Updated June 2010

Publishing and developing PSP Minis is very similar in scope to developing for iPhone. There is no concept approval process and you are free to do pretty much anything you want.

Well – technically there is a one stage concept approval required by SOA – but they are pretty reasonable and certainly don’t appear to insist on any extra features.

Sony are more approachable now than they have ever been for smaller studios, especially on the Minis platform. I have even heard rumours that they may loan dev kits to developers too!

Game sizes are up to 100MB; which is plenty of space for just about anything you could throw at it.

Financial Costs

Development kits and test stations are fairly cheap, around €1200 and €250 respectively.

You will need to handle your own QA, along with official age ratings – requirements are PEGI for SCEE territories (€250) and ESRB for North America ($800).

There is no requirement to provide an electronic manual, but the Meta data (marketing info) for each title needs to be translated into all of the languages for the regions you intend to release in. This can include:

• French
• Italian
• German
• Spanish
• Dutch
• Portuguese
• Russian

Marketing

You get 60 Voucher Codes for PAL territories, and up to 200 codes for NTSC; these can be used for non-promotional uses (ie: media, review, internal). You receive them within 3 to 5 days of your game release (you have to request the NTSC codes).

Sales Projections

From all accounts you are looking at much less than on similar services like WiiWare and DSiWare. From what we have heard the bestselling titles are max 20-30k range and many titles sell just a few hundred copies.

Currently you are free to set the wholesale price for a Mini, and Sony then apply a margin of 30%. Sales reports are provided on a monthly basis.

Nic Watt of Nnooo has put together some very useful info on sales for the various digital distribution platforms.

“Nnooo™ (pronounced No!) was formed in 2006 by Nic Watt a former lead games designer at EA in London with the aim to create and produce its own games and make them available via online distribution models.”

iPhone:

• Development : easy and fast
• Approval: pretty easy although Apple often revise the rules with little or no warning – which worse case could mean you are on sale one day and removed the next
• Sales: poor unless you are one of the lucky ones. You have to do constant marketing to see any traction. If you are lucky enough to get picked up by an Apple ad campaign or they (seemingly randomly) choose your game to feature then sales can take off. You get no notification of the fact making it hard to ramp your marketing
• Reporting: you can get daily, weekly and monthly sales figures in excel format only. Information is fairly badly laid out and trying to use their spreadsheets to tie your sales figures together becomes a bit of a head ache (see constant marketing for the other)

WiiWare:

• Development: fairly easy and fast although the e-manuals are a bit of a pain and having to localise your manual into FIGS & Dutch is cumbersome but understandable. The home menu system and lack of OS features for popping up a keyboard etc are again cumbersome but not deal breakers
• Approval: Hard but fair. All of the requirements are clearly provided to you and with good testing and care you can pass second time (expect more attempts on your first game(s)). There are no random rules which will see you removed in future, once you are on sale you are on sale forever (barring some strange legal issue or mega bug)
• Sales: A good title with decent marketing should be able to achieve 20k units or more (and the top selling WiiWare titles are well over 200k I believe). It is a pain that you can only release your titles in EU (inc. AU and NZ) and the Americas, but not Japan. No patches allowed, which in general is great – make a game and move on to the next one!
• Reporting: Very good. You can logon to a Nintendo’s Portal site and see your sales on a daily, weekly and quarterly basis. Very well presented and downloadable in PDF and Excel formats. They break it down into country or just territory. You can use territory to track sales performance so it is really easy to get the information

DSiWare:

• Development: Somewhat harder if you are not familiar with the platform and/or want to do multi-platform. In general though, it can be easier to turn around games/apps for DSiWare as there is less you have to do. The e-manual is much easier to integrate and Nintendo provide a proper application to make them, which is nice
• Approval: see WiiWare
• Sales: With decent marketing and a good title you are looking at 10-20k units or more and again there are titles which have sold over 200k units
• Reporting : see WiiWare

PSP Minis:

• Development: Fairly straight-forward, and Sony are very developer friendly for Minis
• Approval: No concept approval required for SCEE, and SCEA have a relatively straight-forward single stage concept approval process for Minis.
• Sales: From all accounts you are looking at much less than on WiiWare and DSiWare. I think the bestselling titles are in the 20-30k range as opposed to WiiWare/DSiWare’s 100s of thousands
• Reporting: It appears you only get information on a monthly basis, rather than being able to see it each day

XBLA:

Very much non-indie friendly – you cannot self publish. You either need to be published by someone else (traditional publisher), or published by Microsoft. All we want to do is buy dev-kits, make our games and release them. To do that Microsoft say we have to publish 3 disc titles first (yeah, right…)

XBLA has probably the highest sales across any platform, but having to stick to the old publisher/developer model is just archaic in our opinion

XBLIG (Indie Games):

Starting to pick up a little after a dismal start, with a few (albeit very low price point) titles doing decent numbers. The biggest downside is that it is all C# – so everything needs to be re-written in that language, making cross-format development a major pain. This is most likely why few pro development studios haven’t bothered – too much work for too little revenue.

