[Fwd: Approaching Linux publishers....]

I orginally sent this email to Sam, but I assume he is too busy to
answer, so I thought I would throw this out to other people who may have
had experience in this area. If this is OT please send opinions and
answers to me personally.> ----- Original Message -----

Hi Sam,
I am not sure if this type of question would be better answered on
the SDL mailing list, so I thought I would ask you first.

A small group of developers and I ( about 4 programmers and 1 musician )
would like to approach prospective publishers with the idea of porting
some Object Pascal Windows games to Linux ( not an original idea I hear
you think ).
They are not big budget games, but I think that each DirectX commercial
game could be ported to JEDI-SDL and thus Linux in 3-4months or less. I
have all of the orginal DirectX code for 2 of these games.

Since you have worked for a company that did exactly this type of thing,
what is the best way to approach publisher with this idea?
Which publishers are more likely to so at least listen to such a
proposal for the Linux platform?
I assume I would still need to negotiate with the game’s copyright
holders before actually doing the port. Is that right?
If you have any other suggestions please feel free to makes them.

Sincerely,

Dominique.

http://www.DelphiGamer.com := for all your Object Pascal game
development needs;
http://www.delphi-jedi.org/Jedi:TEAM_SDL_HOME := Home of JEDI-SDL;
Cross-platform game development with Pascal, has never been easier.

Dominique,

What do you need a publisher for? For console games, you can’t access the
development tools without a publisher. But for Linux, you can self publish.
The linux community is quite capable of providing a word of mouth, web site
review style advertisement program for your software. Due to the booming
independant musician (hip hop) scene, the disc replication industry has
matured to the point that multiple companies will fully realize your
replication, packaging and shipping for orders as low as 5000 copies. (And
you’re just ordering a minimum of 5000, supplying the replication company
with the names of your customers as they make purchases.) The replication
company duplicates the disc, prints any inserts, prints the box and ships it
to your customer. Once you’ve sold about 20,000 compies you’ve made enough
to support a real advertising campaign and the big game begins.

A publisher will start dicking you around, making demands and pissing on
your design, provide a crappy advertising campaign (if at all) and then take
80%-90% of the revenue plus ownership of the product.

Think about it.

-Blake> ----- Original Message -----

From: dominique@savagesoftware.com.au (Dominique Louis)
To:
Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 9:55 AM
Subject: [SDL] [Fwd: Approaching Linux publishers…]

I orginally sent this email to Sam, but I assume he is too busy to
answer, so I thought I would throw this out to other people who may have
had experience in this area. If this is OT please send opinions and
answers to me personally.

-------- Original Message --------
Hi Sam,
I am not sure if this type of question would be better answered on
the SDL mailing list, so I thought I would ask you first.

A small group of developers and I ( about 4 programmers and 1 musician )
would like to approach prospective publishers with the idea of porting
some Object Pascal Windows games to Linux ( not an original idea I hear
you think ).
They are not big budget games, but I think that each DirectX commercial
game could be ported to JEDI-SDL and thus Linux in 3-4months or less. I
have all of the orginal DirectX code for 2 of these games.

Since you have worked for a company that did exactly this type of thing,
what is the best way to approach publisher with this idea?
Which publishers are more likely to so at least listen to such a
proposal for the Linux platform?
I assume I would still need to negotiate with the game’s copyright
holders before actually doing the port. Is that right?
If you have any other suggestions please feel free to makes them.

Sincerely,

Dominique.

http://www.DelphiGamer.com := for all your Object Pascal game
development needs;
http://www.delphi-jedi.org/Jedi:TEAM_SDL_HOME := Home of JEDI-SDL;
Cross-platform game development with Pascal, has never been easier.


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