Hi all,
has anyone published a game with chillingo or bulkypix? any experiences? [import]uid: 90610 topic_id: 25411 reply_id: 325411[/import]
I have that exact same question. Bulkypix just emailed me… did you end up using them?
I haven’t published with either, but I had submitted a couple apps to both, and had some serious back-and-forth’s with them. I also went as far as to contact developers that had published with bulkypix to ask their opinion. The guys I talked to said they felt like they got more downloads then they could have gotten on their own. but nothing crazy big. Their big compliment was that they worked with them to get their game pristine looking. Which they felt was worth a lot.
In the end, for me, it boils down to a few things.
-
They only want extremely GREAT games to put their money behind.
-
They have a tight schedule, and if they do a deal, they may not be able to publish your game (even if it’s finished right now) for another 6-12 months most likely.
- They publish under their account, which can make it harder for you to get your company recognized. Also, you don’t have as much freedom to do updates and add things like cross promotion links back to your other apps, etc.
-
They require plugins that most likely require you to have an enterprise license with corona to facilitate, which is a significant cost to you that you’ll need to be able to justify.
-
The split (industry standard) seems to be anywhere from the publisher taking 20% in a good deal to 50%. In my experience, if your game is very very very polished and awesome, and the publisher doesn’t have to spend a lot of cycles helping you polish it, then you could do a deal closer to the 20% range, but the more they feel they have to spend with you to polish it, the more they’ll want to be at the 50% number.
-
If I remember right, they’re contracts are for 2 years also. Which is an industry standard too. So after 2 years, the rights to publish revert back to you.
Here are a couple things to look out for. Although In my experience neither Chillingo, nor Bulkypix did any of these. But I’ve been approached by several other publishers that try scumbag tactics.
So, if a publisher approaches you with any of these, tell them to take a hike, they’re either scumbags, or very inexperienced:
- Asking for a lot more than 50% (some as high as 70-90%)
- Asking for 50% (the standard high) without even looking at the game closely to determine if the game is polished, publisher ready, or not. The difference between 20-50% is the work the publisher needs to do to help you polish your game, so if they ask for the top amount without even knowing, then they’re not being respectful of your work, enough to give a fair assessment before throwing their price at you.
-
Any deal that states they keep all the profits until they’ve recouped a certain amount to cover their costs, or whatever. What these deals look like, is “Hey we just want to make sure we make at least $5000-10000, so we include this little piece in the contract to make sure we recoup that before you start getting your share”. What this means, is once you sign the contract, they don’t have to spend a penny, to do anything, but they get the next $5k - 10k from your game, and you get nothing until they’ve been paid. Don’t be surprised, I’ve seen several variations on this scumbag contract. If they believe in your game, and they believe in their ability to promote it, then they should get their percent and their percent only!
-
Ask what specifics they will be doing to promote your game. Then make sure that something close to what they say is in the contract. Some publishers, state nothing about what their marketing obligation really is in the contract. Again, this means they start collecting their share of the profits without having to do anything, without spending any money on marketing. And you’ll have no rights to stand on, because the contracts are too vague.
I’m currently in talks right now with BulkyPix again on my next game, so who knows if that’ll lead to anything. My last game, we didn’t go with them, because they couldn’t’ fit us in their schedule for at least another 4-5 months, even thought the game was complete and polished, and I didn’t want to wait that long to publish. Plus the value of being able to publish under your own company name has a value to all your future games, and that was something I was having a hard getting past back then. It’s something to consider.
Hopefully this will help someone looking into publishing.
thanks,
they told me 30% and wanted to get some demo time on ios… that’s as far as I got with them. I don’t have an IOS version ready yet but I already released on the play store and amazon. I emailed the guys who made Bardbarian and their only complaint was that Bulkypix made them charge $.99, they also said their communication was spotty.
what plugins do they require? All I’ve gotten from them is a questionnaire about the game and some udid’s for ios testing
Steve
I have that exact same question. Bulkypix just emailed me… did you end up using them?
I haven’t published with either, but I had submitted a couple apps to both, and had some serious back-and-forth’s with them. I also went as far as to contact developers that had published with bulkypix to ask their opinion. The guys I talked to said they felt like they got more downloads then they could have gotten on their own. but nothing crazy big. Their big compliment was that they worked with them to get their game pristine looking. Which they felt was worth a lot.
In the end, for me, it boils down to a few things.
-
They only want extremely GREAT games to put their money behind.
-
They have a tight schedule, and if they do a deal, they may not be able to publish your game (even if it’s finished right now) for another 6-12 months most likely.
- They publish under their account, which can make it harder for you to get your company recognized. Also, you don’t have as much freedom to do updates and add things like cross promotion links back to your other apps, etc.
-
They require plugins that most likely require you to have an enterprise license with corona to facilitate, which is a significant cost to you that you’ll need to be able to justify.
-
The split (industry standard) seems to be anywhere from the publisher taking 20% in a good deal to 50%. In my experience, if your game is very very very polished and awesome, and the publisher doesn’t have to spend a lot of cycles helping you polish it, then you could do a deal closer to the 20% range, but the more they feel they have to spend with you to polish it, the more they’ll want to be at the 50% number.
-
If I remember right, they’re contracts are for 2 years also. Which is an industry standard too. So after 2 years, the rights to publish revert back to you.
Here are a couple things to look out for. Although In my experience neither Chillingo, nor Bulkypix did any of these. But I’ve been approached by several other publishers that try scumbag tactics.
So, if a publisher approaches you with any of these, tell them to take a hike, they’re either scumbags, or very inexperienced:
- Asking for a lot more than 50% (some as high as 70-90%)
- Asking for 50% (the standard high) without even looking at the game closely to determine if the game is polished, publisher ready, or not. The difference between 20-50% is the work the publisher needs to do to help you polish your game, so if they ask for the top amount without even knowing, then they’re not being respectful of your work, enough to give a fair assessment before throwing their price at you.
-
Any deal that states they keep all the profits until they’ve recouped a certain amount to cover their costs, or whatever. What these deals look like, is “Hey we just want to make sure we make at least $5000-10000, so we include this little piece in the contract to make sure we recoup that before you start getting your share”. What this means, is once you sign the contract, they don’t have to spend a penny, to do anything, but they get the next $5k - 10k from your game, and you get nothing until they’ve been paid. Don’t be surprised, I’ve seen several variations on this scumbag contract. If they believe in your game, and they believe in their ability to promote it, then they should get their percent and their percent only!
-
Ask what specifics they will be doing to promote your game. Then make sure that something close to what they say is in the contract. Some publishers, state nothing about what their marketing obligation really is in the contract. Again, this means they start collecting their share of the profits without having to do anything, without spending any money on marketing. And you’ll have no rights to stand on, because the contracts are too vague.
I’m currently in talks right now with BulkyPix again on my next game, so who knows if that’ll lead to anything. My last game, we didn’t go with them, because they couldn’t’ fit us in their schedule for at least another 4-5 months, even thought the game was complete and polished, and I didn’t want to wait that long to publish. Plus the value of being able to publish under your own company name has a value to all your future games, and that was something I was having a hard getting past back then. It’s something to consider.
Hopefully this will help someone looking into publishing.
thanks,
they told me 30% and wanted to get some demo time on ios… that’s as far as I got with them. I don’t have an IOS version ready yet but I already released on the play store and amazon. I emailed the guys who made Bardbarian and their only complaint was that Bulkypix made them charge $.99, they also said their communication was spotty.
what plugins do they require? All I’ve gotten from them is a questionnaire about the game and some udid’s for ios testing
Steve