An interesting article published in the latest issue of EDGE magazine, and reproduced on their online site…

It’s never been easier to set yourself up as an independent studio. Open platforms such as Xbox Live’s Indie Games and iTunes’ App Store are democratising development on consoles as well as the PC, while tools like XNA and Flash lower the barriers to entry in terms of both cost and experience. Suddenly, designers who have spent years submerged within massive hierarchies – “devoting their entire lives to modelling footballers’ noses,” as Frontier’s David Braben puts it – can suddenly have total control of their own projects.

This comes at a price, however. The lack of gate-keeping on many new channels has created a gold rush, and with initiatives like Ron Carmel’s Indie Fund recently announced, a crowded marketplace is only likely to get busier. With ‘indie developer’ now applicable to anything from one- or two-man teams working out of bedrooms to squads composed of dozens of industry veterans, we checked in with a range of different designers to get a sense of the emerging independent landscape – and to pick up some advice for anyone who was hoping to navigate it.

^{_{Semi Secret’s Canabalt}}

A breakout indie hit of last year, transitioning from free browser game to an App Store bestseller with over 100,000 downloads, Adam ‘Atomic’ Saltsman’s one-button Canabalt is constantly mined for the secrets to its success. “I think Canabalt has maybe two salient ‘lessons’, but they are pretty obvious,” offers Saltsman. “ The first is that if your game is easy to play, more people will play. The other thing that I think I did right is managing to come up with an engaging look without using a lot of time or resources. If you want traffic and attention, make it easy to play and pretty. The trick, though, is doing that without ruining the game entirely.”

Read the full article Here…

[When's the right time to begin developing for a specific platform? Digital distribution consultant David Edery writes for Gamasutra explaining factors like market behavior and platform qualities, offering essential guidelines.]

In my experience, one of the problems that most seems to bedevil game developers is the problem of timing; specifically, understanding when is the “right time” to begin developing for a specific platform.

To understand why this is such a challenge for developers, you need to understand how a games platform tends to evolve.

Read the full article here…

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There are already a bunch of articles on how to get your indie game out there. Kieron Gillen banged on about it. Rob Fearon put a sarcastic twist on it. Rodain Joubert 4-paged the sucker. Yet while each is giving it to the masses straight, it would appear that’s just not straight enough.

I’m one of the editors at Indiegames.com, a sister site of Gamasutra and one dedicated to covering all the latest independent gaming news. I receive roughly between ten and twenty emails a day, ranging from indie press releases to reminders about games to follow-ups on past correspondence. The misconception that gaming sites won’t want to cover your game because it’s ‘not important enough’ is slowly being lifted, and independent developers in general are beginning to realize that PR is actually a huge factor in selling your product.

This, however, doesn’t mean that developers are marketing their games correctly. I receive a good number of emails a day which, quite frankly, go straight in the virtual bin, bouncing off the rim in the process. It’s all well and good throwing me some information regarding your latest venture, but there are right ways to go about it, and then there are not-so-right ways. Which got me thinking – while all the previously mentioned guides do a great job of pointing developers in the right direction, none of them really get right down to the nitty gritty and just simply spell it out.

Hence! Nitty gritty time it is. In this guide, I’ll be explaining exactly what it is you, the budding games developer, should be providing me, the eager games journalist, with. Before I start, however, please be very much aware that certain aspects of this are going to be personal preference. Clearly I cannot vouch for the entire games journalism industry, however I do believe that following these rules will at least give you a basis for which to build on. And if all else fails, at least you’ll know how to contact IndieGames.com in future!

1: The essentials

Before you even begin to think about spreading your news, there are certain bases you need covered. The following may sound painfully obvious to some, yet I still constantly come across developers who haven’t laid the foundations properly. Said foundations are:

A website – either a developer site containing all your projects in one place, or a dedicated site for a single game. Regarding whether or not it’s worth purchasing a real .com address or simply opting for a Blogger or Wordpress, my advice is get the .com. It costs $15 a year and gives your outfit a sense of professionalism. Of course, you can then go ahead and link a Wordpress blog to it.

