hi there everyone, me and my team have been in the development of a puzzle/action 3D-cartoony game for over 1.5 years now, we have closed a deal with a major publisher already to publish. Now due to some problems (disband of the team) we are thinking of selling the complete IP rights and code and resources and everything of our game which we value around 110-160k (based on work hours). How should I approach this matter? Anyone had any experience selling a complete unpublished game guys? Is there a marketplace for such things? How / or can we transfer the contract with the publisher to the new owner?
This sounds fishy to me. What defines your title as "AA" - this is a very generic term open to wide interpretation. I see some of your other games available online - what rating would you give the other games developed by your studio? (ie. Barbades, or Graviiii, or Finger Trainer (the others seem to be dead links FYI)) In the publishing deals I've been part of, there is no clause for transfer so that would be an option at the discretion of the publisher. To be honest - I don't think there is a marketplace for selling at title valued at $110K-160K. Even if you divided this value by 10, I'd say it is unlikely to get any interest. 50% of app store games make less than $3K... http://www.tuaw.com/2011/09/29/ios-game-revenue-survey-50-of-app-store-games-make-less-than/ How far from completion is your game? Why not finish it and publish? There are plenty of coders/artists/musicians etc available for hire...
Well now that you put it like that it might have sounded "fishy" to me as well with that kind of portfolio and price... When I put the AA tag for that game i was referring to the quality of graphics, sound, music, game design, game length etc. The price tag I put was solely based on work hours of the people involved in making it well I hope/think that my game is better than the rest of the 95% of the games in app store... but who am i to tell right? In any way, I did not post here to find a buyer, but to learn from other people's experiences I guess, so I can understand better where I stand. I lack the experience of many things in this field (but I am a fast learner )
well judging only by the work on your website and taking this as reference i highly doubt your new project is aa by faar.. a big mistake is that dev often overevaluate their products by quite a margin assuming that you have something to show after 1 1/5 years i would expect that you guys whould make an expose for your game.. showing the in and outs of it.. then tiehr go public and offer it openly or contact other devs or publishers directly.. since you said you have already a publishing contract i assume your project is near completion.. so i would even consider finishing it up as fast as possible.. and get it out.. if you think its AA and worth 100k+ and your expectations/judgement is not completely bogus you will sell this game like hot cake.. but maybe you should tone down your expectations a bit and you evaluation.
So, you have a great title, and a publisher who will help promote it... and now you want to cash out just because your partnership broke up? Publish the damn thing and make money, which you will share with your ex-partners. Case closed. No title is any number of "A"s until it ships and sells.
Read again your Contract. If you already have a Contract then you should stay away from screwing any Publisher. If you by any means would screw a Publisher like EA Mobil/Chillingo/Gameloft/Bulkypix you would risk to grow this hole thing into a Greek Tragedy. Look we all know that Life sucks and you aren`t the only one that got screwed by his Partner or were former Co-Worker will earn Millions for doing nothing... ...but you have to realize that you should End this hole thing before it will grow into something bigger. Release the Game and learn from the Mistakes you had done in the past and don`t try to repeat those ever again.
I'm going to be blunt for a second here, please don't take this the wrong way. "Better than 95%" of the app store is just not an estimate that justifies an expensive buyout. There are over 650,000 apps in the app store. "Top 5%" is by no means the chosen few who will succeed. You are asking where you can find someone who is willing to take a large financial risk off your hands. It sounds like your best options would be to finish development -- either with some new team members, or freelancers. If necessary, you can try to sell the game after that, but it will be very difficult for you to find someone who would take that kind of risk on an unfinished title, even if it looks and plays well.
