Can anyone share their experiences or views on how best to publish an indie game? I've had some interest in SRX and I'd like to know my possible options and avenues for publishing it.
Publishing - how?
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Publishing - how? If you can get it onto shop shelves with a publisher then great, failing that internet based publishing/advertising portals frequently want money up front and yet do not offer great traffic, there's a lot of people out there who can make a web portal to get your money but spend most of their marketting efforts on attracting you - rather than people who might purchase your game.
Personally i've never had much trouble in trolling boards and advertising my games but I only write freeware: It takes 5 minutes to register and make a post on an internet forum, and if it gets 100+ downloads at 1-2% conversion rate that's 2 sales (from a small-medium board).
If you work for 1 hour that makes 20 sales... Put it into context let's say it's £10 profit per game, it's a good hourly rate. :)
Writing the game is unpaid, the marketing phase afterwards pays well - so never stop marketting.
As a rough rule of thumb the shelf-life of an internet forum is around 3 days, after that you are unlikely to generate much fresh interest - your post will have had a load of replies which will make the thread too long for the odd once-a-week forum dweller to bother reading.
Long term marketing can be achieved by finding good publishing portals, but for that you're best getting your advise from recommendations of specific portals from people with experience of them. On the whole though, if it isn't a mainstream site then it isn't worth bothering with in my view.
It's a numbers game.
Personally i've never had much trouble in trolling boards and advertising my games but I only write freeware: It takes 5 minutes to register and make a post on an internet forum, and if it gets 100+ downloads at 1-2% conversion rate that's 2 sales (from a small-medium board).
If you work for 1 hour that makes 20 sales... Put it into context let's say it's £10 profit per game, it's a good hourly rate. :)
Writing the game is unpaid, the marketing phase afterwards pays well - so never stop marketting.
As a rough rule of thumb the shelf-life of an internet forum is around 3 days, after that you are unlikely to generate much fresh interest - your post will have had a load of replies which will make the thread too long for the odd once-a-week forum dweller to bother reading.
Long term marketing can be achieved by finding good publishing portals, but for that you're best getting your advise from recommendations of specific portals from people with experience of them. On the whole though, if it isn't a mainstream site then it isn't worth bothering with in my view.
It's a numbers game.
failing that internet based publishing/advertising portals frequently want money up front and yet do not offer great traffic
They absolutely do not want money upfront, if your game is good enough and if they want an exclusive they will pay you upfront, how much depends on how well they think the game will sell. They also offer great traffic, the game I recently published, Xmas bonus by Grey Alien, got in excess of 50,000 downloads in about 2 weeks!!
You've got two choices with Internet publishing :-
1) Do it yourself and manage all the relationships, sales, marketing and support.
2) Work with an internet publisher who will handle the business side for you.
So, try and negotiate upfronts payments, failing that negotiate a higher percentage of Net receipts, 30%-40% is good, 50% is fantastic. Some may offer more but even 20% is a good deal in any business where you've got a channel involved.
If you want to talk specifics then please email me directly and I'll be happy to discuss other matters, in confidence of course.
With the type of game you have there, I think you have two choices. Sell it yourself or get a CD publisher. You can, of course, combine the two if you want.
Your game is not going to have the broad appeal that would suit the web portals/publishers IMO, so you're looking at a niche market. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it gives you a real focus on who you're marketing to. SpiderWeb Software, for example, have made a great living for many years with niche games.
So if you sell it yourself, you need your own website. You don't necessarily have to host the files yourself though. With the less-casual games, you'll find that most of your guests are much more prepared for you to link them to download.com or tucows, who will host your file for free. If you want to host the file yourself, that will be even better. Then just hit the sites where you're going to find racers. Forums, car sites, all that. Don't be worried about looking like you're spamming. Visit some sites and ask politely for some feedback on your game. Word will spread and you won't annoy anyone. Get Plimus or BMT Micro to handle payments ( and full version downloads ) and you're golden.
I also think you've got definite potential for a CD deal there too. A fair number of publishers are interested in non-exclusive deals now. That being that they get the right to sell your game in one ( or more ) territories on CD rom only and you can sell the download version yourself. Don't expect to make a killing, but a few grand per country can add up if you find a number of interested parties.
Or you could just find someone like Idigicon or Nodtronics who will just buy the IP outright, cut you a cheque and forget about it.