A development blog – having a place where I can keep track of all the latest work on your title makes all the difference. Provide screenshots, WIP videos, insights – it’s all good. Just make sure it has a working RSS feed!

A trailer – once your game is good to go, you need a quality trailer to show it off in motion. If you think you have the skills to do this yourself, by all means go ahead. Just please, for the sake of everyone, follow these simple guidelines:

a. Do not accompany the action with generic dance/house/metal/screech music. Find something which creates a satisfying atmosphere for what the viewee is witnessing. You may even want to find someone to create an original soundtrack for your trailer. For example, if 8-bit sound and chiptune is your port of call, the 8-bit Collective community are more than willing to help out games developers.
b. Do not spam the trailer with inane titles and movie-style narration. I’m watching your trailer to see the game, not a story about ‘ONE MAN, ONE MISSION, THOSE HE LOVES ALWAYS LEAVE HIM’.
c. Give it some style. Don’t just record yourself running around one room in the game for three minutes – that is bound to be incredibly boring. Show off the game’s best features, best puzzles, best effects.
d. Do not make it too long (or too short, for that matter). My personal attention span begins to wane around the two minute mark, so you may want to aim round about there.

(Optional) A Twitter account – this one isn’t exactly an essential, but it definitely can’t hurt matters. Many indie developers have taken to announcing big news about their various games on Twitter even before posting to their website, and Twitter has really come into its own as the source of independent gaming news over the last six months.

2: Locate your points of attack

It’s time to storm the media battlefield. There are a plethora of sites out there that cover indie games, including the likes of:
RockPaperShotgun
IndieGames
TIGSource
Play This Thing
Pixel Prospector
XNPlay (for Xbox Live Indie Games)

Your best plan of attack? Be prepared to contact everyone. If your game really is ‘all that’, then someone is bound to bite, right?

3: Write the email

Many developers get to this hurdle and end up with their face in the mud. Writing a good email is the most tricky aspect of marketing your indie game. It’s a minefield, and you will most definitely trip some of those explosives. Hopefully, however, you can also cause some good explosions.

This is the part at which I have to humbly remind you again – what I’m about to detail is, to my knowledge, personal preference. I’m going to give it to you straight regarding the format of your press release, and what I would like to receive. This may or may not be what, say, John Walker at RockPaperShotgun wants, or Derek Yu at TIG deems suitable reading. Yet I’m going to go out on a limb and state that it really can’t be that far from what others expect.

Let’s get started.

a. The subject line – Make this plain and simple, containing exactly what I need to know. You can go for ‘New Indie Game: MyGame’ or ‘Indie Game Submission: MyGame’ or ‘MyGame: a physics-based puzzler’. Do NOT, however, use lines like ‘FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: AN INCREDIBLE NEW INDIE GAMING EXPERIENCE’ or ‘Badass Entertainment Press Release: MyGame Is Here’. You are not a robot, stop acting like one.

b. Say hi – some may say it’s not essential, but I beg to differ. If I open up an email and it begins with ‘Yada Interactive have teamed up with Blabla to bring you a gaming experience…’, I’m immediately put off. Yet, if a message begins with a friendly ‘Hey Mike, my name is Name Here and I just recently released MyGame’, I’m much more likely to take an interest. Again, be a real human being!

c. Say your piece – now that you’ve got the reader’s attention, tell them what it is you came to say quickly and to the point. There are a number of different methods that work for me. Some send a single paragraph which simply explains the point of the game. Others opt for writing a few paragraphs and going into a little more details. Both are perfectly reasonable as long as you explain exactly what kind of game you’re promoting, what the general idea behind the experience is and how exactly I can go about playing it, be it a link to a flash game or an Xbox redeem code. When it comes to the question ‘Should I ask whether they’d like to receive my game or just send it straight away?’, a quote from Rob Fearon will do nicely here: ‘Don’t hold off on review copies. Don’t ask “would you like one?” just bloody send it.’

d. Plant your links – it sounds so simple, but you’d be surprised by the number of developers who don’t provide links to their games in promotional emails. The fact is, if I’ve read what you have to say and feel interested in exploring more, I’m going to go trigger-happy with my mouse on whatever you provide. Links to your developer/company website, the game’s website, your development blog and the Xbox Marketplace page (if it’s an XBLIG/XBLA title) are all essentials. Of course, it goes without saying that you should make sure that all links are relevant!

e. Video and screenshots – as a general rule, I would always go with embedded images over attached. It means the reader definitely sees them, and also adds a little colour to the email. Another ‘well duh’ moment, but make sure all screenies are hi-res! Regarding your trailer, make sure you provide a link to either a page containing your video, or a direct link to it on Youtube/Vimeo etc.
Just to make this even easier to understand, I’m now going to use the above guidelines to create a mock email. Let’s say my name is Hank Scorpio, and I’ve created a game called ‘Be the Villain’ under the developer name Globex. My email may go something like this:

From: hank@globex.com
To: editors@indiegames.com

Subject: Indie Game Submission: Be the Villain

Hey Tim and Mike,

my name is Hank Scorpio and I create independent games under the name Globex. I’ve just released my latest indie title and I’d love if you’d check it out and consider featuring it on the IndieGames Blog.

