisher have control and are sure to not miss a good opportunity you you
don't get the whole funding money right after signing the contract you and the publisher must
make a planning composed of milestones for each Milestone you promise things that will be done
in the game and they promise to give you some amount of the funding money there's a link in
the description if you'd like to check out uh the milestone for donk don't be afraid to ask
what you want even if it's a bit unusual for example I ask to keep full publishing rights
on each doio patreon and coffee which I think is important because I want to stay independent okay
obviously it's not a huge deal because it's not going to sell a lot on each doio but still okay
so I promised you I would talk a little bit about my publisher I'm psyed to tell you that I'll be
working with AST logical you might not know them because they're still quite new to publishing
games but they do have a lot of experience funding games and they do have a strong Vision about the
games they want to publish and you can tell they really care about Indies they really want to be
a different publisher I'm really happy about this like they make sure they Vel opers stay
independent even though they're published and that's awesome okay so I'm sure you guys I have
tons of questions uh because I actually removed a lot of things from my script so that it fits
in the video because that's just so much things to to talk about so please if you have questions
ask them in the comments and I do my best to reply okay thank you for watching till the end
uh and big thank you to my supporters on patreon who makes uh those type of video possible because
it takes a lot of time if you'd like to learn more about pubishers you should take a look at
my last Dev vog where I talk about my discussions with a legendary publisher devolver so I see you
there the goal is to experiment what's game fill and how you can improve game fill in a game and
I just want to take a I didn't look at it yet I just want to take a look at it live with you guys
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