Depends on how much involvement you want really, but I think those are your best options. ( Specifically YOUR best options. I'm not saying the same applies to others with different games. )
Your game is not going to have the broad appeal that would suit the web portals/publishers IMO, so you're looking at a niche market. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it gives you a real focus on who you're marketing to. SpiderWeb Software, for example, have made a great living for many years with niche games.
So if you sell it yourself, you need your own website. You don't necessarily have to host the files yourself though. With the less-casual games, you'll find that most of your guests are much more prepared for you to link them to download.com or tucows, who will host your file for free. If you want to host the file yourself, that will be even better. Then just hit the sites where you're going to find racers. Forums, car sites, all that. Don't be worried about looking like you're spamming. Visit some sites and ask politely for some feedback on your game. Word will spread and you won't annoy anyone. Get Plimus or BMT Micro to handle payments ( and full version downloads ) and you're golden.
I also think you've got definite potential for a CD deal there too. A fair number of publishers are interested in non-exclusive deals now. That being that they get the right to sell your game in one ( or more ) territories on CD rom only and you can sell the download version yourself. Don't expect to make a killing, but a few grand per country can add up if you find a number of interested parties.
Or you could just find someone like Idigicon or Nodtronics who will just buy the IP outright, cut you a cheque and forget about it.
Depends on how much involvement you want really, but I think those are your best options. ( Specifically YOUR best options. I'm not saying the same applies to others with different games. )
Banshee - I think you need to do some research into portals and what they are. When people talk about game publishing and portals they ARE NOT talking about download sites which, in my opinion, are not worth paying for. A portal is a site like Miniclip.com/ realarcade/ shockwave. A large site with millions of visitors that sells your game. These sites DO NOT charge you to distribute your game although they do take a slice of the sale price.
Also advertising freeware versus advertising shareware are very different things. People love free stuff but even the tiniest sniff of having to pay money will turn them off. I have experienced both, giving away free games is easy, once people know about it you get inundated with new links to you. With shareware you actually have to work, and unless you have a very good game a conversion ratio of 2% is highly unlikely. I would say closer to 0.5% is more realistic.
Anyway advertising freeware is, essentially, pointless. Unless you have some way of monetising the traffic the only thing you will gain is a large bandwidth bill (and a feeling of satisfaction which, admittedly, is rather nice).
Vorderman - you don't actually say what sort of publishing you want. I would suggest online which was mentioned above. From what I have heard (no experience here) the royalties from offline publishing are not worth the time and effort.
Based on what I have played of your game the portals won't touch it - it's just not casual enough. Although with some tweaking I think it could do very well. I'd go down the self publishing route and advertise in places related to your niche.
Also advertising freeware versus advertising shareware are very different things. People love free stuff but even the tiniest sniff of having to pay money will turn them off. I have experienced both, giving away free games is easy, once people know about it you get inundated with new links to you. With shareware you actually have to work, and unless you have a very good game a conversion ratio of 2% is highly unlikely. I would say closer to 0.5% is more realistic.
Anyway advertising freeware is, essentially, pointless. Unless you have some way of monetising the traffic the only thing you will gain is a large bandwidth bill (and a feeling of satisfaction which, admittedly, is rather nice).
Vorderman - you don't actually say what sort of publishing you want. I would suggest online which was mentioned above. From what I have heard (no experience here) the royalties from offline publishing are not worth the time and effort.
Based on what I have played of your game the portals won't touch it - it's just not casual enough. Although with some tweaking I think it could do very well. I'd go down the self publishing route and advertise in places related to your niche.
Don't listen to your product being called niche Vorderman, the game it is derived from not only had mass market appeal, it made Geoff Crammond so well known in programming that he now puts his name above games he produces... Anyone who tells you your game is niche is judging it purely on the fact that it isn't an fps, and there's more to life than fps's. :)
- Set up your website for a 'soft launch'
- Set your game demo up with a PHP script that lets you know evertime a new person plays the game. So you can track conversion rate accurately.
- Set up your Share*It account
- Submit your game to all the search engines and shareware download and review sites sites (there's software that does this for you).
- Track your games conversion rate for 3 months
- If the game's conversion is less than 1% then improve the title ... get feedback from current customers, etc... repeat until you get the game to sell properly or move on to a new title
- Once the game sells properly then approach Real, Oberon, Playfirst, Yahoo!, Garage Games, Miniclip, and anyother portal you can think of.