The game is called ‘Be the Villain‘ and it’s a spy vs spy real time strategy. Featuring a single player campaign with over 50 missions, it’s set in a world similar to that of James Bond, but with a twist – for you control the enemy, plotting to take over the world! The game is solely developed by myself, and features a full musical score and a unique 16-bit graphical style.

A trailer can be found via Youtube here. If you’re interested, the game can be found on my website under the Games tab.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing from you!

Hank Scorpio
Globex

Simple, no?

4: Don’t give up, but don’t be a broken record either

So you’ve sent your email off to various sites, and after a week no-one has responded. Clearly they all hate your game, right? Unfortunately, your game may be well worth promoting, but for reasons unknown to you, the recipients just didn’t spend the time checking it out enough. That’s right – you may have done absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever, yet you’ve STILL been given the cold shoulder.

The problem is this – real life. Everyone is part of it. Sometimes it makes you happy, and other times not so. The truth is that the reader’s mood has quite a part in determining whether or not they’ll receive your gaming news in good spirits or not. Catch them on a good day, and they may just want to take your game and put it on their site. Contact them while they’re hungover, feeling irritated or just in a general bad mood and your chances become more slim. It’s a horrible fact, and one which is completely out of your control. Or is it?

The key is to brush yourself off and give it one more try. Don’t just resend the original email again, though. Rewrite it ever so slightly, change the subject line, then power it back out there. Maybe, just maybe, this time someone will be feeling good about life and give you a look-in.

Of course, if you hear nothing back a second time, it’s probably fair to say that people simply are not interested. At this point you’re going to need different assistance. Good luck with that.

Hopefully this guide has given you ideas on how to propel your project into the limelight. A final note – never be disheartened. Assuming you’re making games because it’s a passion of yours, it really shouldn’t matter to you whether your game is received with praise or not, as long as you’re creating exactly what you want to create. After all, that’s the point of being ‘indie’, right?

Article Author: Michael Rose

Gamasutra

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It is no secret that digital distribution of video games is considered by many as the future of video game distribution.  One debate appears to be when (not if) this distribution channel will leapfrog retail.  Satoru Iawata, for example, believes that such a sea change of distribution may take decades, however in the meantime, digital distribution is a useful tool in expanding the lifespan of products.

I am not so sure that it will take this long, particularly after the success of Xbox Live and PSN (amongst others) and the emergence of new business models.  While the increasing use of broadband and mobile technology in the games industry points to the fact that consumers want their games distributed in this manner.

One thing that is certain is that developers are increasing their use of this business model.  Often it is the easiest and most cost effective way for smaller studios to enter the market.  No longer does the developer have to wait to be courted by the “big bad publisher” (although it is nice to get such financial backing!).  The current opportunities of small studios can be compared to the indie music boom of the mid 80’s.  The barriers to market are getting less and less.

Okay, so we have established that this is potentially a golden era for many developers, what is the downside?  Unfortunately, this new distribution channel is fraught with legal pitfalls.

The world of digital distribution is embryonic and the next few years will see developers grappling with the inevitable legal teething problems that any new business model will face.  This, coupled with the “wild west” nature of the net means that developers should be careful when using this distribution channel.

1. 1.               Who are you contracting with?

 One of the main problems, from a legal perspective, with digital distribution is the global nature of the marketplace and the relative anonymity of the end user.

 The importance of this point will depend upon the nature and content of the game.  For example, some USA states have effectively banned any digitally distributed products which have a gambling aspect.  How can you be sure that you are not inadvertently breaking such laws (which may entail a criminal offence) by allowing an end user to download your game?

Similarly, how can you be sure that you are not supplying a minor with a product which contains adult content?

Unfortunately, until we have more reliable technology the answer is, you cannot be sure.

Although not failsafe, you may mitigate this risk by including a term within the game’s terms of use that the end user is legally entitled to play the game in the relevant territory, that he is not a minor and has legal capacity to enter into the contract.  You should delay distribution until the end user has confirmed such details.

