distribution of final product

[mhovland]

Without a marketing department, I think you are going to have a very hard time getting anything like a POP display at the local Walmart.

If you want it in an old fashioned brick and mortar location (store), I think you will have the best luck with the smaller independant stores in the state. I bet places that are smaller in size but part of a larger chain (like EB Games) have serious restrictions on what they can or can't accept for sale, contracts, you see.

I still feel that the next big blowout for the industry is going to come from some small team that develops a great game and distributes it through the Internet exclusively.

Let's see if you have that next blowout. Go with Internet sales!

[Daimyo]

How many americans are needed to screw in a light bulb? None. They hire some imigrants to do that!

And this might be an answer to your question: Put specialized people to do the work for you. In essence, I would aim for a publisher. These guys usualy have their distribution network set up. Of course they don't do comunity service, but the rules are different for every company. Perhaps you can find a company who charges you for every sold piece, and they dón't ask money from the beginning. I don't know...it is politics, and i suck at it.

[RmachucaA]

well, Live For Speed is distributed online only, and has sold incredibly well.

[motorsep]

I still feel that the next big blowout for the industry is going to come from some small team that develops a great game and distributes it through the Internet exclusively.

Let's see if you have that next blowout. Go with Internet sales!

:thumbsup: Great idea! I thought about it before. But in this case I worry about delivery of a game to an end user. It is going to add more expences. For example: I was going to buy UT2004 via Atari on-line shop, because I couldn't find it in WalMart in San Antonio, TX (I haven't looked for it in other stores :) So when I got to checkout point online the final price of the product was $39 for the game and ~$20 for delivery => ~$59 :argh:
I think gamers would rather buy it in store than on-line.
And it's not a good old times when a game was ~10-50 Mb.
If end user doesn't have DSL it will be "painful" to download at least 500Mb of a game. Yep, it's a lot of things to think about.

[motorsep]

And this might be an answer to your question: Put specialized people to do the work for you.

I am affraid at present time things don't work properly like that.
Too many expences. May be 5-8 years ago it was fine to hire whole bunch of specialists and each of them was doing only his job. Right now for small company it's better to hire "universal soldier". For example a lot of studios hire character artist who can model, unwrap and animate character (sometimes even to texture it). Before it was modeler, skinner, animator.
The same thing with other specialist. To make expences low I would rather hire specialist in marketing, who will be a manager and PR specialist ant the same time, than hire few different specialists. And to pay one high salary much less expensive than pay three average salaries. That's a point to do majority of work in-house.
Anyway thank you for advise.

[Big_E.D.]

ask popular game sites to sponsor a banner for your game. they might be willing if you give them a free disk to try it for themselves to see if its worth advertising.

try to get some good reviews from some known sources. reviews can make a difference. have some screen shots and details too, course its up to you to have the shots with the graphics all the way up or not.

if you want to spend the money to make, package, and mail the software then more power to ya. but IMO online purchases are cheaper and more efficient. the time it would take to mail it would be about the time it would take to download the game, even for a 56k person. plus, without a CD its harder to copy.

gl dude

[Daimyo]

I have the strong feeling, that I expressed myself wrong. Sorry for that. I said you should cooperate with some publishing companies, not to hire more people. The main thing is, it will cost some money, but in the end it's wellworth it.
And then again I must say: I am only a worker bee, I have absolutely nothing to do with sales, money, and so on. It was only an oppinion.

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