- Acquire non-exclusive contracts with every portal
- If the game sells well on the portals then you'll be offered a box deal or you could approach a box distributor before the title is even finished on your own, it's up to you. Andy Schatz did that with Venture Africa: Wildlife Tycoon. He did a good beta test first and then went for a soft launch followed by online publishing and box publishing simultaneously.
Anyway, that's something that resembles my newest strategy for future titles. With Aerial Antics I didn't even really want to sell it myself, I wanted Garage Games to just sell it but you can learn too much by doing your own 'soft launch'. Of course don't use the 'soft launch' as your beta test ... make sure the game is super tight even before the 'soft launch' by that stage you should be mainly concerned with your marketing tactics ... what's selling the game and what's holding it back purely from a marketing standpoint and not a technical one.
- Set your game demo up with a PHP script that lets you know evertime a new person plays the game. So you can track conversion rate accurately.
- Set up your Share*It account
- Submit your game to all the search engines and shareware download and review sites sites (there's software that does this for you).
- Track your games conversion rate for 3 months
- If the game's conversion is less than 1% then improve the title ... get feedback from current customers, etc... repeat until you get the game to sell properly or move on to a new title
- Once the game sells properly then approach Real, Oberon, Playfirst, Yahoo!, Garage Games, Miniclip, and anyother portal you can think of.
- Acquire non-exclusive contracts with every portal
- If the game sells well on the portals then you'll be offered a box deal or you could approach a box distributor before the title is even finished on your own, it's up to you. Andy Schatz did that with Venture Africa: Wildlife Tycoon. He did a good beta test first and then went for a soft launch followed by online publishing and box publishing simultaneously.
Anyway, that's something that resembles my newest strategy for future titles. With Aerial Antics I didn't even really want to sell it myself, I wanted Garage Games to just sell it but you can learn too much by doing your own 'soft launch'. Of course don't use the 'soft launch' as your beta test ... make sure the game is super tight even before the 'soft launch' by that stage you should be mainly concerned with your marketing tactics ... what's selling the game and what's holding it back purely from a marketing standpoint and not a technical one.
Don't listen to your product being called niche Vorderman, the game it is derived from not only had mass market appeal, it made Geoff Crammond so well known in programming that he now puts his name above games he produces... Anyone who tells you your game is niche is judging it purely on the fact that it isn't an fps, and there's more to life than fps's. :)
Things have changed ever so slightly in the past 20 years, you know. If you think that a game like this has mass market appeal in the current downloadable games market ( which is what I referred to ) then you have absolutely no concept of the online games market right now. But then you demonstrated that when you said that portals charge you money up front.
Saying that it's a niche game is not an insult, it's a way to stop him wasting time and money targetting people who won't buy his game. And I have no interest in FPS, so that makes you zero for three.
I always thought if you one has made a nice game, finding a publisher is the easy task! :)
I would not try selling games boxed stuff unless you game has been tested a lot and is polished.
Selling it from ones website seems the easiest and cheapest way for a start.
I would not try selling games boxed stuff unless you game has been tested a lot and is polished.
Selling it from ones website seems the easiest and cheapest way for a start.
Extremely bad tempered post at Gabriel considered, instead here's a brief musical interlude: tadalalaladadah.
I only advised him to avoid portals charging money up front, I didn't say all portals do it - only that there's some rogues out there to avoid.
As for the niche thing, I think Vordemans game - if it's development fullfills it's potential - could have wide appeal because: Cars and racing games are popular; extreme sports are more popular than ever before; retro is still vogue; it scores on nostalgia for those who played the game which inspired it; the graphics are pretty; it could be a good game that stands up in it's own right.
Or put another way if it was freeware I would reasonably expect something of that calibre to break 5 million downloads in the first year easily - sure charging for the game would turn a lot of people away but 0.5% of that would still be a nice haul.
As for the 0.5% conversation ratio Binary_Moon suggested I have to say that is a terrible conversation ratio and well below marketting standards (1% untargetted, 2% targetted). If that's all you get in shareware demo/purchase conversions there's something wrong with your product, sorry.
/grump off
I only advised him to avoid portals charging money up front, I didn't say all portals do it - only that there's some rogues out there to avoid.