However, this may assist with, as opposed to solve, the problem.  Therefore, you have to be diligent.

1. 2.                Observe local law

Leading on from the point above, the global nature of this distribution channel means that there is an increased chance of the developer breaching local laws and offending local customs.

For example, depending upon the content of the game, as distribution hits more territories there is an increased risk of the game being deemed offensive, obscene or blasphemous, within certain territories.  Don’t forget, this issue is live within our shores; remember the Manchester Cathedral case?

This risk is compounded by the uploading of user generated content.  Is such content adequately monitored for potential offence, obscenity or blasphemy?

Also, within some territories, certain terms may be implied.  That is, incorporated into the contract if you like it or not!  While others may be prohibited and therefore won’t apply.

 One solution is to monitor closely which territories you are distributing to.  If the legal risks are too great in a certain territory, do your utmost not to distribute there.

 If possible, obtain legal advice in relation to specific territories.  It is better to be safe than sorry.

1. 3.                Who’s laws apply?

Remember end users are usually consumers, and therefore, often you cannot impose the laws of your own country upon the contract.  For example, many countries state that the laws of the end user’s country of residence will apply notwithstanding what laws you state govern the contract.

Again, advice should be taken in relation to relevant laws, particularly those relating to consumers and governing laws.

1. 4.                Do not overdo it

Given the uncertain nature of the net and constant evolution of viruses, for example, ensure that you are not liable to the end user for any unavoidable “ghosts in the machine”.  Expressly limit (as far as possible) such liability in the game’s terms of use.

Also, if support is provided, ensure that you do not inadvertently promise too much.  State what support is offered and highlight what costs, if any, it will entail.  Unsurprisingly, consumers and courts alike dislike hidden charges.

Manage your promises carefully, do not promise the earth, as there is a chance (even with your best intentions) that you cannot deliver and will be in breach of the contract.

To avoid heightened exposure, state within the contract your limit of liability.  Often digital distributors will limit their liability to the costs of the download to avoid unlimited liability under the contract.

1. 5.                Protect your assets

As all developers appreciate, your IP is the foundation of your business.  Do not give it away cheaply.

The industry is well aware that digital distribution has increased the plague of piracy.  Although the problem is not novel, advances in technology have exacerbated it.  Due to the net’s lack of borders and geographical boundaries, a digital product may be shared with another user on the other side of the world.  Such freebies do not fit any business model.

Although governments are closing in on digital pirates, as end users are ultimately anonymous (if they wish to be), up until now this has had limited results.  Only time will tell if law can curb this beast.

In the meantime, developers should utilise any technology it has up its sleeve to prevent piracy.  And, in the game’s terms of use, include robust terms prohibiting copying together with an indemnity in relation to any losses you suffer due to such piracy.  It should be noted, however, that it may be difficult to track down an end user to sue if the contract has been breached.  While an indemnity is only as good as the bank balance of the person giving it.

Effectively, such anti copying clauses are more often used as a deterrent as opposed to the basis of a court action.

1. 6.                 Protect yourself from third party assets

The increasing use of user generated content in digitally distributed games, multiplies the publisher’s potential liability.  As discussed above, you should be vigilant in relation to any uploaded content.  Again, the global nature of such distribution increases the chances of such content offending the laws of certain territories.  And, remember it will be you ‘on the hook’ in most cases.

Obviously indemnities from an uploader in the game’s terms of use are useful but, depending upon the status of the uploader, they are not a cast iron remedy.  There is no substitute to vigorous monitoring of uploaded content prior to it going live.

In summary, therefore, although the world of digital distribution is your oyster there are a number of legal pitfalls associated with the model.  Do not take a chance, speak to your lawyer. 

Article Author: Sean Crotty
Weightmans

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This was a very interesting presentation by Stuart Dredge at Develop in Liverpool.

It compares and contrasts iPhone’s App Store, Android Market, BlackBerry App World, Nintendo’s DSiWare and Sony’s PSP Minis. The idea was to look at what opportunities and challenges there are for games developers and publishers across these digital platforms.

• Original Article: http://articulates.typepad.co.uk/iphonegamesbulletin/

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Good numbers on digital downloads are hard to come by. Why is that? Well, console manufacturers are notoriously cagey about releasing these figures. They can restrict the information because they control the points of access (and particularly the only point of sales). NPD doesn’t get their retail numbers from Microsoft, or Nintendo, or Sony. They work with distributors and retailers to obtain their information.

