Publishing Deals (info)

Lunarea · Sep 4, 2015

It's come to our attention that several of you have received a pm, asking you to sign a contract to have your free game sold and published by their service. They have offered to give the developer 100% of the profits upfront, and publish on several portals (including Steam). This information was sent to quite a few developers via mass PMs.

While this could be an awesome and completely legitimate offer, it's something that's raising a lot of red flags for us. If you do decide to do business with this person/team (or any publisher that isn't well-known to you), be very careful and make sure you've had a close look at the contract. If you're new to publishing and contracts altogether, please have them looked over by someone with experience and make sure that they're really what you want.

We would really hate to have anyone in this community end up with a bad contract or be unable to share their projects due to their relationship with a publisher.

If you are a publisher looking for projects to publish and you are not known in the community, please pm our staff first and get their permission. This is a common courtesy and avoids having us spend time investigating or banning you for something you don't need to be banned for.

Zeriab · Sep 4, 2015

Oh dear, that seems like a surefire way to loose your work.

There have been scams in the past working in similar fashions. Be careful out there.

Thank you, Lunarea, for bringing this to our attention.

*hugs*

- Zeriab

Wavelength · Sep 4, 2015

Good call, Lunarea.

I haven't seen the message or contract in question, but it does sound like a scam. Even if the contract itself is airtight, that doesn't mean that this "company" has any intention of honoring it.

If you guys have a way to mass PM anyone who "IP-Builders" had PMed, to warn them in case they don't see this topic, that would be a great service you could do for our members.

Forthright · Apr 2, 2016

We have published some games before and I have a few helpful things to look for.

#1) Make sure they have a contract to actually give you.

#2) ALWAYS have your lawyer or legal team look over the contract.

#3) I have never heard anyone giving money upfront unless they are buying the rights to your product from you.

#4) Check out their history / have they published before

#5) What is their vision for your game and what are their expectations of you.

#6) Are they offering any marketing money or marketing strategies

Those are just a few things that we talk with our partners about. I hope this helps.

Ryan

phoenix_rossy · Apr 29, 2016

100% of the profits go to the developer? Definitely a red flag.

Though giving money upfront isn't unheard of - indie developers who have, at that moment in time, not earned anything from their product, a royalty advance upon receipt of a signed contract is often appealing to said developer.

Dymdez · Jul 5, 2016

Just to slightly add, when I was studying for the bar exam, I had a great professor who gave really practical advice regarding sketchy situations. He called it "Situations that make you go 'hmmm....'"

If someone offers you a service for free, or even for an additional benefit to yourself, it's clearly a situation that makes you go "Hmm..." -- best practice is to walk away.

somenick · Sep 26, 2016

Most likely a scam. Legit publishers would come out in the light and present themselves in the forum.

Andar · Sep 26, 2016

@somenick, please refrain from necro-posting in a thread. Necro-posting is posting in a thread that has not had posting activity in over 30 days. You can review our forum rules here. Thank you.

This is a one-year old case, said user is long gone

This thread is being closed, due to being solved. If for some reason you would like this thread re-opened, please report this post and leave a message why. Thank you.

Publishing Deals (info)

Lunarea

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Zeriab

Huggins!

Wavelength

MSD Strong

Forthright

Regular

phoenix_rossy

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Dymdez

Newbie-in-Chief

somenick

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Andar

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