As for the niche thing, I think Vordemans game - if it's development fullfills it's potential - could have wide appeal because: Cars and racing games are popular; extreme sports are more popular than ever before; retro is still vogue; it scores on nostalgia for those who played the game which inspired it; the graphics are pretty; it could be a good game that stands up in it's own right.
Or put another way if it was freeware I would reasonably expect something of that calibre to break 5 million downloads in the first year easily - sure charging for the game would turn a lot of people away but 0.5% of that would still be a nice haul.
As for the 0.5% conversation ratio Binary_Moon suggested I have to say that is a terrible conversation ratio and well below marketting standards (1% untargetted, 2% targetted). If that's all you get in shareware demo/purchase conversions there's something wrong with your product, sorry.
/grump off
Jeremy
Thanks for your last post - some good advice on a tricky subject I feel, so I've saved it for future ref.
Thanks for your last post - some good advice on a tricky subject I feel, so I've saved it for future ref.
As for the 0.5% conversation ratio Binary_Moon suggested I have to say that is a terrible conversation ratio and well below marketting standards (1% untargetted, 2% targetted). If that's all you get in shareware demo/purchase conversions there's something wrong with your product, sorry.
Nope, 0.5% is good, forget what you read in all these bloggs and ramblings on sites such as Dexterity.com, this is real life, we sell our software we are talking from experience!! The chap from Binary Moon works for the worlds largest portal, he knows his stuff.Please get your facts right when you are advising this guy.
Nope, 0.5% is dire. Fix your product.
Nope, 0.5% is dire. Fix your product.
This is just a shot in the dark, but I have a feeling that it also depends on your target market: You mention a -L-10 pricetag earlier.
However, more people may feel that a game is 'worth' $10 to them and shell out than if the identical game would be $25... I would expect the lower price game to have a higher conversion rate (although the higher priced game may still net more profit for its creators, despite less sales).
Unless your charging the same as well, you're still comparing apples and oranges.
No, 0.5% conversion is really not dire at all. For a game without full marketing support it's excellent. Otherwise we'd all be rich :)
It's not uncommon for a game demo to be put on a cover disc, for 10,000 people to play it and for less than 5 to actually buy it.
It's not uncommon for a game demo to be put on a cover disc, for 10,000 people to play it and for less than 5 to actually buy it.
Banshee Says :
So Banshee, your experience is based on what exactly?
Personally i've never had much trouble in trolling boards and advertising my games but I only write freeware:
Nope, 0.5% is dire. Fix your product.
So Banshee, your experience is based on what exactly?
Racing games are great, and if he plays with the controls and makes the tracks more forgiving he could have a hit on his hands - but it's still doubtful it would go on a portal.
At the moment the controls are far too 'hardcore' simulation style, and the game is too hard. I couldn't complete a single lap of the demo posted a few months ago, and I'm far from a casual gamer. As I said though, I haven't seen a recent version so maybe it's been improved already, I have seen the screenshots and know the graphics are improving.
I find it's funny you're talking about conversion (conversation?) ratios when you've, by your own admission, never sold anything. Sure 0.5% is terrible, but it's also realistic. Unless you've made the next bejewelled or other mass market game you won't get much higher.
It's a carry over from the freeware thing. Many many people download shareware games simply to get free stuff to play. They are not interested in, and will never, purchase your product.
I tend to keep work away from the forum but since Tim mentioned it I work at Miniclip.com. We focus on online games rather than shareware downloads but that hasn't stopped us featuring games like Best Friends, Platypus, and Super Gerball. All of which have done pretty darn well.
Tim, Gabriel, Jeremy, myself. We have all made and sold shareware games. I like to think that we're all talking from some sort of experience.
At the moment the controls are far too 'hardcore' simulation style, and the game is too hard. I couldn't complete a single lap of the demo posted a few months ago, and I'm far from a casual gamer. As I said though, I haven't seen a recent version so maybe it's been improved already, I have seen the screenshots and know the graphics are improving.
As for the 0.5% conversation ratio Binary_Moon suggested I have to say that is a terrible conversation ratio
I find it's funny you're talking about conversion (conversation?) ratios when you've, by your own admission, never sold anything. Sure 0.5% is terrible, but it's also realistic. Unless you've made the next bejewelled or other mass market game you won't get much higher.
It's a carry over from the freeware thing. Many many people download shareware games simply to get free stuff to play. They are not interested in, and will never, purchase your product.