For the digital world, VGChartz and Fade LLC are so far the best we have. A collection of numbers extracted from leaderboard rankings, and information from Fade reports collated to give an estimate on sales. The only other sources come from word of mouth and whispers and the once in a while decent person willing to divulge in an interview.

We are a community that encourages sharing information in order to help each other. We believe this information should be freely available, and we resent the restrictive NDAs they apply on 3rd parties. Of course, some 3rd parties also like to keep the numbers to themselves when they’re not as high as expected and it can be hard to want to discuss numbers when you don’t do well. This is especially important for platforms where numbers are hard to come by (like PSN and WiiWare). The numbers we do get will tend to suffer from a positive bias, distorting the expected sales for an average title. Remember that there are a 100+ titles on each platform, and we only have a small sample of the better performing titles.

We encourage Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to start releasing figures for all their titles. Those numbers should be out there so that developers can make more reasoned estimates for their budgets and expected revenues.
 
For other indies reading this, we encourage you to join us and share your experiences and see what others have shared. We aim to leverage the aggregate experience of the development community to ease the path to small indies, and help build up new companies. This is what keeps our industry fresh.

Now we take a look at some recent numbers for downloadable titles on the major consoles and PC. The information here is extracted from the excellent work Simon Carless has done for his recent presentations on digital distribution. Most of these numbers are also estimates based on the numbers of players in the leaderboard rankings. Simon estimates that sales are usually 80-90% of leaderboard totals.

PSN

• Flow (by ThatGameCompany) sold 120k copies worldwide between February and September 2007 (source: Sony in Game Informer)
• Shatter (by Sidhe) sold 30k copies in its first week or so in August 2009. 47k on Leaderboards by early September 2009
• Noby Noby Boy (by Namco Bandai) sold ‘about’ 100k units from February to August 2009
• Burn Zombie Burn (by DoubleSix) sold 70k copies from March to August 2009
• Astro Tripper (by PomPom Games) has approximately 15k on Leaderboards from December 2008 to April 2009
• Super Stardust (by ) has 331k on Leaderboards

XBLA (as of mid-September 2009)

• Trials HD (by RedLynx) sold 300k units from mid-August to mid-September 2009
• Numbers on Leaderboards:
  • Shadow Complex (by Epic): 290k
  • Trials HD: 357k
  • Castle Crashers (by The Behemoth): 1.26M. The Behemoth have confirmed surpassing the million sale mark on their blog
  • Splosion Man (by Twisted Pixel Games): 160k
  • Defense Grid (by Hidden Path Entertainment): 52k
  • Worms 2 (by Team17): 52k
  • Lode Runner HD (by Tozai Games): 19k
  • Invincible Tiger (by Namco Bandai): 3,800
  • Penny Arcade Adventures (by Hothead Studios): 23.3k

WiiWare

• Very difficult to obtain public WiiWare numbers. Probably because of even more stringent NDAs, but it’s not a positive sign for the platform
• World of Goo (by 2DBoy) estimated at 300k+ (which puts it in the Top 5 of all time)
• Some well-known, well-executed ‘core’ titles have only done 20-30k (considered mid-range)
• Very few titles didn’t meet the minimum payment rate for individual territories (which is less than US$ 6,000)
• Vgchartz and Fade LLC charts seem to be way off on the lower-end, sometimes by orders of magnitude

iPhone/iTouch

• Super Monkey Ball sold 500k units as of November 2008 with price as high as $9.99. However, this is a major exception due to the being an early launch title and benefiting from a large amount of Apple publicity
• iShoot was #1 in January 2009 with 17k downloads at $2.99 each in a single day: $35.7k in net revenue
• Creator of Blocked was selling 5-15 units per day until he price-dropped to $0.99, hit #1 and sold 10-15k units per day (March 2009 interview)
• Flight Control (by Firemint) sold over 700k units at $0.99 in 6 weeks (March/April 2009)
• Anecdotal: it takes 20-25k sales to reach #1, mid-thousands for top 10, mid-high hundreds for top 100. Per day

The writer is a professional game developer and founder of the small indie Piece of Pie Studios, currently working on their first title. He can also be found on twitter.

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If you self-publish and plan to release in different territories, you need to be aware of source withholding tax.

As an example, royalty payments earned in the US by a foreign company are subject to a source withholding tax as high as 30%. However, most countries have tax treaties with the US in place, so providing you take the necessary steps you can eliminate this tax. I’ve detailed the steps below for compliance with the US IRS.

1. You need to obtain an EIN number, which is incredibly easy to do. You should call this number; 001-215-516-6999, which is a dedicated line for foreign businesses requiring EIN numbers. They will ask your business name, address and one or two other details, and you’ll get the number over the phone with a copy sent out by post a week or so later. UPDATE: This is not required by Apple (iPhone).

