...how do you get published?

 

Obvious answer - approach publishers. We all know, however, it's not that easy.

 

Let me expand a bit and hopefully, somebody can give me a pointer.

 

I, with a small dedicated team, have been working on a CRPG in the vein of Fallout (in style, not setting) for several years now. Never really gave much consideration as to what to do with it when it was ready. We started with the opinion of "when it's done, get in touch with BIS". Then they went bust, and we changed to "get in touch with Troika", then they went bust and we changed to "get in touch with anyone who had anything to do with Fallout" and that leaves Obsidian and Bioware who both say "go away" before you even contact them.

 

Who does that leave then?

 

Bethesda? Lets see what they do with F3 first...

 

Nobody else really makes CRPGs anymore, and there's something in the description "Top down isometric, 2D, turn based role playing game" that turns publishers off before you even get to showing off a demo.

 

Can anybody offer a suggestion as to who to approach or in general, what to do now? We're still a few months from completion and a few more months of bug testing before we're ready to go, but there's a fully featured playable demo to pass around to potential publishers.

 

Don't really have the budget to do the publishing and manufacturing ourselves (unless it was offered with a crude CC payment and download method), already tried most of the big boys. Any possible suggestions to help a developer in need?

You might want to check out IGDA.org and GameDev.net. They may have some great advice since both are geared toward the independant developer.

What Rob said, and you might want to try the digital distribution route too, like in Manifesto Games.

Thanks for the pointers, I'll check them out

It is hard to get published, however if you have something to show that's different. A lot of publishers are often looking for product that they can ship fairly quickly to make up for products slipping out of a particular quarter or year. They often call these "oportunistic". The best place to start is to call up the publishers you want to talk to and ask for their Business Development department. It is the job of the people in those departments to talk to pretty much everyone and if as I said, if you have something playable they will be instantly more interested.

One thing you might want to do is get in touch with publishers. Obsidian, Bethesda -- they're developers. They do what you're doing, not publish. Example publishers are: Sega, Atari, Acclaim, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Capcom, Activision, EA, Vivendi/Universal... etc. Some of these publishers own developers, so I can see how it would be confusing.

 

I've heard that if you have a demo you can take it to game conferences to meet with publishers there. I know they don't like to talk to people who don't have demos, though. Other than that, what Feargus said is how you can get in touch with them.

 

The other option is to self-publish, or (as Briosafreak said) release the game as an indie title through peopel like Manifesto Games (www.manifestogames.com). The latter might be a good route for you, since Manifesto specializes in publishing indie creator-owned games.

Dude that's what I said :D

Dude that's what I said :D

 

You TOTALLY did. I'll edit my post.

Eheheh no need to do that, it was funny though

Eheheh no need to do that, it was funny though

 

Indeed, indeed. I have a bad habit of only reading parts of threads. This wouldn't be the first time.

It's a pandemic.