I tend to keep work away from the forum but since Tim mentioned it I work at Miniclip.com. We focus on online games rather than shareware downloads but that hasn't stopped us featuring games like Best Friends, Platypus, and Super Gerball. All of which have done pretty darn well.
Tim, Gabriel, Jeremy, myself. We have all made and sold shareware games. I like to think that we're all talking from some sort of experience.
So Banshee, your experience is based on what exactly?
by your own admission, never sold anything.
I've been in this business over 25 years during which time I have writen corporate, commercial, shareware and freeware projects, but these days I tend to stick to simple freeware projects only and earn my money elsewhere - this is all I eluded too above. I like to think my experience has a value too, but apparently not.
Frankly i'm not much interested in a slagging match with a walking ego (I could list my credentials too - I just dont feel the need).
My advise to Vorderman is if he gets under 1-2% conversion ratio from demo/sales then he should review the project and keep working at it, because there's no reason why he shouldn't get a sale from every 50-100 demo downloaders. If you or anyone else takes offense to that then fair enough, just dont go asking for an apology.
Frankly i'm not much interested in a slagging match with a walking ego (I could list my credentials too - I just dont feel the need).
Here we go again. If you refuse to list your 'credentials' - for whatever bizarre reason - you can't expect people to take your advice and 'experience' seriously. Really. The reason needn't be bizarre; I can empathize with that position. Still, if you don't feel like listing your credentials then you shouldn't bother dispensing advice. Establishing credentials is part-and-parcel of giving advice/teaching.
That's exactly my point, jhocking. ;)
My advise to Vorderman is if he gets under 1-2% conversion ratio from demo/sales then he should review the project and keep working at it
I agree. I didn't say you shouldn't aim for more. There is always room for improvement and constant tweaking of existing products is to be expected.
I've been in this business over 25 years ... I like to think my experience has a value too, but apparently not.
All I know about your past is what I've read in this thread, and that's that you have only released freeware. Maybe your experience would have had more value if we'd been made aware of it - I can't know any more than I'm told.
If you refuse to list your 'credentials'
I'd rather hoped I could stand on the merit of the projects that i've put out since joining this community. I don't delude myself into thinking i'm the best, but surely i've earnt some credit?
All I know about your past is what I've read in this thread, and that's that you have only released freeware
"currently" only release freeware. Perhaps if you dont know about something, you shouldn't comment on it.
@Vorderman, i'm sorry for the state of the thread. I hope you have managed to gleam some useful information despite this.
I'd rather hoped I could stand on the merit of the projects that i've put out since joining this community. I don't delude myself into thinking i'm the best, but surely i've earnt some credit?
Not where publishing advice is concerned, which is what this thread is about. at the moment the controls are far too 'hardcore' simulation style, and the game is too hard. I couldn't complete a single lap of the demo posted a few months ago, and I'm far from a casual gamer
Heh, my wife can get the car around the track OK, and her only other computer experience is playing Transport Tycoon and Scrabble :)
The only demo released had no keyboard controls from what I recall, now it has support for joypad/stick, steering wheels and 2 keyboard modes with differently calibrated steering (less->more and more->less) - hopefully everyone should be able to play it OK. I don't mind it being hard though - the only skill in a racing game such as this is keeping the car on the road, and I wanted it to feel 'dangerous', such that you constantly have to take care to stay on the track - without that feeling it's like a track-racing game with no damage (ie. boring). This isn't a pack racing game like Toca, more a one-on-one test of skill.
Given how narrow the tracks are I still find it easier to make huge jumps than in Trackmania, and that has pretty wide tracks - I might introduce some aerial tweak control though, like aftertouch in footie games.
I am about to embark upon adding some AI so I'll see how the AI drivers cope with the tracks - I forsee some AI lunacy at the loop though... :)
@Vorderman, i'm sorry for the state of the thread. I hope you have managed to gleam some useful information despite this.
I have indeed. I didn't realise people had such strong feelings about this aspect of game creation, but thanks everyone for your opinions.
I don't know much about publishing on CD, but it's probably a pain and your game could get lost in a quagmire of crappy titles.
I can recommend Indiepath of course, and I can recommend using portals, which of course DON'T charge money and give a pretty decent percent all things considered. Also consider Glimmer Games shareware service too as it'll save you loads of time. It's unreleastic to think you can make your own website and market it to hell and get "5 million" downloads in a year (esp. if you don't have much experience in this area), you've got to use the available resources so you can concentrate on the important stuff like making your game good! Definitely keep on listening to feedback and improving it, epecially before giving to your first big portal, this ensures that they get an "improved" version, not V1.0.