2. Next you need to complete IRS form W-8BEN. I have included a completed mockup form Here. A point of note is that it is the download service providers who will collect the tax on behalf of the IRS; for example Nintendo for DSi/WiiWare, Apple for iPhone, etc., so you may need to supply the completed form to them.

That’s it!

UPDATE: Japan

For Japan you need to complete Japan Tax Form 3 – the Apple supplied one can be downloaded Here.

Additional notes and information are also supplied by Apple. Sign into:

https://itunesconnect.apple.com/

Click “Contracts, Tax, & Banking Information”, and then “For developers residing outside of Japan who wish to sell applications in Japan, for Japanese tax treaty information, click here”

https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebO….3.7.1.0.7.2.5
 

Links

• W-8BEN Form
• W-8BEN Instructions

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For the home console downloadable services you will need to obtain age ratings for each of your games.

It is a very straight-forward process, the only hassle being that it costs money!

First off you need to register and set-up an account for your company with each of the ratings boards:

PEGI
www.pegi.info
deboer@nicam.cc

ESRB
www.esrb.org
mhochheiser@esrb.org

USK
www.usk.de
brunner@usk.de

AGCB
www.classification.gov.au
accounts@classification.gov.au

To do this just drop them an email, and they will send the necessary forms. Once that is done you will have access to the publisher areas on their sites.

From here you can submit a product for rating - I shall use a WiiWare 3+ title as an example, and address each ratings board in turn.

PEGI

Complete the online submission form, you must then send a copy of the game along with the fee (in this case the 3+ casual game fee of €250). You should also include a 10 minute gameplay video, a selection of screen-shots along with the game manual to cover all bases.

Within a couple of weeks you should receive your rating.

USK

Download and print the submission form, you must then send a copy of the game along with the fee (typically €1000). You should also include a 10 minute gameplay video, a selection of screen-shots along with the game manual.

Turnaround time: 10 working days.

AGCB

Download and print the submission form, you must then send a copy of the game along with the fee (typically AUS$1150). You should also include a 10 minute gameplay video, a selection of screen-shots along with the game manual.

Turnaround time: 20 working days.

ESRB

Complete the online submission form; you must then send 3 copies of a DVD video of approximately 10 minutes of typical gameplay. The fee for a causal lower budget game (under $250k development costs) is $800.

Turnaround time: 5-7 working days.

Simple eh!

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From Gamastura:

In a talk at the Digital Distribution Summit in Melbourne, Australia, former XBLA portfolio manager David Edery discussed opportunities for creators on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and WiiWare, suggesting that though the market is “smaller than a lot of us would like”, it’s growing quickly.

Starting out, Edery, who now runs consultancy Fuzbi, sketched the size of the market for console digital download. He commented that, according to his sources, Xbox Live Arcade was the top in terms of market right now, PlayStation Network is “still lucrative, but potentially smaller”, and WiiWare is the smallest of all.

He particularly suggested this is because the WiiWare service is “buried in the Wii dashboard”, with no demos and no user ratings, so you can really only depend on word of mouth and external website reviews for creating buzz.

He pointed out that the inverse is true regarding approval and funding — it’s “reasonably difficult” to get approval, funding or a publishing deal for Xbox Live Arcade platforms, and it’s much easier to get approved for WiiWare. So this is important to weigh when looking at systems to target.

Edery did comment: “The market is smaller than a lot of us would like at this time” – but it’s growing quickly. He cited the recent 300,000 unit sales for Trials HD, and said: “these [digital distribution] ecosystems are going to be the future” — if perhaps not dominant in this console generation.

Tackling the pitch to the platform holder or publisher itself, Edery commented: “The longer your pitch, the lower the chances of your success is”, since many of those who get pitched a lot “don’t really have a lot of patience and time”. In fact, he said: “If you can’t describe your game in a single sentence, than you have a problem.”

Other potential pitfalls were also listed. It’s also vital to be able to describe your target audience. Edery noted that many Xbox Live Arcade pitches sent to him either didn’t have an audience named, or was incredibly broad. Having a specific age and interest range in mind is quite important.

In addition, incorrect information can wreak havoc with approaches. For example, Edery noted that “we would get pitches from developers for card and board games” by citing Carcassone, which, according to disputed chart creator VGChartz.com, had sold a great deal of copies. But VGChartz bundles in free copies of the game, something that the pitches had misconstrued, and much of that revenue was in fact not there.

How about current development budgets for Xbox Live Arcade games? Edery estimated that when he joined Microsoft soon after Xbox Live Arcade’s start, the averange title had a $250,000 budget. The average when he left was $500,000, and perhaps now, he thought, it was $750,000 — so as sales increase, the budgets are getting larger quite swiftly.

Moving on, Edery noted that “understanding the platform agenda” is important. For example, in the early days of PlayStation Network, Edery believes that games were not greenlit if they didn’t show they were pushing the PS3 hardware forward. For XBLA, Microsoft was looking for bite-sized, especially casual and retro titles. For WiiWare, making novel use of the Wiimote was key.

The consultant said that these agendas changed more often that you think. Edery said that there were 7 re-organizations in the 3 years he was at Xbox Live Arcade, and at least 2 major changes of direction, with many more minor ones. So you “really really have to stay in touch” to make sure everything is similar to before.

Edery then warned about ‘The Long Tail’ concept for digital downloaded games, noting that “hits are still what drive the business”. And the importance of marketing is paramount, as he quipped: “Do not make a great game, and presume that because it’s great, you’re all set.”

Finally, apart from announcing your game early and communicating with your community often, Edery commented that get friendly with the platform holders is important. He notably cited NinjaBee’s A Kingdom For Keflings, which was the first game to properly integrate Avatars into their Xbox Live Arcade game, and became enormously successful, partly due to this and Microsoft’s support of it.

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Take from VGChartz – here are the FADE sales figures for August 2009. Please be aware that these are not necessarily accurate, it is reported they are generally on the high to very high side when compared to actual figures supplied by the developers:

WiiWare

XBLA

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DSiWare operates very closely to WiiWare. Again it can take a few weeks to get approved and you can’t operate out of a home office, Nintendo require a ‘secure office space’ location.

Game sizes are limited to a maximum of 16MB or under, although lower price categories have lower file size limits.

Unfortunately the development kits and test kit are very expensive – you need nitro writers, backup memory upgrades and so-on. Dev kits will set you back around $3k and a testing set-up around $3k for the first.

Allow for several weeks to go through the LotCheck process and a fair bit of to’ing and fro’ing.

Again as with WiiWare you must organise and arrange for the age ratings. Acquiring ESRB (US), PEGI (Europe), USK (Germany) & OFLC (Australia) ratings costs around €2,500 for the set.

Additionally the e-manual must be localised into English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Dutch, which will cost another few hundred.

What Else?

Other issues you must sort out include withholding tax for royalties – for royalties paid from the US to a foreign company you would need to complete form W-8BEN, or you will be hit with a 30% withholding tax.

Nintendo also require full indemnity insurance, but they do operate a relatively low cost insurance scheme. Expect to pay around $2,000 here.

One change over WiiWare is that there are no performance thresholds for sales. Yay! (good job really…)

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The key point is that a big selling title on XBLA will out-perform any of the other digital download services (PSN, WiiWare, etc…). It is probably the place most indies would like to release, but unfortunately…

It appears Microsoft don’t like indies on XBLA! Unless you knock their socks off expect little or no communication when trying to start the process, and enough requirements to turn your hair grey; worse of which is the mandatory Live service support.

Also, rather incredibly, to self-publish you will need a full publisher license for retail product. They do not have a self-publishing model for XBLA only titles! So the complete lack of response you can encounter from Microsoft, combined with the lack of a digital self-publishing license are most likely the main reasons most indies have to go through the publisher route to get product onto XBLA.

And just in-case that hasn’t put you off self-publishing on XBLA enough, wait until you see the royalty split; which from what I understand can be as low as 30% to the developer (70% to Microsoft). You will most likely get a better rate if you go through a publisher.

It seems as though Microsoft have/are operating a policy to close the doors to the indies and try to move them over to the community games section (tellingly now renamed ‘Indie Games’). Now while that is fair enough in some respects, the requirement to use XNA most certainly is not.

One further point is that Xbox development kits are very expensive, and there is no real workable cheaper alternative. As ever, you must handle your own QA and translations, and you must organise and arrange for the age ratings. Acquiring ESRB (US), PEGI (Europe), USK (Germany) & OFLC (Australia) ratings costs around €2,500 for the set.

Unfortunately, there is more bad news; the concept approval green light process… This can take months, even with a killer game, and many are turned down flat. They can be super picky for a number of reasons, some of which are completely out of the developer’s control; such as product clashes. As with PSN some form of exclusivity may help.

So to sum up – the rewards can be great, but it appears that right now Microsoft really don’t want indies on XBLA.

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