Also as for posting on forums, well if they are populated by programmers, very few of them will really buy anything. There is this concern, is your game viable portal material, hence the "niche" label, and this is a valid concern. On an indiegamer thread recently I was talking about 30-something programmers who'd love you game for the memories it brings back and the updated feel etc (I fall in this category) but would these "guys" buy it, unfortunately not many would, they'd just "spy" on the demo, and anyway that market is pretty small really. You've got to figure out who your target audience is and then target them, surely this isn't an easy task! Giving it a go on some portals may reveal more if anyone in that market actually likes it. Posting on car enthusiast websites might reveal more, but what if they onlt use the internet to talk about cars, and don't actually download and play games? This might sound negative, sorry, I'm just trying to throw in some realism.
As for CR, well without giving lots away (NDA), as I charted my game's progress through Reflexive's various charts I realise that 75% of the games on the site have <0.5% conversion rate. This means that only 25% of games get > 0.5% so how many get 1-2%, only the top titles that's who! It's worth improving your game but also remember that certain games, even if they seem really good, just don't sell.
I really wish you luck with yours, as I think it's great!
As for my credentials: Made 5 PC games, 4 free, 1 commercial (not much experience true, but at least they are finished (well ... playable) and not just tech demos). But been playing games and programming games on Spec, BBC/Acorn, C64, Amiga, DOS etc for 22 years in basic, assembly, C, C++, Blitz, Delphi etc. Professional experience is designing, developing and managing the U.K.'s leading bookshop management system for Windows and installing in the houses of parliament amongst other places over 9 years. Hopefully this proves I'm not an armchair theorist of some kind and that I know something about programming, finishing stuff (vital) and business. I've also read a lot of stuff about game marketing and talked to people who've actually sold games over the last year. Maybe you should consider joining Indiegamer if you haven't already, and do talk to Indiepath!
I can recommend Indiepath of course, and I can recommend using portals, which of course DON'T charge money and give a pretty decent percent all things considered. Also consider Glimmer Games shareware service too as it'll save you loads of time. It's unreleastic to think you can make your own website and market it to hell and get "5 million" downloads in a year (esp. if you don't have much experience in this area), you've got to use the available resources so you can concentrate on the important stuff like making your game good! Definitely keep on listening to feedback and improving it, epecially before giving to your first big portal, this ensures that they get an "improved" version, not V1.0.
Also as for posting on forums, well if they are populated by programmers, very few of them will really buy anything. There is this concern, is your game viable portal material, hence the "niche" label, and this is a valid concern. On an indiegamer thread recently I was talking about 30-something programmers who'd love you game for the memories it brings back and the updated feel etc (I fall in this category) but would these "guys" buy it, unfortunately not many would, they'd just "spy" on the demo, and anyway that market is pretty small really. You've got to figure out who your target audience is and then target them, surely this isn't an easy task! Giving it a go on some portals may reveal more if anyone in that market actually likes it. Posting on car enthusiast websites might reveal more, but what if they onlt use the internet to talk about cars, and don't actually download and play games? This might sound negative, sorry, I'm just trying to throw in some realism.
As for CR, well without giving lots away (NDA), as I charted my game's progress through Reflexive's various charts I realise that 75% of the games on the site have <0.5% conversion rate. This means that only 25% of games get > 0.5% so how many get 1-2%, only the top titles that's who! It's worth improving your game but also remember that certain games, even if they seem really good, just don't sell.
I really wish you luck with yours, as I think it's great!
As for my credentials: Made 5 PC games, 4 free, 1 commercial (not much experience true, but at least they are finished (well ... playable) and not just tech demos). But been playing games and programming games on Spec, BBC/Acorn, C64, Amiga, DOS etc for 22 years in basic, assembly, C, C++, Blitz, Delphi etc. Professional experience is designing, developing and managing the U.K.'s leading bookshop management system for Windows and installing in the houses of parliament amongst other places over 9 years. Hopefully this proves I'm not an armchair theorist of some kind and that I know something about programming, finishing stuff (vital) and business. I've also read a lot of stuff about game marketing and talked to people who've actually sold games over the last year. Maybe you should consider joining Indiegamer if you haven't already, and do talk to Indiepath!